![]() Toward the bottom, you can dive deeper into what Headspace offers. ![]() There's almost no friction to getting started, and the illustrations that scatter the interface are just flat-out charming. When you open the app, you're immediately presented with the Today view, which features that day's meditation, the next meditation in any course you're doing (like the Basics introduction), a daily Wake Up video, and some guided breathing. A big part of its appeal is Andy Puddicombe, an English (former) Buddhist monk with a ludicrously calming voice who guides many sessions-but the service itself is exceptional. Headspace is the 800-pound Buddha statue of meditation apps, and for good reason: it's largely responsible for the current boom. Not every app is as widely available as we'd like, but all the ones on this list are at least available for iOS and Android devices. That means that you can meditate in the morning without picking up a phone. We tried to find apps that could be accessed not just from smartphones, but smart watches, smart speakers, and web browsers too. For that reason, a decent free trial was an absolute must for inclusion.įinally, meditation is something that should be accessible to everyone, everywhere. No matter how well designed an app is, it's useless if you don't like the style of the guided meditations. I kept failing until I found Tamara Levitt from Calm. The right teacher can make the process seem effortless, while the wrong one will make you give up. Meditation is a deeply personal skill, and how you develop it can depend a lot on your teacher. All the apps on this list are well-made, nice-to-use, and get out of the way, so you won't mind opening them on a daily basis. More than one app didn't make the cut because using it was so unpleasant it neutralized the benefits I got from the meditation. While meditating can be an incredibly relaxing experience, using a badly designed, janky app absolutely isn't. These are all nice to have-but weren't essential for inclusion on this list. Many apps also go further than meditation with things like relaxing sounds, sleep stories, theory lectures, and more. Doing the same series of meditations day after day can get boring, so a deep and regularly updated content library goes a long way. You can sit silently to meditate by yourself if you want, but I've found that I still do better with guided meditations (and most people I know who meditate feel the same way). The best meditation apps also have a lot of varied content you can progress to. Each session is short and builds on the previous one, so you don't get overwhelmed. ![]() The best meditation apps help you work through all this, especially if you're just starting out.Īll the apps on our list have some kind of guided beginners course or program that takes you through the very basics of meditating in a structured way. It's easy to feel like you're doing it wrong, to get distracted or disheartened, and just to give up. Meditation is a simple idea in principle: sit quietly, focusing completely on something like your breath, the sound of a bell, or the physical sensation of your body. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site-we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. If you’re interested in learning more about different ways you can practice mindfulness, you can also check out my article “ Mindfulness – 4 Simple Ways You Can Practice.All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Overall, I would say that with all of the free options out there, there is no reason to spend money on a mindfulness app unless you have found one that you really feel is worth the investment. If you happen to be a Kaiser Permanente health insurance member, Calm is definitely the best paid app option as you can get the premium version of the app for free. Insight Timer probably offers the best free version of the paid apps, as many of the meditations and features are still included, although there are still lots of elements behind a pay wall. Oak was my second favorite free app, especially for beginners, although it is only available on the Apple Store at this time.īalance offers the most generous free trial and the most personalization for each meditation among all of the apps that I reviewed. After testing all 14 apps, my favorite free app was Medito as it offers the most features and options of all the free meditation apps I reviewed.
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