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Getting America To Check In With Itself
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# Getting America To Check In With Itself

Lori Kozlowski
Contributor
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

I write about entrepreneurs, start-ups and the tech scene in L.A.

Jan 28, 2013,12:41pm EST

Updated Jan 28, 2013, 12:41pm EST

This article is more than 10 years old.

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Modern life dictates a certain amount of stress -- from traffic, to morning routines, to our jobs, to the juggle of personal life and workplace.

The trouble of it is that America has overdosed. The United States is one of the most stressed out nations in the world.

According to the American Psychological Association, one in three Americans report being extremely stressed. The World Health Organization has called stress “the health epidemic of the 21st century.”

To counter the stark reality, in 2010, Hamet Watt and Paul Campbell co-founded Los Angeles-based startup bLife -- focused on helping Americans to live their best lives. The company offers a portfolio of mobile-based psychological fitness tools that help people develop mental and emotional strength and resilience to stress. They deliver these tools in partnership with leading experts, scientists and brands, including Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky.

“We started bLife to solve a big problem with global implications,” said Campbell. “We looked very carefully at the health technology landscape and realized that one of the most obvious of all problems was not being solved.  With so much activity focused on physical wellness, it seemed that psychological wellness, which is arguably at the core of all health, was not being addressed.”

“As we learned more about the major healthcare epidemic we are experiencing in America and many other parts of the world, it became clear that technology, applied intelligently, with the right design, could play an important role in supporting people to live healthier and happier by providing real-time data, personal insights, coaching, and social support,” said Watt.

Both tech entrepreneurs, Campbell was the president of QD3 Entertainment, a multi-platform media company, and formerly served as the Director of Business Development at Microsoft, while Watt previously co-founded MoviePass and NextMedium.

bLife is centered on the idea that it’s not just our bodies that keep us healthy. It’s our brains, too. According to bLife -- one key to remaining happy -- is to work the brain like a muscle.

“Recent research in neuroscience has uncovered that the brain, just like other muscles in the body, can be trained and is functionally strengthened, cognitively and psychologically, through exercise.  In general, this is called neuroplasticity and has major implications for brain and body health,” said Watt.

“Specifically, these psychological ‘muscles’ include mindfulness or staying in the present, willpower, gratitude, compassion, hope, optimism, and other positive emotions, that deliver not only psychological rewards but also physiological health benefits,” said Campbell.

Most recently, bLife launched GPS for the Soul -- an iPhone app, created in partnership with Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post.

The ultimate goal behind the app is to get individuals to check in with themselves.

The power in the daily check-in lies in a momentary pause to gather oneself and get breathing and heart rates back to normal pace.

The app offers the following features:

- A biosensor that uses the iPhone camera to measure heart rate and calculate a user’s heart rate variability, which is a proxy for stress.
- A set of pre-loaded multimedia guides comprised of pictures, music, quotes, and video designed to make a user a feel good and reduce his/her stress.
- Tools for users to personalize the app by creating their own guides (including their own pictures, quotes, and video clips).
- Social support from close friends who a user invites to join in using the app.

In addition to GPS for the Soul, bLife will be launching other apps and services in 2013.

“We have a ‘ big hairy audacious goal’ -- to quote the business author, Jim Collins -- to make psychological fitness just as important and relevant to solving the healthcare epidemic as physical fitness,” said Watt.

“Over the next few years, the amount of personal health data is going to explode, as a result of the proliferation of sensors -- in our smartphones, watches and other devices. But data, alone, won't solve this problem. The data needs to have meaning for the user,” said Campbell.

“Our tools will help users make sense of all this data by integrating what's happening in the mind and body, and presenting tailored solutions and social support, resulting in what the 1st century Roman poet Juvenal called - Mens sana in corpore sano or a ‘healthy mind in a healthy body.’”