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The Problem

Every 5–6 seconds about 1 new young person somewhere in the world starts struggling with mental health.


Fewer than 20% of these young people will seek mental health services help.

Rather, some 70-80% of them turning to online sources for information or help, preferring the privacy, easy access, and greater control over help-seeking.

(Source: Ferrari et al., 2022)

The Challenge

83% of the self-help tools published online are wishy-washy instruments not backed by science. They are designed to attract traffic (''what type of dog are you'' psychological type tests) or advertise questionable paid products to a vulnerable user.

10,000+ mental health apps on the market, but…


Lack of scientific base

Only 17% include at least some tools that are backed by science;

Only 1% include citations to published research.

Lack of Fun & Engagement

Average 30 day user retention rate is at 3%.

vs.

Gaming average: 27%

Card games: 17%

Puzzle games: 13%


(Source: Larsen et al., 2019; Pretorius and Coyle, 2021; Kaveladze et al., 2022; Statista, 2023)

Our Solution

ASWA — Your Personal Sanctuary in the Pocket

Science-based, need-focused, and fueled by fun and kindness.

Every tool is based on science

Every activity, practice tool, or piece of information offered by ASWA is firmly grounded in the most up-to-date science.

Emotion Labeling

Reduces Amygdala Activity, calms emotional reactivity and builds up emotion regulation skills.

(Lieberman et al., 2007)

Emotion Story

Separate fact and interpretation, foundation of cognitive reframing, which is a core practice of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) that can lead to positive emotion, better social functioning, and higher well-being.

(Gross & John, 2003)

Gratitude Journal

Increase positive mood, improves sleep, lower blood pressure, enhances overall well-being.

(Emmons & McCullough, 2003)

Box Breathing

Stress regulation and performance improvement.

(Balban et al., 2023)

Coherent Breathing

Improve cardiovascular function, executive function, and stress management

(Sevoz-Couche & Laborde, 2022)

NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest)

restore dopamine levels, reduce cortisol levels and improve the brain’s ability to learn and remember.

(Fialoke et al., 2024)

Focus Attention Meditation

Strengthen attention, lower stress, and improve emotional self-regulation

(Lutz et al., 2008)

Cyclic Sighing

Great improvement in mood and reduction in stress and anxiety.

(Balban et al., 2023)

Leaves on a Stream Meditation

A core practice of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), reduces intrusive thoughts and decreases anxiety

(Hartnett & Carr, 2013)

Self Compassion Meditation

Reduces stress, anxiety, and depression while boosting happiness and life satisfaction.

(Neff & Germer, 2013)

Sleep Meditation

improves sleep quality, reduces insomnia symptoms, and lowers stress and rumination.

(Ong et al., 2014)

And more…

Every knowledge we share on ASWA, we include the link to the citation of the original research

Every real location white noise we offer on Aswa, is based on research


For example: We offer a variety of real location recordings of birds singing in forest, because listening to birdsongs — even through headphones for just six minutes proven to significantly reduce anxiety and paranoia, lifted mood, and boosted overall well-being. (Stobbe, 2022)


Crafted with their needs at heart

We started with….

200+

Literature Reviews

385

Facebook Posts Analysis

249

Existing Apps Evaluation

72

Interviews

To Understand

Their major source of distress:

  • Intergenerational Cultural Conflict
  • MH Needs Denied/dismissed
  • Desire for Social Connections
  • Academic/Performance Stress
  • Social Comparison
  • Conflict at Work/School
  • … …

Mental Health Support they need the most:

  • Emotion Validation/Place to Vent
  • Advice & Guidance
  • Self-Affirmation and Compassion
  • Self-Esteem
  • Work/Study Life Balance
  • Collaboration (not Competition)
  • Gratitude
  • … …

Features they want most

  • Safe Space/Anonymous
  • Gamified, Fun, Interactive vibes
  • Badge Rewards
  • Content Heavy
  • Visual Heavy
  • Simple, Light
  • … …

To design and reiterate

We’ve gone through four generations of design, continuously refining and reiterating features and designs based on feedback from each version.

All the fun, rooted in safety & kindness

This is a safe space where users can receive science-backed guidance, support, and encouragement. We prioritize this principle in every aspect of our design.

Examples

Only supportive responses are allowed through icons.

A dedicated AI API monitors for any signs of danger and provides hotline information when needed.

Turn self-care into real-world kindness—making every mental health practice meaningful*

Note* Users earn points by practicing with science-based mental health tools — like emotion labeling or gratitude journal — and use them to grow a digital sanctuary filled with plants and mysterious creatures. But it doesn’t stop there: sustained practice will unlock real impact.
For example, practice for 30 days, and your digital bunny unlocks a donation to rescue a real one. Meditate for 100 hours to gift mental health access to a friend in need. Collect 10 unique types of trees, and we’ll plant one through ASWA-verified frontline NGOs.

We connect self-care to global care — making every practice moment truly meaningful.

Where we're right now

We're actively developing the app and current Apple Testflight prototype contains following core toolset:



Emotional logging

Give emotion a label and make sense of what and why you feel it. (A problem well stated is a problem half-solved!)

Additionally, we're implementing:

  • Personalized AI encouragement based on what user wrote;
  • A feed where you can share and read emotional login stories from other aswanians (you're not alone!);



Self - Gratitude journal

To remind users of their strength by showing them the support and resources available to them, and to help rewire their response during moments of anxiety — from feeling overwhelmed to believing '' I'm a unique masterpiece, and I got this''.



Knowledge gem

We figured that typical human isn't necessary keen to curling up with the paper like ‘'Personalized State Anxiety Detection: An Empirical Study with Linguistic Biomarkers and A Machine Learning Pipeline’ (Wang et al., 2023) for a cozy evening read.
But a game that subtly incorporates its insights? Now that’s engaging!
We are bringing this to ASWA. You can try to catch shooting stars that are periodically falling in your sanctuary's sky, and if you get one, you'll receive an actionable, interesting knowledge gem fact that can help you live your life better.



Mindfulness

Guided breathworks and meditation flow to attack specific issue right now at this moment: anxiety, insomnia, tiredness, etc. Aswanian just taps on the north star in the sanctuary and selects what they want to gain right now: to refresh, to relax, to untangle thoughts, etc.

Emotional logging flow visualisation video

Sanctuary

You can try ASWA for yourself here:





Where we're going

The last couple of months has been intense in building the groundwork and fundamentals for the app's infrastructure, design and mechanics.
Now our focus is to get it out of the prototype stage.
We're working on making the app feel smooth, extremely easy to use, and look beautiful.
There are millions of big and small things we’d like to fix and implement to give ASWA the treatment it deserves — so it can give back to users a million times more.

Here are our 4 main focus areas at the moment:


1. Intense polishing

We're finishing up the infrastructure and main functionality soon and our biggest target after this is to focus extremely on solving all the navigational quirks, polishing functionality, addressing edge-cases. Make the app feel and look beautiful and effortless to the user. Using ASWA must be a pure joy, and as simple as taking a pill.

2. Deep Personalisation

We're working on building an interconnected personalisation algorithm that will use previous user inputs to surface the technics or stories in the feed that are the most relevant/helpful based on the current mental journey.

2 quick personalisation examples:

  • We'll use the emotional logging flow data to serve relevant shooting stars knowledge gem facts to help the user overcome what they are fighting right now (let's say we see that the user subsequently logged issues around depression, so for the knowledge gem, we will serve more facts that can help the user overcome depression instead of serving facts that might not be relevant atm)
  • Or when a user completes the emotional logging flow and navigates to the feed, our algorithm can serve them stories from users who currently experience similar feelings or have just overcome these feelings, so the user can see support and the light at the end of the tunnel.

3. Deep Gamification

We don't want to make using ASWA feel like work; we want to make it feel like play.
That's why we're working on adding lots of gaming mechanics.

2 quick gamification examples:

  • the more you use ASWA — the more aswa coins you get that you can use to personalise your sanctuary by purchasing different objects, expanding your land, etc.

  • small satisfying mini/fidgety games inside ASWA like catching shooting stars, playing with emotional bubbles, spinning sanctuary, etc.

4. Content and mechanics based on user feedback

We need to run test user cohorts through the app to gather their feedback and steer the app into direction that gives the most value based on the feedback we'll receive.


Follow live development here

ASWA

— Your Personal Sanctuary in the Pocket

Please help us bring science-based personal sanctuaries to the pockets of young Earthlings all over the world.

*ASWA is made with Unreal Engine

Made with