Break the Cycle.
We designed a mobile MVP for a CBT-based anxiety app, turning fears into reframed thought cards with guided breathing, grounding, and mood tracking.
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ABOUT
Fear can be a paralyzing force that holds you back from achieving your full potential. Our app is designed to help you break free from the cycle of fear, empowering you to face challenges with confidence and resilience.
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Challenge
People living with a specific phobia or recurring anxiety know the fear is irrational, but have no structured way to work through it in the moment. Grona designed a self-guided CBT companion built around one loop — name the fear, capture the anxious thought, and reframe it into something manageable, saved as a card that moves from Active to Reframed — backed by daily mood check-ins, guided breathing and grounding exercises, and a simple insights view that makes progress visible.
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UI Solution 01 — Teaching the method before the first card
Three short onboarding screens teach the core mechanic — capture the thought, reframe it, rate the emotion — before a user creates their first card, with each of the three directions (Phobias, Anxiety, DPDR) getting its own mini-onboarding on first use.
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UI Solution 02 — Creating and working through a thought card
A three-field card — name, anxious thought, reframed thought — plus one emotional-rating slider, organized into color-coded Journal categories with Active/Reframed tabs, and a "Work through" flow that logs a dated history of revisits instead of closing the case in one go.
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UI Solution 03 — Insights that tie exercises to progress
One Insights screen turns the practice into a trend: exercises completed, time spent, a weekly mood chart, and active problems still in progress.
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UI Solution 04 — A daily habit loop
A Daily plan checklist pairs an affirmation and tip with that day's mood check-in and a breathing exercise, while a simple two-slider mood/energy check-in feeds straight into the Insights chart.
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Design System:
Break the Cycle runs on a single typeface, DM Sans, across three weights — Regular, Medium, and SemiBold — set on a warm, muted palette anchored by a soft beige base and off-black neutrals, with a maroon accent for emphasis. Its signature element is a family of soft pastel gradients rather than one fixed color, used throughout the product to code mood and emotion — on the daily mood orb, on every phobia and anxiety card — so a user can read their emotional state at a glance in a system that never raises its voice.
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