How Stillee works
Journal and mood: how Stillee's daily check-in works
Stillee's journal is a daily check-in with four parts: sleep, mood, self-care and a short written log. What you write is kept out of our analytics and is encrypted at rest with a key unique to your account.
The daily check-in
The journal opens on Daily Reflection, four cards: Sleep, Today's Mood, Self Care and Daily Log. Each is a small task of its own, so a bad day can be one tap on a mood. We built it that way so the journal still works when you have nothing to give it.
The same four sit on Today as a row of check-ins: Sleep, Self-care, Mood and Journal. Between 1 and 5 AM the row is gone, because the 3 AM mode asks nothing of you.
Self Care has two groups. Vitals are the basics you logged, like hydration, food and rest. Acts are small joys you noticed, like a walk, a book or music. You can add your own items, up to 16 characters.
Mood: 56 words, one tap
Today's Mood is a grid of 56 named feelings, grouped as Positive, Calm, Neutral, Anxious and Sad. Worried, overwhelmed, restless, numb and hopeful are all there. "Fine" isn't a feeling.
Each feeling carries a score from 1 to 5, and that score is what colors your calendar and builds your trends. You never rate yourself. You name what is true, and the app does the arithmetic. One tap saves it and closes the screen.
We built it around naming because of the research on affect labeling, below. The score is a plotting aid. It is not a clinical measure of anything.
If you log a low mood, the app starts no sales asks for the rest of that session, no subscription screen and no rating prompt.
The Daily Log, and prompts that know something
The Daily Log has two steps. First come three short gratitude prompts. Then a free-text entry headed "Today's story, in your own words."
The prompt behind the entry comes from what you told us when you signed up. If you named work as a stress, you get questions about work. If racing thoughts keep you awake, you get "What thoughts are you ready to set down before sleep?" The prompt rotates by day and never changes mid-entry. Skip onboarding and you get a general set.
Prompts also come from the practice. Each program week ends in a journal reflection. A session can end in a mood check.
Seeing it over time
Your Week, on the Me tab, shows a strip of the week's moods, your current and longest streak, the month's top moods, and cards for the week's sleep and self-care.
Insights opens from Your Week, with two tabs.
- Month: a calendar you can read as color or as emoji, patterns such as your best weekday, trends, and sleep and self-care alongside mood.
- Year: every day of the year in one view, your best months and averages, and a search through past entries.
What happens to what you write
Two facts are true here, and we keep them apart.
- Analytics. On the journal screens, session replay is stopped and what you type is masked. What you write is never part of our analytics.
- Encryption. Journal entries are encrypted at rest with AES-256, using a key unique to the user account. That covers the words you write. Mood and sleep numbers are not encrypted, because they power your trends.
Entries sync to your account, which is how you get them back after a lost phone. We manage the key, so this protects stored data. It is not a promise that nobody at Stillee could ever read an entry.
What the research says
Neither study tested Stillee or a mood log.
- Affect labeling. In a brain-imaging study, putting a name to the emotion in a picture reduced the amygdala's response, compared with other tasks on the same pictures. [1] It was a lab task with images, not a diary, and it did not measure anxiety symptoms.
- Expressive writing. A meta-analysis of 146 randomized studies, in which people wrote about personal topics, found a positive average effect of r = .075. That is small, and the authors found it varied with moderators. [2]
For a longer look at the evidence, see our journal guide.
What it won't do
- It isn't therapy, a diagnosis or a clinical mood instrument. The 1 to 5 scores color your calendar and nothing else.
- It doesn't ask you for anything at 3 AM or during a panic.
- It doesn't send "your streak is at risk" notifications.
- It doesn't claim that writing will lower your anxiety. The research above is modest, and we say so.
What's free
The journal is free for everyone: the daily check-in, mood, the Daily Log, Self Care and your streak. Your Week is free too. Insights, with its Month and Year tabs, is part of Premium. Free users see a locked preview of each tab, with the streak and the current week still open. We put the paywall on depth, not on writing. Your words and your mood log are never behind it.
- Free, forever
- The panic flow · The 3 AM mode and the 3 AM tracks · The breathing Shapes · Your journal · After the Wave, from the Sound Bath shelf
- Premium
- $3.33 a month, billed $39.90 a year, or $6.99 month to month. Free trial on the yearly plan in the App Store. Cancel anytime. Adds: Every program, including the full 8-week MBSR course · The sleep library and the Sound Bath shelf · The deeper insights.
- Where it runs
- iPhone today. Android is planned.
FAQ
Is the Stillee journal free?
Yes. Writing, mood logging, Self Care and your streak are free. Your Week on the Me tab is free as well. Premium adds Insights: the month calendar, patterns and trends, and the year view. Free users see a locked preview there.
Who can see what I write?
Entry text is kept out of our analytics, and session replay is stopped on the journal screens. Entries are encrypted at rest with AES-256, using a key unique to your account. We manage that key, so we don't describe it as private from us. It protects stored data.
Is the mood log a clinical assessment?
No. You pick one of 56 named feelings, and each carries a score from 1 to 5 that colors your calendar and trends. It doesn't screen for or diagnose anything. If you're worried about how you feel, talk to a doctor or a therapist.
Do I have to write every day?
No. There are no 11 PM badges and no "your streak is at risk" notifications. You can log a mood in one tap, write a line or skip the day, and nothing nags you about it.
References
- [1] Lieberman MD, Eisenberger NI, Crockett MJ, Tom SM, Pfeifer JH, Way BM. Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychol Sci 2007;18(5):421-428. Link
- [2] Frattaroli J. Experimental disclosure and its moderators: a meta-analysis. Psychol Bull 2006;132(6):823-865. Link