The Best Meditation Apps to Help You Find Your Zen
You no longer have to travel to find the teacher on the mountaintop. Today, you can have your guru in your pocket with meditation and mindfulness apps.
It's ironic. While our smartphones are our most significant source of distraction, mobile mindfulness and meditation apps can be very effective in helping us achieve the peace we seek. Although they have increasingly flooded the market recently, only a few deserve it. We tested some of the best apps and found the best mindfulness and meditation apps.
What is meditation?
Meditation is a practice that has been around for hundreds of years. First, it was a spiritual and religious practice of Buddhism and Hinduism. Meditation also improves health and well-being and trains breathing, focus and awareness.
You may be anxious and stressed or constantly trying to calm yourself with logic. Meditation, with different breathing techniques and exercises, can help you break free from your standard thought patterns.
Best Meditation Apps Compared
1. Headspace
Headspace welcomes users to its Take 10 program, a 10-day guided meditation hosted by Andy Puddicombe, a former Tibetan monk and current mindfulness advocate and meditation teacher. Andy's meditations provide simple 10-minute sessions each day that can help anyone get into the Habit of slowing down through thought-provoking metaphors and simple, relatable instructions.
Your first ten days fly by, and then you're invited to subscribe for $12.99 per month or $94.99 per year. However, the good thing is that you are not alone in this matter. A fun buddy system feature lets you and a friend sync up within the app and cheer each other on to nirvana.
2. Omvana
Omvana‘s biggest differentiator is how the app allows you to customize your meditation experience completely. The app gives you the mixing console that lets you combine your favourite guided meditations, narrated lessons, and inspirational talks with thousands of high-quality audio tracks and ambient background sounds. You can even upload your voice and mix it with any of their recorded tracks to create your meditations and share them with others. How cool is that?
The app also comes with a few free starter meditations. It gives you access to the Omvana Store, where you can buy thousands of different meditation tracks ranging from three minutes to an hour on hundreds of other topics for under $1. -8.
3. Calm
Like Headspace, Calm offers a free seven-day course for guided meditation exercises, followed by a monthly subscription for $12.99 or an annual subscription for $59.99. After signing up as a paid user, you unlock a 21-day wellness program and a week of sleep stories to help you sleep better every night, along with over 50 other guided meditation programs and bedtime stories that address anxiety and stress. . , concentration, better breathing, etc.
Individual sessions last from 2 to 20 minutes, and countless “unguided” sessions immerse the listener in the rain, rainforest birds chirping, campfire crackling, and other sounds that make this app fit. Name:
4. Simple Habit
Simple Habit is a mindfulHabitand mental health program designed for people on the go, especially those who want to incorporate wellness into their busy days. The app has over 2,000 short meditations and audio therapy sessions that you can use to build mental strength, gain flexibility, or work on focus. There are even more sessions for specific purposes, such as meditation for children or focusing voices for overwhelming or emergencies. One of the best things about the app is that professionals in psychology and health create the content.
Simple Habit's pricing isHabit'sium,” meaning most features are free, but to unlock some meditations or sounds, you'll need to pay a premium ($89.99/year, $11.99/month, or $299.99 lifetime). For life).
5. Buddhify
Buddhify is aimed at those who have always wanted to start a meditation practice but did not know where to start. The app's rainbow-coloured spinning dial asks you what you're doing right now, then provides a series of situation-based meditations you can do on the spot. Are you trying to sleep? Spending unproductive time online? Or deal with some difficult emotions? They have something for every one of those scenarios, and with over 80 different meditation tracks ranging from 5 to 30 minutes each, there's probably something for everyone.
Buddhify also offers a timer, a stats page to track your progress, and social sharing to connect your meditation practice with the broader community. However, unlike other apps on this list, Buddhify has a model where you pay for access completely upfront ($4.99 on iOS and $2.99 on Android) without any introductory period or additional purchases inside the app later.
6. Insight Timer
Insight Timer is a meditation app full of surprises. The app is suitable for amateur and professional meditators, as it has over 100,000 guided meditations that can be adapted to any level of practice. The free app offers many flexibility and features, including a customizable meditation timer and the ability to track your progress with milestones and statistics. Insight Time's interface is relatively modern and welcoming.
One of the most exciting features of Insight Timer is the ability to join a community of meditators. With Insight Timer, you can improve your breathing, relaxation, and sleep, join groups, discuss spiritual topics, read poetry, do transcendental meditation, and more.
7. Smiling Mindmindling Mind is an AMindalianMind-profit organization working to make mindfulness meditation accessible to everyone. Their free is a little different than the others on this list because psychologists and meditation educators originally designed it for people as young as seven. Content is categorized by age group, with specific meditations for 7-9, 10-12, 13-15, 16-18, and adults. Even for kids who shy away from the idea of meditation, Smiling Mind is a great place to start if they're struggling with emotions, anxiety, or insecurity. The tour guide's funny Australian accent doesn't help the attendance either.
8. The Mindfulness App
The Mindfulness app offers everything: multi-hour meditations from influential teachers ranging from 3 to 30 minutes, personalized one-on-one meditations with guided presentations and calls, statistics to help you track your meditation journey, and optional daily reminders to drink. Free time for your meditation practice. The app also has a unique timer that shows a 360-degree circle of slow-moving dots instead of numbers, helping you stay in the moment.
As with the others on this list, there's an introductory period to learn everything the app offers, which lasts a month and is plenty of time to explore. If you decide to go all out after that month, the monthly subscription is $9.99, and the annual subscription is just $59.99.
9. Healthy Minds Program
One thing that sets the Healthy Minds program apart is the scientifically proven process. The app was developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with neuroscience resmindh in mind: HealthMindnds pines meditations, fewer sessions, and a curriculum to track progress and develop long-term skills. You can also reflect on your progress and see where you stand regarding health and learning. Ultimately, Healthy Minds focuses on four key ideas for your wellness practice: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose.
The Healthy Minds Program app is entirely free as part of the program's mission to help people heal and grow through mindfulness. Healthy Minds Innovations is a donation-based non-profit organization.
10. Breathe
Breathe focuses on providing you with meditations that fit any season and time of day. With the app, you can get into the Habit of making habits part of your daily routine. You can answer questions with My Life Kit so the app can better help you, start listening to various ultra-special sounds and meditations, or take masterclasses from experts. Breethe's suggestions are creative and down-to-earth.
You can sign up for a 14-day free trial of Breethe, but then the app costs $12.99 a month. The most competitively priced package is the lifetime subscription, a one-time fee of $170.00.
Breathe
Breathe
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Benefits of meditation
Meditation is known to reduce stress in those who practice it. It can also significantly increase self-esteem and inner peace and is an active tool to combat neurological and mental health problems. Here is a list of some of the benefits of meditation:
- Anxiety control
- Pain control
- Improved emotional health
- Useful for problem-solving skills.
- Beneficial for sleep quality
- Attention Span Resistance
- ReverseThe reverseanderiMindocusing on the present
- Reduce resting heart rate
- Stabilize blood pressure
- Minimizes the side effects ofMindhma, cancer, heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches and migraines.
- More extraordinary ability to think and recognize.
- Reduce age-related memory loss.
- It helps generate self-love and kindness.
- Avoid addictive behaviours
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Important Meditation App Features
Beginner courses
If you're new to meditation, look for an app that offers beginner courses to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Even if you have no experience or haven't enjoyed previous programs, the beginner courses will allow you to open the app and learn that simple habits start slowly.
Number and range of meditation options
When choosing the best meditation app, consider the different types of meditation you want to practice. Beginning meditators may be inclined to try guided sessions. You can experiment with transcendental meditation or loving-kindness meditation practices as you progress. Most importantly, you can meditate at your own pace, according to your preferences.
Clear curriculum
Meditation requires discipline. An app with a clear study plan, reasonable goals, and incentives can keep you meditating longer. A consistently created program will allow you to see results.
Well-designed platform
Nowadays, there's no reason a meditation app is clunky and difficult to use. Meditation is about achieving a higher level of stress-free thinking. A streamlined interface should reduce additional stress or distractions and allow you to focus on the task.
Reasonable trial periods
The easiest way to start meditating is to try a great app of your choice. A free trial, free version, or free meditation can help you get into the flow and see which meditation schedule or program works best for you.
Downloadable meditations
It's great to have everything you need in one app, whether online or offline. If you can download your meditations through the app, you can set up a meditation studio anywhere in the world, even in the most remote places.