Evan Conrad, creator of the open-source iOS app Quirk, discusses his personal battle with severe panic attacks and the transformative power of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). He shares how Quirk helps users navigate their mental health challenges, specifically addressing cognitive distortions and anxiety. The conversation also touches on the accessibility of CBT for all individuals, the importance of technology in mental health, and the playful approach Quirk takes in reframing distressing thoughts. Tune in for insights that blend personal experience with innovative solutions.
01:11:29
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
menu_book Books
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
question_answer ANECDOTE
Evan's Panic Attacks
Evan Conrad suffered from severe panic attacks, often twice a week, for a large portion of his life.
These attacks would last for one to two hours and felt like a mix of adrenaline rush and intense fear.
insights INSIGHT
CBT's Core Premise
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) views depression, anxiety, and panic as "software problems", not inherent "hardware problems".
This means these mental health challenges can be addressed and potentially fixed.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Practicing CBT
Record your negative automatic thoughts and challenge their underlying logical fallacies.
By repeatedly questioning these negative thought patterns, your brain can learn to automatically challenge them.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
This book, written by Dr. David D. Burns, outlines scientifically proven techniques based on CBT to help readers overcome negative thoughts and develop a positive outlook on life. It addresses common mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, guilt, and low self-esteem by identifying and correcting cognitive distortions. The book provides practical advice on recognizing and changing negative thought patterns, handling criticism, building self-esteem, and improving overall mental well-being.
We’re talking with Evan Conrad — for most of Evan’s life he has suffered from severe panic attacks, often twice per week. Eventually he stumbled upon a therapy method called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT for short, and saw positive results. This led him to create Quirk, an open source iOS app which allows its users to practice one of the most common formats of CBT.
On the show we mentioned a new podcast we’re launching called Brain Science — it’s hosted by Adam Stacoviak and Mireille Reece, a Doctor of Clinical Psychology. Brain Science is a podcast for the curious that explores the inner-workings of the human brain to understand behavior change, habit formation, mental health, and the human condition. It’s Brain Science applied — not just how does the brain work, but how do we apply what we know about the brain to better our lives. Stay tuned after the show for a special preview of Brain Science.
If you haven’t yet, right now would be a great time to subscribe to Master at changelog.com/master. It’s one feed to rule them all, plus some extras that only hit the master feed.
Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!
Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $100 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
GoCD + Kubernetes – With GoCD running on Kubernetes, you define your build workflow and let GoCD provision and scale build infrastructure on the fly. GoCD installs as a Kubernetes native application. Scale your build infrastructure elastically. Learn more at gocd.org/kubernetes
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com.
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source 