Aloe Bud Vs Sayana; This Is Modern Self-Love

Teresa Chia explores personalised apps that introduce new habits and help us to incorporate new ways of self-care into our daily lives.

Aloe Bud (right) and Sayana (left) are available on both the App Store and Google Store. PHOTO CREDIT | Teresa Chia

We have always been told that health is wealth. Now we can use free self-care apps to improve our mental and physical health. Aloe Bud and Sayana are two popular self-care apps with many different functions and features that claim to improve your mental and physical health by taking small steps daily.

Ms Heidi Tan, 24, psychology undergraduate from Singapore University of Social Sciences said: “Self-care is a subjective* concept as different people have different self-care needs. People tend to neglect their mental and physical health to pursue academic or work excellence.”

A good self-care app should be easy to use with a user-friendly interface, contain relevant information and most importantly provide users with different functions to target their specific needs. However, what works for others might not work for you as everyone’s mind and bodies function differently and not everyone will get the same results.

Aloe Bud and Sayana’s main dashboards boasts clean and minimal designs

PHOTO CREDIT | Teresa Chia

Both apps offer a great User-Interface (UI) and require minimal effort to navigate. Aloe bud boasts a clean but bright platform in a refreshing turquoise. The app is very straightforward and only requires a few minutes to set up a personalised dashboard.

Sayana also has a very minimal and simple UI but takes quite some time to set up. Aloe Bud’s check-in system is also less time-consuming compared to Sayana but Sayana is an app that takes time to understand your feelings and provide solutions accordingly.

Function wise, Aloe Bud offers many functions such as to motivate you to exercise and reflect on your day’s motivations. You can customise what reminders you would like to have on your app main dashboard such as; Breathe, Rest, Fuel, Move, Stimulate, Hydrate and many more. You can set reminders to drink water throughout the day or even one to rest at 11:30 pm.

Sayana check-in tip for feeling stressed from studies and unrealistic expectations.

PHOTO CREDIT | Teresa Chia

Sayana, however, only caters to mental health. But what Sayana offers that Aloe Bud does not are tips and recommendations on how to improve or maintain your mental health state. Aloe Bud allows users to share their thoughts but is only limited to that. Sayana is an awareness self-care app that helps you to get more in touch with your feelings and provide tips on how to deal with and overcome negative feelings and boost positive feelings.

Michelle Chew, 20, shared: “Sayana helps to keep my emotions in check and every time I check-in with the app, it’s like I’m knowing myself better so that I can improve myself. The best part is that they give me tips on how to make things better.”

All the tips given are personalised and according to how the user is feeling and the cause of that feeling. When users log in positive feelings, the reflection allows me to look back at their positive feelings again. All their tips are backed up by scientific research and facts.

It is recommended to check-in at least three times a day for both apps. Once in the morning, another time in the afternoon and the last time at night about an hour before you go to bed. For Aloe Bud, you can separately track the number of snacks you eat or the number of cups of water you drink as many times.

Throughout the day, both apps will also send users notifications to remind them to check-in.

It is difficult to commit to logging in emotions, water, rest and snacks every single day consistently at first but after a while, it will become a part of your daily routine.

If you are looking for an app that helps keep you physically and mentally in check, Aloe Bud is perfect to suit your daily needs. But if you want to invest more time and effort into your mental health, Sayana will do that for you.

When you start to consistently log and check-in, you will notice that you naturally started focusing on positive things and lesser on the negative. Becoming less fixated on negative thoughts will help to improve your mental health significantly.

*Words have been edited with interviewees consent due to errors in word use.