Let Calm.com Teach You How to Chill the Eff Out
At any given time in the day, you might have roughly a dozen tabs open on your browser window — EACH browser window. Maybe it’s time to make sure just one of those tabs is focused on helping improve your mood with something other than cat videos or Beyonce GIFs. Calm.com wants to be that browser tab during your 9 to 5 and now anytime, with the recent launch of their mobile app.
Type calm.com into a browser (a different one than this, of course ;) and you instantly pick up what the site is putting down. You’re greeted with a beautiful nature scene, like some gorgeous Bachelor date-worthy beach, trees and mountains bathed in Edward Cullen vampire glitter or rolling cotton candy clouds. Make sure you have your headphones handy and be prepared to mute Spotify for a sec, because the corresponding sound is pretty freaking glorious. That’s nature, you say? Hadn’t heard of it before now.
You can just hang out here and let the scenery change on a loop or choose your favorite and get down to relaxation town. Choose between gently guided meditation or a timer that counts out your cool down for as few as two minutes or as long as 20.
Calm will help you say om sweet om at work or on-the-go, and actually wants to teach you how to meditate on the reg with a soothing guide that helps you through simple steps to reconnect with the whole mind, body, spirit thang you hear about in yoga sometimes. It’s weird at first having someone tell you how to breathe, but once they do, you’re like — crap, I do this wrong pretty often!
Get the same calm [dot] com from the iPhone app, which pitches itself as a sanctuary in your pocket. Besides the same relaxation the browser option offers, the mobile app guides you through “The 7 Steps of Calm” to teach the practice of meditation with an easy-to-follow program you can access anywhere.
What started as a website to help you take a break from your day is growing into a movement. The site’s creator Alex Tew wants to move beyond meditation and expand the company to help improve other areas of your life. You could see calm.com help a friend quit smoking or encourage you and your coworkers to tap into your creativity in new ways. As Alex put it to TechCrunch, “If we could be the Netflix of personal development, that would be cool.” Very cool.
Right before we sat down to write this, we noticed that the little phrase on our tea bag read: “A relaxed mind is a creative mind.” Hmm, must be a sign. Om, it is!
How do you unwind? Would you try Calm.com? Have you ever tried meditation? Share why or why not and if it worked for YOU below!
