Wellness On The Blockchain: A Tech Solution To A Tech Problem

Digital devices are designed to play to our brain’s reward systems. We get a reward response every time we need something and immediately fine it on our phones. We also get reward responses by using social media, especially if we get a lot of likes. It’s a pretty basic tenant of human psychology that when something gives us a good feeling we are going to keep on doing it. Now there’s a way to leverage that to trick us into being healthier and happier. Welcome to the brave new world of wellness on the blockchain.

Remember a decade ago when everyone was getting pedometers? In offices across America, there were leaderboards where people competed to get the most steps in. It was a very rewarding feeling to be doing something to make your life a little better, and technology was providing people with the ability to do so. Now imagine that new technology could help you get paid for all your efforts toward greater wellness.

That’s the idea behind wellness on the blockchain. In theory, every time you meditate, do yoga or even learn something new you could be rewarded with cryptocurrency for doing so. The whole system could be gamified so that there would be leaderboards and you could compete with other participants to see who rakes in the most rewards.

Wellness for its own sake should be enough, right? Unfortunately, it is not for most people. Things like working and spending time with your family often take precedence over wellness because those things come with their own natural rewards. We know that lifelong learning can also reduce feelings of depression and anxiety and lessen the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease, but oftentimes without some sort of diploma or certification that gives you real-world benefits the motivation to do so just isn’t there – about 90% of people who enroll in online courses drop out within 2 weeks.

So if social media stresses us out and there’s not enough reward for learning and exercise is an afterthought, it makes total sense that putting a reward system in place could help more people to achieve their wellness goals. Wouldn’t you feel greater motivation to do yoga if you knew there was a little cryptocurrency at the end of your vinyasa?

Technology is the thing that is sucking away most of our time and stressing us out, but it can also be the thing that saves us. We are wired to respond to technology, or rather technology is wired to play to the way our brains are wired, so it makes sense that gamification of wellness can flip a negative to a positive. Rewards worked when it was a sticker chart in preschool and it continues to work through monetary rewards as we get older. Blockchain technology is a unique way to combine all the different things our brains seek in the latest technology.

Gamification on the blockchain has a great deal of potential to enhance wellness. Learn more about wellness on the blockchain from this infographic!