Psychologist Lauren Salter (02-09) is Head of Engagement for education tech start up Fika, a 5-minute emotional fitness app for students. Partnered with several universities including Exeter, Lincoln and London Business School, Fika is providing students with a tool to help support them through university life.

Lauren said “There is a lot of emphasis on exercise for physical fitness, but mental health and emotional wellbeing are becoming increasingly important. Students are particularly vulnerable, often living away from home for the first time, meeting new friends and making that step change from school to university can be emotionally draining and in many cases lead to stress and anxiety. The idea behind Fika was to provide a tool to support students with their personal and emotional wellbeing. We have worked with universities to develop the app, which draws on scientific evidence from CBT, ACT, Solution-Focused Therapy, Mindfulness and Positive Psychology and is aligned with the 2019 NICE evidence standards for digital health technologies.

“We’ve been really pleased with how usage of the app is going so far and the feedback has been really positive. Our aim is to get more universities on board and grow the number of student users. We are also looking to extend the user base to include schools.”

Fika focuses on developing and supporting attributes such as emotional strength, resilience, adaptability, confidence and acceptance.  The app is free to download from the app store/google play store and has a number of free elements as well as paid premium features. For those of you who are quick off the mark, free access to all the features of the app is available until the 31 October using the code: getfika. This code will expire on 31st but you will be able to continue using the full app for a period of time. For further details, visit the website here.