I Spent A Week Following Instructions From A Wellness App And This Is What It Was Like
You may or may not heard of the relatively new wellness and meditation app ‘Jiyo’. I hadn’t until I saw an article online praising it as the “ultimate wellness app” and promising such things a decent night of sleep.
So with a hopeful heart, I downloaded the free Jiyo app for my phone and began the descent into mindfulness and health foods.
The first thing I noticed about Jiyo is that there is a lot going on. There’s a discover page where you can read articles covering nutrition, fitness, love, meditation, sleep and personal growth. This was one of my favourite parts of the app it had a lot of interesting food ideas and was generally pretty good.
It has a good array of meditation techniques to try which were also of high quality. It also  features Jiyo+ which appears to be some kind of television channel where you can watch clips of the app creator Deepak Chopra. These I was not so sold on as they seemed a little bit too ‘alternative medicine’ for me.
On Jiyo you also have a profile page and can choose what kind of ‘bits’ you are interested in. These bits give you ideas of things to do throughout your day that will lead to a better sense of well-being. Some of these bits were quite fun or just general good advice- Write a list of things you appreciate today, do some stretches, give your dog a bath. In general the bits were quite sweet and I enjoyed them.
However, the notifications were not so enjoyable…
During the day when I was at work or University I’d get constant little reminders to complete a bit. I realised I only enjoyed doing the bits when they were on my terms and not when the app was telling me to do them. The app is very mindfulness and spiritually orientated. If you’re a person who likes that sort of thing you’ll probably love this app-but for me not so much.
The man behind the app
I decided to look a bit more into app creator ‘guru’ Dr. Deepak Chopra. While you’re using Jiyo Dr. Chopra turns up everywhere videos of him, articles about him, etc. On his Wikipedia Dr. Chopra is described as a best-selling author and alternative medicine advocate. It also states he believes a person can reach a state of “perfect health”, where they will not age or die. Hmm.
The name of the app “Jiyo” is apparently a Japanese and Chinese Buddhist word that means “to use yourself”.
The verdict
This app does have some good points to it. I believe it could help you to look at things in a more positive way. Overall, I’m a bit skeptical about any kind of “alternative therapy” or medicine. I’d recommend changing the notification settings if you’re not a fan of being told what to do in the middle of your work days. I’m also not a huge fan of the whole “personal companion” aspect. It just doesn’t quite sit right with me that I have to rely on an app to do things.
However, as a whole it is a pretty nice little app with a lot of features. If you’re a fan of wellness apps and meditation this is probably a must-have. Plus it’s free so you’re not really losing anything by giving it a go.
