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inzention

The research

What is behavioural activation?

Behavioural activation means doing something small and worthwhile before you feel like it. Your mood tends to follow. It's the idea underneath every Inzention app.

It's spelled behavioral activation in the US. Psychologists often shorten it to BA.

Why waiting keeps you stuck

When you feel low, tired or stuck, it's natural to wait until you feel better before doing anything. The trouble is that waiting tends to keep you there.

  1. You feel flat, so you do less.
  2. Doing less means fewer good moments: less done, less time with people, less fun.
  3. With fewer good moments, you feel flatter. And round it goes.

Behavioural activation breaks the loop from the doing end. You don't have to fix how you feel first. You only have to do something small.

How it works in practice

With a psychologist, behavioural activation usually looks like this:

  • Plan small activities. Ones that give you a sense of getting something done, being close to people, or enjoying yourself.
  • Do them whether or not you feel like it. Motivation often shows up after you start, not before.
  • Notice how you feel afterwards. Over time you learn which activities lift you, and you do more of those.
  • Start small and build. Opening the curtains counts. So does a two-minute walk.

Need ideas? Here are 142 small activities, grouped by area and by how long they take. To do it on paper, print the free worksheet, and see how activity scheduling works.

What the research says

Behavioural activation is one of the most studied approaches to low mood. Here is what the strongest reviews found.

  • It works about as well as CBT for depression. A 2020 Cochrane review pooled 53 studies and about 5,500 people and found no clear difference between the two. Earlier reviews found the same.1, 3, 4
  • It doesn't need a senior therapist. A large UK trial followed 440 adults. Junior mental health workers ran behavioural activation. Experienced therapists ran CBT. A year later, both did as well.2
  • It helps people who aren't depressed. A review of 20 trials found it improved wellbeing in the general population as well as in people with depression.5

These studies tested behavioural activation run by clinicians. They didn't test our apps, and the apps aren't therapy. What the apps take from the research is the method: small activities, done first, with mood following.

How our apps use it

Bloom is the method as a psychologist would set it up. Start with one small activity a day and answer one question afterwards: how do you feel now? Turn on the program for the before-and-after ratings used in therapy, and a PDF summary you can take to an appointment.

The worlds wrap the same method in a story. In each one:

  • Five small habits arrive each morning.The app does the planning, so there's no blank page to face.
  • One is enough. A day with one habit done is a day that counts.
  • Your rank never drops. Research on habits found that missing one day made no real difference to forming them.6 Other studies found that seeing a broken streak made people less likely to keep going.7 So a missed day pauses progress. It never erases it.
  • A world you want to open. Game elements have been shown to help people move more, and the effect lasted after the novelty wore off.8

When to get more help

Has low mood lasted more than two weeks? Is it getting in the way of your life? Then talk to your GP. In Australia, your GP can refer you to a psychologist under a Mental Health Treatment Plan. The apps can sit alongside that work.

If you're not safe right now, call 000 in Australia or 988 in the US. In Australia you can also call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

Sources

  1. Uphoff E and others (2020). Behavioural activation therapy for depression in adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD013305.pub2
  2. Richards DA and others (2016). Cost and Outcome of Behavioural Activation versus Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Depression (COBRA). The Lancet 388: 871–880. doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31140-0
  3. Cuijpers P, van Straten A, Warmerdam L (2007). Behavioral activation treatments of depression: a meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review 27: 318–326. doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2006.11.001
  4. Ekers D, Richards D, Gilbody S (2008). A meta-analysis of randomized trials of behavioural treatment of depression. Psychological Medicine 38: 611–623. doi.org/10.1017/S0033291707001614
  5. Mazzucchelli TG, Kane RT, Rees CS (2010). Behavioral activation interventions for well-being: a meta-analysis. Journal of Positive Psychology 5: 105–121. doi.org/10.1080/17439760903569154
  6. Lally P, van Jaarsveld CHM, Potts HWW, Wardle J (2010). How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology 40: 998–1009. doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674
  7. Silverman J, Barasch A (2023). On or off track: how (broken) streaks affect consumer decisions. Journal of Consumer Research 49: 1095–1117. doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucac029
  8. Mazeas A and others (2022). Evaluating the effectiveness of gamification on physical activity: systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research 24: e26779. doi.org/10.2196/26779