Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
Alejo Marin / Pexels
Wellness > Mental Health

Calm & Alltrails’ Mental Health Awareness Month Initiative Wants You To Touch Grass, Literally

Katheryn Prather

Now that the weather is finally breaking for spring and summer, it’s about time you got outside. Someone has probably told you that getting off the internet and outside can be great for your mental health, but if you’re still looking for a little extra motivation to get outside, consider making it a goal during Mental Health Awareness Month. This May, spending time outside can even get you extra benefits to your practices with a collaboration between AllTrails and Calm. 

Here’s the deal: Starting May 1, the mental health app Calm is partnering with AllTrails to offer three months of Calm for free if you record a hike with AllTrails. That means that while you’re getting outside to benefit your mental health, you’re also getting access to the resources Calm offers, including guided meditations and soundscapes to work, relax, or sleep to. Sounds like a plan to me. 

ICYMI, Calm is a mental health app mainly known for its resources to help with sleep and meditation, but it also includes resources to encourage mindfulness and movement. There are some free offerings, however most of the resources require a subscription (monthly or yearly). If you’re looking for a sleep aid or some help trying out meditation, Calm may be a good place to start new habits. 

Calm’s new partner, AllTrails, may be primarily known as a hiking app, but it has other functions as well. At its base, AllTrails is free, so you can use it and get the bonus access to Calm for 3 months without paying anything to start. If you’re a hard-core outdoorsy person, there is a subscription plan that allows you to download maps among other features.

AllTrails includes resources to plan exercises or to follow established trails for hiking, biking, running, and other forms of outdoor exercise. User reviews allow you to get a sense of a trail before you try it out for yourself, so you know what to expect.

In addition, a cobranded collection called “Sounds Of The Top Trails” will be released on the Calm app, featuring soundscapes directly from five hikes across the U.S. All you have to do for this deal is record a hike you take with AllTrails (you can design your own or take one of their arranged routes), and then try out Calm! (P.S.: they have a student discount, too. Thank me later.)

Katheryn Prather is a Her Campus national writer for the Wellness section, with particular interest in mental health and LGBTQ+ issues. Katheryn is studying Creative Writing and Linguistics at Emory University and trying to get fluent in Spanish. Her obsession with all things language is found from her coursework to her writing, which spans from songs and short stories to full-blown fantasy novels. Beyond writing for herself, class, and Her Campus, Katheryn also serves on the executive board of Emory’s Voices of Inner Strength Gospel Choir, where she sings alto. In her free time, Katheryn can often be found writing and revising, reading, or being disappointed by the Dallas Cowboys.