The app blocker that teaches you to feel.

Twenty-three people had their phone use recorded by an app. They used their phones about 85 times a day on average, more than half of those for under 30 seconds, and estimated 37.

It is a small study from 2015. It shows how automatic picking up a phone is; the exact number will differ for you.

Researchers observed 37 people's phone use in daily life and counted 1,130 interactions. The user started 89% of them; a notification started the rest.

The sample is small, and phones were often on silent, which lowers the share a notification could start.

Across one field study and three lab experiments, people under stress were more likely to seek out their own smartphone, and using it relieved stress more than the same activity on a laptop or on someone else's phone.

We could read only the abstract, so sample sizes are not given here. The studies show the phone soothes in the moment. They did not test what happens to the feeling afterwards.

In a survey of 298 American college students, proneness to boredom explained part of the link between depression or anxiety and problematic smartphone use.

A one-time survey of students. It cannot show which causes which, and the link was with problematic use, not with how often people used their phones.

Among 280 people who kept using the app one sec for six weeks, a short pause before entry led them to close the app on 36% of attempts, and they opened their target apps 57% less by week six.

Seven hundred and nineteen people signed up and those who dropped out were not counted. Participants chose to use the app and there was no control group. This is evidence about one sec, not a measured result for Glimmer.

In a randomized trial, 467 people agreed to block all mobile internet on their phones for two weeks. On average their mental health, wellbeing and ability to sustain attention improved.

Only about a quarter kept the block on for the required time. The study blocked the whole mobile internet, which is a stronger step than pausing a few apps.

In a five-week study with 42 people, a lockout screen modelled on the “ignore limit” prompt was accepted 36% of the time, so people got past it roughly two times in three. A gentler method was accepted 62% of the time.

A separate review of tools like these warns that people may abandon ones that feel too aggressive, and notes that few studies follow use over the long term. Neither study measured guilt.

In a brain-imaging study of 30 people, labeling the emotion in an upsetting image reduced the response of the amygdala. In a study of 88 people afraid of spiders, those who put their fear into words showed a lower physical stress response a week later than the other groups.

In the spider study, how afraid people said they felt did not differ between groups. Both are laboratory studies. Neither shows that a check-in on a phone reduces scrolling.

A meta-analysis of 17 studies found that people who distinguish their negative feelings more precisely were somewhat less likely to respond with behaviours such as binge drinking or self-injury.

The link is small (r = −.15) and is an association. It does not show that learning more feeling words causes the change.

A review of research on putting feelings into words concludes that it produces effects like those of deliberate emotion regulation, without the person setting out to regulate anything.

A narrative review by researchers whose own lab did much of the work. They write that labelling can dampen emotion, and that how it works is still an open question.

106 underage social drinkers kept an electronic diary for three weeks. Among those feeling intense negative emotion, people who were better at describing their emotions drank less.

A correlational study of young drinkers, and the pattern held for people feeling strongly negative. It does not show that learning more words would change what anyone does.

180 women watched sad, neutral and amusing films, and half were asked to hide their reactions. Hiding had no effect during the neutral film. During the emotional films it increased sympathetic activation of the cardiovascular system.

A lab study of women watching films. In an earlier study by the same authors the picture was mixed: heart rate fell while other signs of activation rose. Not every measure moves the same way.

Students asked not to think of a white bear for five minutes later thought about it more than students who had been free to think about it from the start. A 2020 review of 31 studies found the rebound in later experiments too.

The first experiment had 34 students, and later reviews put the effect at small to moderate. These studies are about thoughts. Glimmer applies the idea to feelings by analogy.

Across three studies (a survey of 1,003 people, a lab stress task with 156, and a diary with a six-month follow-up of 222), people who tended to accept their feelings and thoughts rather than judge them had better psychological health, in part because stress brought up less negative emotion for them.

Acceptance was measured with a questionnaire, not taught. The studies show the two go together and cannot prove that one causes the other.

153 stressed adults were randomly assigned to one of three smartphone trainings of 15 lessons. Those trained to notice and accept their experience had smaller cortisol and systolic blood pressure rises under a lab stress test than those trained only to notice, or given coping tips.

People in all three groups reported feeling about as stressed. There was one stress test and no follow-up, and 15 lessons is far more than Glimmer's few breaths.

In a randomized trial with 114 people aged 14 to 24, those who logged their mood on a phone through the day gained more emotional self-awareness than those who logged only their activities, and that gain went with fewer depressive symptoms.

This was a secondary analysis and the effect was only just statistically significant. The participants were young people with early signs of depression.

In a randomized trial with 187 women in treatment for substance use, eight weekly sessions of body-awareness training improved interoceptive awareness and a physiological marker of emotion regulation, followed over a year.

The training was led by a therapist and took hours, not seconds. Self-reported emotion regulation improved only for those who attended most sessions. Glimmer is inspired by this work; it is not that training.

In a card game, 10 healthy participants began to show skin-conductance responses before choosing from risky decks, before they could explain that those decks were risky. Six patients with damage to part of the prefrontal cortex did not.

A very small study, and a disputed one. Later researchers argued that participants knew more about the game than the original tests showed, and reviewers have said the idea needs more support.

701 people in Western Europe and East Asia coloured in body outlines to show where they felt each emotion. Different emotions produced consistent, distinguishable maps in both groups.

The maps are reports of where people say they feel things, not measurements of the body. Two cultural groups were tested.

Across four experiments, people prompted to treat a personal failure or weakness with self-compassion were more motivated to improve than people prompted to protect their self-esteem.

These were laboratory studies and had nothing to do with phones. They are why Glimmer never scolds; they are not proof that scolding makes people scroll more.

A meta-analysis of 12 randomized trials, involving 785 adults, found a small-to-medium effect of breathwork on self-reported stress. The authors called for more high-quality research.

Those studies tested repeated practice over days and weeks, not Glimmer's single opening breath.

108 people did five minutes a day of one of four practices for a month. Breathing exercises, and exhale-focused cyclic sighing most of all, improved mood and slowed resting breathing more than mindfulness meditation.

Heart rate and heart rate variability did not differ between groups. The trial was run remotely with self-reported practice, was registered after the fact, and its mindfulness group had 24 people.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 223 studies found that deliberately slowing the breath raises heart rate variability during a session, straight after one, and after weeks of practice.

We read the abstract only, so effect sizes are not given here. Heart rate variability is a marker in the body. It is not the same thing as feeling better.