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IncluRegulate
Your messages and check-ins may be seen by trusted adults. This app never promises confidentiality. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 or text HOME to 741741.

How IncluRegulate works

IncluRegulate is a calm place to practice settling strong feelings. Here's what it does, how your information is handled, and the research behind it.

Calm by design

IncluRegulate has no points, levels or rewards of its own. That is deliberate, so it never competes with the reinforcement system your school already runs. Nothing here is built to keep you scrolling: each activity has a clear ending, and the app asks you to put the screen down and get back to your day.

Your privacy and safety

What you write in your journal stays on your device. If your school has turned on secure data sharing, your check-ins (like how your body feels) may be shared with your school team so they can support you. The app never promises to keep things private from trusted adults, and if you share that you might hurt yourself, a trusted adult may be told so someone can help. That's about keeping you safe, not getting you in trouble.

If you are in crisis, call or text 988 or text HOME to 741741.

Read the full privacy policy at inclushift.com/privacy.

What this is, and isn't

IncluRegulate is a skill-practice tool. It is not a medical device, not therapy, and not a substitute for a counselor or doctor. The skills it teaches are drawn from published research, but the app itself has not been tested in its own study.

The research behind the skills

Each activity is based on published, peer-reviewed studies. A few of the main ones are below.

Breathing

Slow breathing, with a longer breath out than in, helps the body settle.

  • Yilmaz Balban, M., Neri, E., Kogon, M. M., et al. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(1), 100895. doi:10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100895Who was studied: 108 healthy adults (18+), mostly university students, practising five minutes a day for a month.
  • Lehrer, P., Kaur, K., Sharma, A., et al. (2020). Heart rate variability biofeedback improves emotional and physical health and performance: A systematic review and meta analysis. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 45(3), 109-129. doi:10.1007/s10484-020-09466-zWho was studied: 58 randomised trials, mainly adults.

Grounding and strong-feeling tools

Bringing attention to the senses, and simple distress-tolerance steps, help during hard moments.

  • Kothgassner, O. D., Robinson, K., Goreis, A., Ougrin, D., & Plener, P. L. (2020). Does treatment method matter? A meta-analysis of the past 20 years of research on therapeutic interventions for self-harm and suicidal ideation in adolescents. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 7(1), 9. doi:10.1186/s40479-020-00123-9Who was studied: 25 randomised trials of adolescents aged 12-19 who self-harm.
  • DeCou, C. R., Comtois, K. A., & Landes, S. J. (2019). Dialectical behavior therapy is effective for the treatment of suicidal behavior: A meta-analysis. Behavior Therapy, 50(1), 60-72. doi:10.1016/j.beth.2018.03.009Who was studied: 18 controlled trials, mostly adults, including four adolescent samples.

Noticing the body

Learning to notice body signals, not just name emotions, supports calmer responses.

  • Quadt, L., Garfinkel, S. N., Mulcahy, J. S., et al. (2021). Interoceptive training to target anxiety in autistic adults (ADIE): A single-center, superiority randomized controlled trial. eClinicalMedicine, 39, 101042. doi:10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101042Who was studied: 121 autistic ADULTS aged 18-65. The benefit was small and the authors note it fell short of the difference they had set as meaningful in advance.
  • Mahler, K., Hample, K., Ensor, C., et al. (2024). Interoception-based intervention for emotional regulation in a special education classroom: A feasibility study. Occupational Therapy in Health Care, 38(3), 636-650. doi:10.1080/07380577.2024.2313527Who was studied: 9 students in one middle-school special education classroom. A feasibility study, not a controlled trial - and the only school-age study in this group.
  • Garfinkel, S. N., Seth, A. K., Barrett, A. B., Suzuki, K., & Critchley, H. D. (2015). Knowing your own heart: Distinguishing interoceptive accuracy from interoceptive awareness. Biological Psychology, 104, 65-74. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.11.004Who was studied: 80 healthy adults. This is a measurement paper - it is why the app asks what a student notices rather than scoring how accurate they are.

Teaching the skill, not just timing it

Skills work better when they are actually taught: shown, practised together, then done on your own.

  • Pandey, A., Hale, D., Das, S., et al. (2018). Effectiveness of universal self-regulation-based interventions in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatrics, 172(6), 566-575. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.0232Who was studied: 49 randomised trials, 23,098 children aged 2-17 (median age 6).
  • Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students' social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405-432. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.xWho was studied: 213 school programmes, 270,034 students, kindergarten through high school.

Why it is not run with a whole class

Two large studies found that teaching this kind of skill to everyone at once did not help. So IncluRegulate is built for a student who needs it, chosen by the adults who know them, rather than delivered class-wide.

  • Kuyken, W., Ball, S., Crane, C., et al. (2022). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of universal school-based mindfulness training compared with normal school provision in reducing risk of mental health problems and promoting well-being in adolescence: the MYRIAD cluster randomised controlled trial. Evidence Based Mental Health, 25(3), 99-109. doi:10.1136/ebmental-2021-300396Who was studied: 84 UK secondary schools, students aged 11-14. Found no benefit over schools' usual provision.
  • Galla, B. M., Karanam, A., Pelakh, A., & Goldberg, S. B. (2024). Adolescents do not benefit from universal school-based mindfulness interventions: A reanalysis of Dunning et al. (2022). Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1384531. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1384531Who was studied: A reanalysis of 22 randomised trials, 16,558 adolescents. No significant benefit on any of eight outcomes.

Words for feelings, never faces

The app asks students to pick words for what their body feels, and never uses smiley or frowning faces to stand in for a feeling.

  • Kinnaird, E., Stewart, C., & Tchanturia, K. (2019). Investigating alexithymia in autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis. European Psychiatry, 55, 80-89. doi:10.1016/j.eurpsy.2018.09.004Who was studied: 15 studies, 366 autistic people, mostly adults. About half scored above the clinical cut-off for difficulty identifying and describing their own feelings.

A calm, low-key look

Muted, low-brightness colours are used throughout rather than bright, saturated ones.

  • Liu, L. (2025). Analysing the impact of sensory processing differences on color and texture preferences in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12(1), 1408. doi:10.1057/s41599-025-05753-4Who was studied: 46 autistic people aged 6-40 in China. A small study, and the design choice rests on it lightly.

Safety comes first

If someone writes about hurting themselves, the app shows crisis help right away, using a fixed, built-in checklist. It never sends a student to a chatbot.

  • Pichowicz, W., Kotas, M., & Piotrowski, P. (2025). Performance of mental health chatbot agents in detecting and managing suicidal ideation. Scientific Reports, 15, 31652. doi:10.1038/s41598-025-17242-4Who was studied: 29 chatbot apps sent a scripted sequence showing rising suicide risk. None met the authors' standard for an adequate crisis response. No human participants.
  • Singer, J. B., Erbacher, T. A., & Rosen, P. (2019). School-based suicide prevention: A framework for evidence-based practice. School Mental Health, 11(1), 54-71. doi:10.1007/s12310-018-9245-8Who was studied: A review article, not a trial. It argues schools are well placed to respond, and that the research base for school suicide-prevention programmes is still thin.

What this research does not show

  • IncluRegulate itself has not been studied. The skills are drawn from the research above; the app has not been evaluated in its own trial. Under ESSA that puts it at the lowest evidence tier - it demonstrates a rationale (20 U.S.C. 7801(21)(A)(ii)), which also means any school using it should be looking at its own data.
  • Several of these studies are of adults. The breathing trial was healthy adults, mostly university students. The interoception trial was autistic adults aged 18-65. The heartbeat-awareness measurement work was healthy adults. Applying them to a K-12 student is an inference, and we would rather say so than let it pass unmarked.
  • It is not a treatment. No part of this is therapy, and nothing here diagnoses, treats or replaces a counsellor, psychologist or doctor.
  • It produces no behaviour data. There is no antecedent-behaviour-consequence record and no office-referral data here, so it cannot feed an FBA and should not be described as doing so.

Questions about the evidence, or want the fuller reference set? Write to support@inclushift.com.

A place to practice calming skills. Not a doctor. Not instead of a grown-up's help. Crisis: 988 or text HOME to 741741