How to Connect with Your Community

“Friendship is magic” isn’t just a saying. Meta-analyses show that people with close friends live longer, happier lives. 

That’s real, close friends, not a pile of randos on a broad social network who have no skin in your game and vice versa. 

In line with research that shows strong social ties support happiness and health, The Better Lab app makes it possible for you to follow the progress of your friends or family members as they develop healthy sleep practices using the Better Lab app. And those friends and family members can help you stay on track and support you on your journey towards better sleep, too. 

Accessing the Community feature

You can access the Community area of the app by clicking on the Community tab in the bottom navigation area. 

Following friends and family

First, access the Connections page by clicking on the Following button in the upper right corner of Your Community

From there, you can follow friends and family by clicking the Follow icon in the upper right corner of the Connections page.

Enter or copy in the cell phone number of your friend and we will let you know if they are already using the app. If you see their name, just click request to follow. Your friend will see a notification in their app and if they have SMS messaging from The Better Lab enabled, we will send them a message letting them know they have a request to follow them. Once they accept, they can also request to follow you back.

If your friend isn’t already using The Better Lab app, we will let you know and you can invite them to join by clicking the Invite button, which will open the Share Tray where you can text or email your friend an invite to download the app. Once they download the app, they will see a notification in the app and can accept your follow request in the Community tab and request to follow you back.

Accepting follow requests

If someone requests to follow you, you will see a notification in the app and receive an SMS message if you have messaging from The Better Lab enabled. You can accept their request and if you aren’t already following them, reciprocate by requesting to follow them back.

Seeing Your Friends’ Progress

You can see your weekly progress and each of the friends you follow on the main community page. For each person, you can see what practice they are currently working on and days they have completed it with green check marks and days they haven’t yet completed it in dark grey. Friends who are following you will see your progress too

Managing your Community 

Only people you accept can follow you and see your practice progress. If you want to remove a follower, simply go to the Followers tab and click the Remove button next to their name

If you want to stop following someone, go to the Following tab and click the Unfollow button next to their name.

If you have any questions or feedback about our community experience, please email support@thebetterlab.io.