The app is marketed to be different from other meditation apps on the market. With other apps the user has to try out different meditations to find one that will work for them. The new Aura app aims to provide the optimal meditation session based on collecting and analyzing data about the user. This includes the users’ demographics, stress levels, positivity levels and ratings for meditations.
The mediation sessions built into the app have been purposefully designed by therapists and meditation teachers. The meditations are around three minutes long. The sessions are designed to be of this length to help people with busy lives get into the habit of meditating. The app is designed to learn as well; after each session, users are prompted to provide feedback which enables Aura to send them meditations that address their feedback.
Meditation is one established means of lowering stress levels. Mindfulness meditation, according to a report in the Harvard Heart Letter, involves sitting comfortably, focusing on your breathing, and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present without drifting into concerns about the past or future. Though it has its roots in Buddhist meditation, a secular practice of mindfulness has become increasingly common in recent years.
The usefulness of this meditation technique has been backed by some research studies. For example, Johns Hopkins University scientists examined 19,000 meditation studies. With this trawl they found 47 trials that were deemed to be well-designed studies. An analysis of these, published in JAMA Internal Medicine (“Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis”), found that mindful meditation can help ease psychological stresses like anxiety, depression and pain.
With this style of meditation, Aura Health co-founder and CEO Steve Lee told Techcrunch: “We’re trying to build intelligence around how to make people happier. Most people really have a hard time forming a habit around meditation and building a foundation for that. We’re playing around with the shortest possible amount of effort it takes to make it a habit while receiving the benefits of meditation.”
The Aura app is trending high on LinkedIn Pulse.
