I have OCD and most wellness apps made my anxiety worse, so I built one that doesn't
Most wellness apps are built around streaks, goals, and optimization. Hit your target. Don't break the chain. Level up. For me, that's a nightmare. I have OCD, and apps that pressure me to be "optimal" every day just became another thing to obsess over. Miss a day? Spiral. Score too low? Spiral. The app that was supposed to help was making things worse.
So I built Tranqui, a wellness tracker where the goal isn't to max out, it's to stay balanced.
The core idea: You have a 0-100 energy arc. The sweet spot isn't 100, it's the middle (45-60). Too high means you're overextending. Too low means you're neglecting yourself. The app gently encourages you to find center, not push harder.
What makes it different:
• No streaks. Miss a day? Nothing breaks. No guilt. Just pick it up when you're ready.
• Daily intentions, not goals. You set 3 soft intentions each day. No punishment for skipping them.
• Calm Mode: one toggle hides all the gamification (XP, levels, achievements) if it's stressing you out. The app adapts to you, not the other way around.
• Guided breathing exercises, box breathing, 4-7-8, resonant breathing, body scan, grounding. Shows up right on the home screen, and on tough days it'll suggest one automatically.
• 100% private, no account, no cloud, no data collection. Everything stays on your device. There's literally a "Delete All My Data" button.
What I learned building this:
Every wellness app I looked at was designed for neurotypical people who just need a nudge. But for people with anxiety, OCD, or perfectionist tendencies, those nudges become pressure. The hardest design decision was making the "optimal" zone the middle, not the top. It goes against every gamification instinct, but it's the whole point.
Tech: Native SwiftUI, zero external dependencies, 33k lines of Swift. No backend, no analytics, no tracking. Just the app on your phone.
Available now on the App Store, free with a premium tier ($6.99/mo or $39.99/yr) for breathing exercises and advanced insights.
Would love to hear from anyone else who's struggled with wellness apps making things worse instead of better. How do you think about "balance vs optimization" in your own life?
