Today I want to tell you about an app I've been using, called @ExistApp. It aggregates and analyzes data from pre-selected streams. When it has enough data it presents you with correlations that allow you to optimize various aspects of your life.
As many people who follow me know, I have suffered from CPTSD. My recovery took its twists and turns but I mostly consider myself to have come out on the other side. I tweeted about it last year here.
One thing that lingers for years, possibly for a lifetime, even after recovery, is triggers. You can't exactly wipe out your traumatic memories (neither is that good, you have a right to have memories too). Of course your reaction becomes less devastating, but it still sucks.
Those with PTSD will tell you that they know a lot of their triggers. When you already know the trigger, you react better, because you're expecting the reaction. What's particularly distressing is when you have the reaction but don't know what triggered it.
I started to use @ExistApp to track every time I feel triggered, including events before, during, and afterwards. After collecting the data for 90 days this is what it told me about my own behavior around triggers:
- I work out more intensely in the period leading up to realizing I'm triggered
- I tend to avoid people in the period leading up realizing I'm triggered
- I typically realize (catch up) with the trigger when I take a day off
- I tend to avoid people in the period leading up realizing I'm triggered
- I typically realize (catch up) with the trigger when I take a day off
- I frequently fall sick (or feel very exhausted) around the time I realize I'm triggered
- Often I realized I'm triggered after I've had a conversation with journalists (often, these are about my work, my adversaries, my friends, or the threats against me)
- Often I realized I'm triggered after I've had a conversation with journalists (often, these are about my work, my adversaries, my friends, or the threats against me)
- I avoid meditation or meditate less when I'm about to realize that I'm triggered
- Being triggered is the single factor that has the worst impact on my mood
- My typical (healthy) response is taking time out, sleeping in, and allowing myself more calories than usual
- Being triggered is the single factor that has the worst impact on my mood
- My typical (healthy) response is taking time out, sleeping in, and allowing myself more calories than usual
All of this, along with examining specific dates, has helped me uncover more triggers and adjust my personal systems so that I deal with them early. Remember it's not about avoiding triggers, it's about integrating them. You can't keep running away.
But it's not only a app to help with PTSD (although it did). It can also help you optimize your mood, weight, exercise, productivity, or really anything (since you can just add custom tracking). I've been using it for 3 months and I'm a fan.
Follow this link for a 60-day free trial (instead of the typical 30-days): exist.io/?referred_by=i…
