I Can’t Live Without: Calm

Why the blue meditation app works so well

Kelsey McKinney
OneZero

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Like any true Texan, I got hooked by Matthew McConaughey.

“How often do we really feel what’s happening within and around us?” he asks in that all too familiar drawl, his words spaced a little too far apart. The story he tells is called “Wonder,” and it’s one you aren’t supposed to finish. This is a story meant to put you to sleep, a bedtime story for adults. It’s featured on the homepage of the first billion-dollar wellness app: Calm.

My therapist recommended the app to me in early December during a particularly stressful work experience. For weeks, I ignored her. I had tried other meditation apps she suggested over the years, only for them to feel like they were another obligation I couldn’t get right, like exercise or taking my antidepressants. But Calm followed me around the internet after her recommendation. I saw ads for it on Instagram and while streaming television. In early February, my therapist mentioned that Matthew McConaughey read a bedtime story on the app — and I caved.

Calm is the top-grossing health and fitness app on iOS and 20th highest grossing overall. It was declared a unicorn company, valued at just over $1 billion shortly after I downloaded it. The company says it has more than 40 million downloads and 1 million paid

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OneZero
OneZero

Published in OneZero

OneZero is a former publication from Medium about the impact of technology on people and the future. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Kelsey McKinney
Kelsey McKinney

Written by Kelsey McKinney

Kelsey McKinney is a freelance writer who lives in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, GQ, Vanity Fair, and many others.