Thrive App
Here at Cave HQ, like so many other offices, WE HATE STRESS! There we said it, while we’re on a roll, we also dislike people forcing mindfulness, NLP and any other form of animal management on to our small team, apart from Ugg, who in his own defence is an animal (we are not sure he knows what a knife and fork are used for) and any training will be helpful. We know that most people consider themselves their own guru’s and experts and will not like that analogy but for us in a normal, busy, hectic life we cannot always stop to rub our earlobes or massage essential fish oils into our armpits, whilst beating a wearable triangle fitted over our heads (yes we’ve seen them).
That said we know and believe in the need to reduce daily stress. For the people who use technology to get the message across in a more gentler and not wearing a tie dye T-shirt fashion, but in realistic way (not forcing it down our throats) this is the right way to do it. Well we think we have just found the perfect vessel to reduce our daily stress, a new and wonderful app.
We trialled this app for only a week and have got some real results, it showed real promise and for long term use we are sure it has real potential to reducing stress hence the exciting review.
Thrive
Thrive is a downloadable, interactive and fun wellness app (we are on Android but it is available from Apple store as well) and put quite simply it is beautiful (we never thought that word would come out of our office)!
We were not aware that it was a ‘mindfulness’ thing and it could have ended up in the deleted pile, especially when these things tend to come with the warning label “beware mindfulness approaches” and promise to sort out all our stress problems.
No this app was better than all these well-being gurus, it just states it wants to help. We do not want to re-write what they have on their website – which can be viewed here https://thrive.uk.com/ instead we want to concentrate on how we used it and what we found.
So it seemed we were suckered into a mindfulness app but we were glad we gave it a go. The test of the app was nothing like we expected or have ever seen before. There has been some real input from the ‘right people’ as well as having a cracking techie team in the background to put it all together.
These screen shots do not do the app justice as opening the app we were greeted with a floating character who guided us through the initial set up and who wanted to check up on us. Everyone will get different results, Bob was told to go get help, but we have been telling him that for years.
The islands
Once we had the results we were free to roam the app and have a proper look around. We were amazed at the smoothness of the programme, the character movements and even the sea lapping at the shores. Tapping on anything, any item or scene caused something to happen, whether it was a function or just a background image.
We thought we were in a music video, shaking the coconut tree and making boxes jump (yes we are from the 80’s) but the fun and smart design make the whole thing feel and look slick and was really engaging.
In each corner of the screen were island symbols and we quickly worked out that these scrolled island, allowing us to island hop finding new features and stress relieving functions.
A pair of headphones is a must for the first island which gives us the functions of teaching and leading us how to breath, meditate and deep muscle relaxation.
Each of these functions give an introduction, instructions and then an option to chose how long we wanted to do that particular exercise. we did 5 minutes, finding it was long enough but we agreed that with practice the time would be easily extended.
The soothing female worked well for us and we did feel better after the 3 exercises however be warned if you touch your phone during an exercise you will be told off, we found out the hard way whilst trying to take screen shots, honest.
Zen Garden
So the next island has an interesting feature, the zen garden! We had a go and were instant experts, check out our Zen doodle! Saving, updating, creating and sharing our own sandpit creations was good fun and after a few minutes playing made us smile and feel better. Bob and Ugg said they could even taste the sand when they did theirs!?!
The Zen garden is a cool feature and we can see ourselves loosing a few hours, chilling whilst we create the next masterpiece.
Results and motivation
The final island has the results and progress functions, after only a week ours looked a little bare but we could see the workings and knew that more data after continued use would provide us with some great feedback. Progress charts and recommendations were very good motivational tools.
The message in the bottle is a nice feature, sending messages to other app users and the wellbeing chest told us we drank too much – we didn’t like that chest. They might have a point, as we did tell them we liked a tipple and if we are honest we could do with cutting back a little… Grog on the other hand has a different thought on the matter, but he still cannot work out what to do with socks, so we do not listen to him much.
Costs
Before we get into the costs, we have to point out this is a high value, professional app. We found that it offered a free introductory membership, to show off how it all worked and this is well worth sampling to work out for yourself.
We were incredibly impressed with Thrive and we have to ask that anyone that needs help, to truly consider the cost against the true benefit this app can offer.
As of August this is the costing form their website –
For those that look at the cost and worry is seems like a lot, we would like you to consider this… When upset, we end up buying a chocolate bar or two (that is up to £1.50 a day down the drain and a few ounces to our weigh in totals at the end of the week). We truly believe that it is well worth less than the £1 a week (yearly) to use the exercises and to map the progress instead of chocolate or Pokemon cards.
For this cost we think it has a true value, that the money to value ratio is well worth it.
Conclusion
The work and magic put into this app has clear advantages over many other stress busting options. Any app that has this level of engagement and has a want to reduce stress is clearly worth a look. For those that agree we us we think it is worth every penny.
Thrive is a brand new app and has such potential to grow and improve itself, that we truly wish to see this programme expand and become a true stress battler that it is destined to be.
Good job Thrive HQ – we love it!
