This App Sends You Food To Combat Your Stress

Picture this: It's Friday evening, and after a long and stressful week, you're pretty hungry. All day, you've been wondering what to eat to feel better, and the only thing you have to show for it is indecision and a headache. There's an app that exists for this exact scenario. It claims to match you with the perfect foods to offset your ailments and put you in a better mood.

Per Restaurant Business, myAir is a mobile app and snack bar company that measures a user's stress levels and sends a customized variety of wellness-boosting superfood bars to their home each month. According to the myAir website, the bars are made with plant-based ingredients and adaptogens to keep customers nourished, full, and relaxed. Rachel Yarcony and Dovev Goldstein, who have both worked in the food and pharmaceutical business, founded the company to help combat stress — something very prevalent in today's world. As interesting as it sounds to match someone's physiological state to specific foods, it's natural to have some questions about this service. For one, how does it work?

MyAir is on a quest to use artificial intelligence to help us determine what our daily nutritional intake should be. The app has users complete an online questionnaire exploring their cognitive responses to stress and wear a smartwatch to monitor their "physiological responses to stress, including alterations in heart rate, respiration, sleep quality, and physical activity." The app's patent-pending algorithm then personalizes a selection of myAir nutrition bars to help manage the user's stress levels.

What goes into a stress-lowering snack bar? MyAir uses all-natural health supplements such as adaptogens — non-toxic plants that may help the body adapt to stress, per Time — alongside dates, sunflower seeds, and other superfoods. Last year, the app conducted a study of participants two weeks before and after they began eating myAir bars daily, tracking their physiological data through Garmin-brand smartwatches. They found improvements in 73% of participants' stress levels and 84% of their sleep levels, according to NutritionInsight. MyAir guarantees users their money back if they are not satisfied with the product, which comes at a rather critical time: The World Health Organization declared stress a "worldwide epidemic" in 2016 (via SciTech Connect), and COVID-19 has no doubt intensified the issue.