Avoidance feeds anxiety. Habit of Living gives you a structured, step-by-step approach to gradually face the situations you've been avoiding, so you can take back control of your life at your own pace.
Avoidance provides short-term relief but strengthens anxiety over time. Exposure therapy reverses this pattern through gradual, supported practice.
Build a personalized ladder of feared situations ranked by anxiety level. Start small and work your way up at a pace that feels right.
Rate your anxiety before, during, and after each exposure. Watch your distress levels drop over time as you build tolerance and confidence.
Use built-in timers for each exposure step. The app guides you to stay with the discomfort long enough for your anxiety to naturally decrease.
Step-by-step instructions walk you through each exposure with coping prompts, grounding techniques, and encouragement built right in.
Built-in safety checks, grounding exercises, and clear guidance on when to pause. You are always in control of how far you go.
Earn points and achievements for every exposure you complete. Each step forward is real progress worth recognizing.
One of the most well-researched techniques in psychology, adapted into a self-guided format you can use anywhere.
When you avoid something that scares you, your brain learns that the situation is genuinely dangerous. Exposure therapy works by giving your brain new evidence: you face the feared situation, your anxiety rises, and then it naturally comes down on its own. Over repeated exposures, your brain recalibrates and the fear response weakens.
This process, called habituation, is one of the most robust findings in anxiety research. It forms the backbone of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders, phobias, OCD, and PTSD.
Habit of Living uses graded exposure, meaning you never have to jump straight to your biggest fear. Instead, you build a fear hierarchy: a ranked list of situations from mildly uncomfortable to deeply challenging. You start at the bottom and only move up when you feel ready.
The exposure exercises in Habit of Living are designed for everyday avoidance patterns and mild to moderate anxiety. This is not clinical treatment. If you experience severe anxiety, panic disorder, PTSD, or OCD, we strongly recommend working with a licensed therapist who specializes in exposure-based treatments.
If you are in crisis, please use our Crisis Resources immediately.
Start by listing the situations you avoid and rating how anxious each one makes you feel. The app helps you organize them into a clear, ranked ladder from easiest to hardest.
Select a step from your hierarchy and follow the guided exercise. The app walks you through the exposure with timers, anxiety check-ins, and grounding prompts to help you stay present.
After each exposure, log how it went. Watch your anxiety ratings decrease over time, celebrate your wins, and move up your hierarchy when you are ready for the next challenge.
Common questions about the exposure therapy exercises in Habit of Living.
Exposure therapy is an evidence-based technique where you gradually and repeatedly face feared situations in a safe, controlled way. Over time, your anxiety response naturally decreases as your brain learns the situation is not as dangerous as it feels.
No. Habit of Living provides self-guided exposure exercises based on evidence-based principles. This is not clinical treatment. If you have severe anxiety, PTSD, or phobias, please work with a licensed therapist who can supervise your exposure work.
You can build custom hierarchies for social anxiety, public speaking, health anxiety, specific phobias, and everyday avoidance patterns. The app works best for mild to moderate anxiety where avoidance is holding you back.
You create a ladder of situations ranked by anxiety level from 0 to 100. Start with the least scary step and practice until it feels manageable, then move to the next one. The app tracks your ratings so you can see your progress over time.
The exercises are designed for mild to moderate avoidance patterns with built-in safety checks. If you experience severe anxiety, panic attacks, or trauma-related fears, we recommend working with a licensed professional. If you are in crisis, contact emergency services immediately.
Many people notice a reduction in anxiety after just a few sessions with a particular step. The overall timeline depends on your hierarchy and how consistently you practice. Regular, repeated exposure is the key to lasting change.
I avoided public speaking for years. The fear hierarchy helped me start small, just recording myself talking, and work my way up. By the time I gave a presentation at work, my anxiety was half of what it used to be. This tool gave me my confidence back.
Take the first step toward breaking free from avoidance. Build your fear hierarchy today and start reclaiming the life anxiety has been stealing from you.