I Can’t Live Without: Calm

Why the blue meditation app works so well

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…