Kaiser Permanente offers Calm mental fitness app at no cost to millions of members
Meditation app Calm is now free for Kaiser Permanente’s millions of members (CNBC):
Kaiser Permanente is trying to give its 12.4 million members a little bit of calm.
Starting Tuesday, the health-care provider is allowing patients to download the Calm meditation app for free as part of a way to help customers manage anxiety as they deal with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Calm is the most-popular health and fitness app on Google-powered devices and No. 2 on the iPhone, according to App Annie. Paid subscriptions normally cost $70 a year … Calm was seeing surging growth even before the coronavirus forced Americans to shelter in place and led to skyrocketing unemployment. The San Francisco-based start-up was valued by investors last year at $1 billion, two years after being named Apple’s app of the year back in 2017. The app has been downloaded over 80 million times.
The Need in Context:
Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19 (World Economic Forum):
How many of us right now are experiencing a heady cocktail of confusion, anxiety and even some surprising moments of respite from our pre-COVID-19, always-on-the-go culture?
Our traditional media and social media feeds are filled with urgent and often conflicting imperatives to change our routines and be constantly vigilant.
The online onslaught of rapidly updating media stories reporting worst-case scenarios can fuel fear and panic. Uncritical overconsumption of such messages can erode one of our most precious and essential human resources for weathering the COVID-19 storm: our mental health…
How can we boost our mental health in the COVID-19 era to minimize the impact of the virus and the “social distancing” in our lives, and to develop a healthier and more resilient “new normal” for the future? Will we finally pay serious attention to the link between stress regulation and our health and well-being?
News in Context:
- Meditation apps have gone mainstream in the covid-19 era
- New report: Empowering 8 Billion Minds via Ethical Development and Adoption of Neurotechnologies
- Study finds a key ingredient in mindfulness training: Acceptance (not acquiescence)
- New study reinforces the importance of walking through forests for mental and general health
- Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
- 10 Key Research Findings to Encourage and Guide your Meditation Practice
- Want to feel more Calm, get some Headspace, and practice Mindfulness Daily?
- Meditation app Headspace raises $93 million to accelerate clinical validation and geographic expansion
- Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright