What is it:
Bloom is an app for your iPhone or iPad that provides you with tools to help you sleep better, reduce your stress levels and live a more relaxed lifestyle.
This mindfulness app wasn’t created by a room full of middle-aged men trying to cash in on the mental health issues of younger generations but instead was the brainchild of two young, female, Australian entrepreneurs Chloe Szep and Molly Jane.
“Chloe has suffered with anxiety and I have suffered from depression and over the years we have collected some tools that we know work for us,” says Jane. “We wanted to share what we have learnt and work with other like-minded people to help us all along the way.”
If you have a look on the Apple app store reviews, Bloom has almost 4000 reviews and a score of 4.9/5. Considering the app only launched in August, that’s saying something.
How did I hear about it?
I follow one of the two girls who created Bloom, Chole Szep on Instagram. Chole was teasing that something in the mindful space was coming for a few weeks before Bloom was announced. I love supporting other female business owners so I quickly followed Bloom on Instagram and couldn’t wait to find out more.
Chole and Molly sat down a few times on Bloom’s Instagram stories and explained what Bloom was. The girls saw a need for something accessible, simple and effective in the mindfulness space. The majority of the apps on the market focus around meditation only. However, there is much more to mindfulness than just meditation.
The app looked as though it was going to be a saving grace for people like myself struggling with anxiety, down days, self-confidence and stress.
Along with a couple of thousand other eager stress heads, I downloaded Bloom the day it was released.
Features:
The Bloom subscription gives you access to hundreds of meditations, yoga sessions and mindfulness exercises.
“These are all practical and short tools that you can use to ensure you will have control of your day, instead of the day controlling you,” says Molly.
When you open up the app, you’re asked how are you feeling?
There are 9 different emotions to choose from. Each emotion has a little picture that corresponds to it. Once you choose your mood, you can provide additional details if you like. By entering in more information you can help you find out if there are any patterns with your moods. For example, if you’re always feeling really sad around your period it may be your hormones causing the mood changes. However, if you’re always down in the dumps after a big night out on the drinks then it may be alcohol causing your mood to change.
I reflect on this feature of the app when I have appointments with my naturopath. There is no way I could remember how my moods were for the previous month or 6 weeks in detail if I wasn’t noting it down in Bloom.
After you have chosen your initial mood, you can then pick a more detailed mood. Next up, you choose one of the weather icons to describe how the weather was that day. If you want to add more details there is a section to add notes. You can use this part as a little journal to reflect on your day.
After you have entered all this information Bloom suggests ways it can help you feel better with a couple of daily tools. When I entered in my mood as overwhelmed, the daily tools suggested were:
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- A guided meditation
- A visual meditation
- A tension release activity
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If you don’t feel like doing any of the daily suggested tools you can head into one of the other features and choose something that you’re in the mood for.
BLOOMS EMOTIONAL LIBRARY
The categories in Bloom’s emotional library are:
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- Guided meditations
- Visual meditations
- Breathwork
- Kundalini yoga
- Mindful movement
- Ambient
- Music
- Affirmations
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Once you click into any of categories you can filter by your mood or length of exercise. If you only want to do a quick meditation in under 5 minutes and then you can quickly filter to show only the meditations that are less then 5 minutes and pick one from there.
BLOOMS SLEEP LIBRARY
The fact that there is a whole section just for sleep is one of my favourite features of Bloom.
The sleep library is pretty much exactly the same as the emotional library apart from the fact all the tools are to help you get to sleep or have a better nights sleep.
BLOOM GUIDED MEDITATIONS
Chole and Molly have curated a collection of meditations by some amazing teachers. There is a range of different styles, teachers, themes and lengths.
BLOOM BREATHWORK
Many of us don’t realise how short and quick the breaths we are taking are. Our bodies are tight and tense and we aren’t breathing as deeply as we should be.
The breathwork exercises on Bloom start with an explanation on what breathwork is, what to expect from doing breathwork, a warm-up and then a few meditations.
BLOOM MINDFUL EXPERIENCES
I have tried my fair few of mindfulness apps and never have I come across one with such cool features as the below.
The Bloom app team have gone above and beyond to bring the user numerous ways to calm down and relax. You can colour in, listen to zen music, watch ripples in a pond and much more.
Benefits:
Personally, this app has made me more conscious of my moods, helped me sleep better and strive to better my mental health.
When you’re feeling anxious or stressed, getting work or study done can seem like an impossible task. Even if you manage to sit down at your desk, your concentration and motivation probably won’t be where they need to be. Using an app like Bloom will give you exercises and techniques that you can use anywhere when you need to ground yourself and get back to a more positive mindset.
How you can get it:
Bloom offers users a seven-day free trial to experience the app before committing to a subscription. After the seven-day free trial, you can continue with either a monthly, 3 monthly, yearly or lifetime subscription.
Bloom Monthly Subscription$14.49
Bloom Yearly Subscription$86.99
Bloom Lifetime Subscription$399.99
Bloom Three Month Subscription$34.99
Personally, I signed up initially for the 3 monthly because I wanted to try it before committing. However, I am about to change to the yearly subscription as its more cost-effective.
I would love to know what you guys think of Bloom in the comments. As well as any other mindfulness apps you love using.
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