The season is your cycle phase.
Create your avatar-self
You are the main character in a world about yourself.
Set up your avatar; upload a selfie, adjust body size, skin colour, hair style and many other options.
No judgement. Be your true self.
Your cycle and your emotions are very interrelated.
Howami makes tracking your cycles easier and more fun than ever before.
And we have created a way to discover and learn from your inner emotional life too.
Together these will give you a new power to live life well.
Cycles and Emotion
Build your inner-world
We give you the tools to build your own virtual world, wherever you are.
Why?
Because expressing your emotions and cycle in one image helps you understand yourself and allows others to connect with you. Plus, it's fun.
Howami stores your daily Inner-World images safely on your phone.
Sorting of images by Cycle Day, Emotion or Season/Phase can lead to important new realisations.
Store and Search
Show them how
you really are.
Howami is meant for sharing.
Those that care about you want to know what's really going on.
Howami makes expressing your inner self easier.
Howami is a tool designed for young people to integrate their menstrual cycle and their emotions.
It combines elements of gaming, CGI, and innovative therapeutic technologies to transform menstrual tracking from a mundane task into an engaging experience.
Menstrual Literacy
Knowing our own “normal” is key to living well with our cycle.(1) Being able to read the body's signals is what it means to have Health Literacy. Emotions are essential elements of this intelligence and just as important to understand as when your next period is due.
When we learn this skill, it can benefit our whole lives.(2).
When we use Howami, this is the muscle we will develop.
Your Inner-World
Living well with menstruation is about understanding our hormonal inner-world.(3) Hormonal health is subtle and varies every day of the cycle.(4) Unfortunately, knowing the facts and figures won’t necessarily make it easier to live with.(5) But when we enquire each day; “How Am I?”, we unlock a powerful and proven mindful process that can lead to many benefits.(6)
Visual Language
Explaining how you are feeling deep down can be hard. It's easy to feel overwhelmed or vulnerable, as well as forgetting to celebrate the good days.
Everyone knows that a picture is worth more than a thousand words. With the right context, visual imagery can describe so much.
Howami leverages science-backed visual therapies (7) to help unlock self-understanding and communication.
True Self-Care
Empathy starts with ourselves. Virtual reality/Avatar therapies have proven to be very effective at improving phobias, depression, anxiety, self-worth, etc.(8) This is because we learn from seeing ourselves reflected back through the device. Howami allows you to craft your own customisable avatar-self. Before you know it you will start to care deeply for this version of you and take steps to make sure they are doing well.
References
(1) World Health Organisation; The mandate for health literacy. 2024
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(2) Christiane Arrivillaga, Lourdes Rey, Natalio Extremera, A mediated path from emotional intelligence to problematic social media use in adolescents: The serial mediation of perceived stress and depressive symptoms, Addictive Behaviors, Volume 124, 2022
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(3) The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Depression and Anxiety in Women with Premenstrual Syndrome, Department of Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Amol, Iran 2021
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(4) Fox, S. and Epstein, D.A., 2020. Monitoring menses: design-based investigations of menstrual tracking applications. The Palgrave handbook of critical menstruation studies, pp.733-750.
(5) Levy, J., Romo-Avilés, N. “A good little tool to get to know yourself a bit better”: a qualitative study on users’ experiences of app-supported menstrual tracking in Europe. BMC Public Health 19, 1213 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7549-8
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(6) Åžener Çetin, N. and Åžolt Kırca, A. (2023), The Effect of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program on Premenstrual Symptoms: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Midwifery Womens Health., 68: 604-610.
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(7) Art Therapy in the Digital World: An Integrative Review of Current Practice and Future Directions Front. Psychol., 08 April 2021, Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings, Volume 12 - 2021
(8) Enhancing Healthy Behaviors Through Virtual Self: A Systematic Review of Health Interventions Using Avatars Minjin (MJ) Rheu, MA, Youjin Jang, MA, and Wei Peng, PhD University of Michigan 2020
Our purpose is to improve the lives of young people around the world, increase the awareness of Menstruation and to provide a valuable Mental Health resource.
Howami inclusivity statement
"We recognize that while the Menstrual Cycle is a biological process, gender isn’t fixed. We strongly believe in Menstrual inclusivity.
