SEPTEMBER 2016 – PRESS RELEASE
FREE AWARD-WINNING MEDITATION APP RELEASED, WITH A VIRTUAL AVATAR THAT TAILORS MEDITATIONS, VIDEOS & EXERCISES BASED ON YOUR MOOD. RATED 4.8 STARS WITH OVER 100 5 STAR REVIEWS.
Contact the Founder, Ashok Gupta on [email protected] for interviews and press pack. Website www.themeaningoflife.tv
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/meaning-life-experiment/id1003928310?mt=8 For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.baytreelabs.mol Winner of People’s Choice Award at the World Happiness App Competition
BACKGROUND: Stress levels, anxiety & depression are rapidly increasing across all socio-economic groups and ages, especially teenagers and young adults (BBC, CNN). The causes are many: the rapid rise of “always on” social media, increasing geo-political and financial insecurity, as well as work expectations and pressures. These are all having a detrimental effect on our mental and physical health. Luckily, more and more research is showing that meditation and mindfulness is the cure to our modern ills. A recent Harvard study showed that regular meditation reduced visits to health care practitioners by 42%.
THE SOLUTION: Often people don’t know where to turn to deal with their stress. But now there is a free not-for-profit app that tailors meditations and videos for you based on your mood. Previously, meditation apps have just presented content without really giving solutions to a problem you face. Instead this new app helps you deal with difficult emotions, situations or people in the moment.
The Mission of the App is to get the world meditating! This easy to use app gives anyone in the world access to high quality meditations and videos for free, as well as a community of people online dedicated to self-development.
THE TEAM: The app was created by Ashok Gupta and his team at Baytree Labs, a technology company based in London. They found that many people wanted an app that could give them short exercises to do during the day that were relevant to that moment.
HOW IT WORKS? The app can be used in 2 ways. Firstly, the app is a 30-Day Meditation Experiment, where users are encouraged to commit to 30 days of meditation and then share their experiences with others. Secondly the app has a “How are you Feeling?” feature where users can find meditations, short mind exercises & videos that can help them deal with the daily ups and downs of life. The app is content rich and contains around 20 hours of meditations and around 20 hours of videos.
Essentially it is like having your own Personal Coach in your pocket, that can help you with whatever comes up in your day!
THE MARKET: The app is rated 4.8 stars on Android and iOS. Currently the app is approaching 10,000 users, with around 1000 daily sessions.
The app’s competitors are the likes of Headspace and other meditation apps. The key differentiator is that these apps charge for premium content, whereas the Meaning of Life Experiment is completely free. Secondly the tailored exercises are a game changer in the industry.
FUNDING: The app is a social enterprise and is sustained through payments for downloads and donations. All streamed content is free, and if users have benefited, they can donate by downloading the meditations to use offline, or donating towards the next set of content.
The app is personally funded by Ashok Gupta, who has run a global stress management clinic for over 15 years, and specializes in the treatment of illnesses such as ME, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & Fibromyalgia. Ashok found that many of his clients were not practicing tools and techniques between sessions, so he felt that developing an app was the best way forward.
Ashok personally suffered from ME/CFS when he was studying at Cambridge University, which led him on a life-long quest to help people with the illness, as well as stress, anxiety and depression.
The 1min Facebook trailer is here: https://www.facebook.com/meaningoflifeexperiment/videos/1707237902888257/
The 10min Trailer is here: https://youtu.be/L728Pd7MWuk
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