Mental fitness self-care named app trend of 2018

___

This was the hottest app trend of the year (Mar­ket Watch):

“Apps were all about inner peace in 2018.

Apple named “self-care” its app trend of the year with its Best of 2018 list released ear­li­er this week, which high­light­ed what apps, games, movies and music were on everyone’s list — and fin­ger­tips — over the past year. “We became mind­ful of some amaz­ing well­ness apps,” the report not­ed, list­ing med­i­ta­tion apps such as 10% Hap­pi­er, Calm and Shine, as well as the Fab­u­lous – Moti­vate Me life coach and habit track­er…

Alex Will, Calm’s chief strat­e­gy offi­cer, also pre­dicts that men­tal fit­ness will be seen as equal­ly as impor­tant as phys­i­cal fit­ness as a major trend next year. “The brain is the key mus­cle in our body, and just like we go to the gym to strength­en our biceps, we can lever­age tools like med­i­ta­tion to strength­en our aware­ness and our minds, ulti­mate­ly help­ing us to focus bet­ter and ease anx­i­ety and stress” …

And Head­space cur­rent­ly has just under 40 mil­lion down­loads, with well over one mil­lion paid sub­scribers – up from 20.5 mil­lion down­loads last Decem­ber. More than 300 com­pa­nies, includ­ing Google, LinkedIn, GE, Adobe, Genen­tech and Unilever, are offer­ing Head­space to employ­ees as a health and well­ness ben­e­fit. Head­space can also be voice-acti­vat­ed by Ama­zon Alexa and Google Home, and more than 800 mil­lion pas­sen­gers on 11 air­lines, includ­ing Delta, Vir­gin Atlantic and Jet­Blue, can access Head­space med­i­ta­tions through the in-flight enter­tain­ment sys­tem each year.”

The List:

Apple presents the best of 2018 (Apple)

• The App Store: This year, Bat­tle Royale-style games like Fort­nite and PUBG Mobile dom­i­nat­ed glob­al gam­ing cul­ture with excit­ing, last-play­er-stand­ing action, while inno­v­a­tive apps like Fab­u­lous, Shine, 10% Hap­pi­er and Head­space expand­ed the prac­tice of well­ness around the world to make self-care more acces­si­ble than ever before.

The News in Context:

• Med­i­ta­tion app Calm said to be rais­ing $25M to become the “Nike of the mind”
• Study: Mind­ful med­i­ta­tion works. Now, how to nav­i­gate the most pop­u­lar options?
• Mind­strong Health iden­ti­fies dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers of cog­ni­tive func­tion using smart­phone data
• Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright
• Learn more and dis­cuss at the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: The Future of Brain Health (Feb­ru­ary 26–28th)
• Pre­sen­ta­tion by Dr. Tom Insel, Pres­i­dent and Co-Founder of Mind­strong Health, at the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 5–7th):