A meditation practice employs methods to help you concentrate your awareness and attention on yourself, an idea, an item, or an activity. For thousands of years, people from many different cultures have used meditation to develop their spiritual consciousness.
As the state of affairs in the world has become increasingly stressful, it has become increasingly vital for people to focus on mindfulness and mental health throughout their daily lives. The majority of us are aware of the numerous advantages of regular meditation and relaxation. Numerous technological tools are available to assist us in incorporating these well-being practices into our daily lives.
Downloadable apps for iPhones are excellent resources for users seeking more information on meditation programs and other anxiety-relieving exercises. They have a wealth of knowledge and techniques that can help users combat their stress levels and bring them down to a manageable level. Whether it’s apps with only short 5-minute guided meditations or ones with Sleep Stories, there’s a plethora of options to choose from that should provide users with a lot of comforts.
Insight Timer – Meditation App
Developer: Insight Network Inc
Cost: Free (Offers In-App Purchases)
App Store rating: 4.9
The winner of numerous awards meditation apps, Insight Timer is designed to help users cope with anxiety and stress, as well as promote relaxation and better sleep. It is a hugely popular choice for people who want to meditate, practice mindfulness, and relax, with over 21 million community members worldwide.
When you first launch Insight Timer, you are prompted with a series of questions to personalize the Home screen. Following that, check in every day by describing your mood.
You’ll receive a variety of meditations, talks, and musical passages based on your responses. Whatever option you choose, you’ll gain access to a vast library of wisdom and guidance.
Insight Timer claims to have the world’s largest free library of guided meditations, with over 140,000 guided meditations. With over 100 new ones added every day, the only challenge is deciding which one is best for you.
You’ll want to bookmark any items of interest because there’s a lot to navigate. You can also easily make playlists and follow your favorite teachers. The meditation screen is straightforward, with a still photograph overlaid with a countdown timer, leaving little room for distraction from the spoken word.
If you’re having trouble sleeping, Insight Timer has thousands of free audio tracks to help you sleep better, including sleep music, sleep meditations, soundscapes, and bedtime stories. There is a sleep timer so you can fall asleep knowing your music will turn off without disturbing you. Insight Timer includes thousands of music tracks to help you disconnect from the world and enter a state of deep relaxation. Classical music, binaural beats, and nature sounds are examples of these. Make playlists of your favorites and share them on social media.
Calm
Developer: Calm.com, Inc.
Cost: Free (Offers In-App Purchases)
App Store rating: 4.8
Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith created the Calm meditation app in 2012. You can download the app directly from the App Store on your iPhone. According to the Calm website, the multi-award-winning app has over 100 million downloads and over 1.5 million five-star reviews.
The app employs technology to help people improve their health and overall well-being. It has a variety of features that are intended to meet the needs of different users. Calm teaches the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation and gives users access to a library of meditation sessions and programs focused on specific topics such as dating, panic, anxiety, and deep sleep. In addition to meditations, the app offers exercises, breathing techniques, music, and bedtime stories for people who are tense, anxious, or want to improve the quality of their sleep.
Calm asks for a person’s goals as soon as they enter the app to make personalized content recommendations. You can select what you require from the provided list. People can explore the app’s extensive library of content, which includes sounds, stories, audio classes, and guided meditations, in addition to receiving recommendations.
Calm is available for free download by anyone. When a person signs up, they receive a 7-day free trial and are automatically enrolled in Calm Premium. The free version of the app provides daily access to an original Daily Calm session, as well as check-ins, several sound scenes, and selected sessions from meditation courses. For those who want full access to the app’s features, a Premium subscription is available.
Calm’s tools can help anyone who wants to improve their mental wellness or equip themselves with new tools to deal with day-to-day well-being struggles. People who are having difficulty sleeping may benefit from the app’s extensive tool set. Calm also provides both guided and unguided meditations, making it suitable for both novice and experienced meditators.
Headspace: Mindful Meditation
Developer: Headspace Inc.
Cost: Free (Offers In-App Purchases)
App Store rating: 4.8
We all need to make time for meditation in our hectic lives. At least, that’s the idea behind Headspace, an iPhone-guided meditation app. Headspace is the undisputed king of meditation apps, co-founded by a former Tibetan Buddhist monk who now shares his mindful learning through a mobile app. Headspace is an excellent starting point for those new to meditation or a great continuation for those who have meditated more regularly – for a fee, of course.
You can try out the basic features of Headspace for free by downloading it. Inputting your personal information (including your meditation goals) results in a more tailored offering, and the app will include a series of 10 essential meditations to work through.
There are also free “everyday headspace” meditations and mini exercises (such as a one-minutbreathinghe exercise, which is similar to watchOS’s feature of the same name). These are intended to allow users to enter and exit a mindful exercise at will and are best used when your schedule is too full to allow for an entire meditation.
Individual meditations last three minutes. Users are guided through their meditation step by step, and the experience was very calming for someone who hasn’t meditated (much) before.
The free download, on the other hand, only includes 10 basic meditations; for more, you have to subscribe. This grants access to the entire Headspace library, which includes meditation “packs” tailored to specific aspects of your life (such as sleep, relationships, stress, insomnia, and anxiety). There’s also a section for kids’ meditations, as well as a library of animations covering a variety of topics (like changing perspective and underlying calm). The app’s creators have also added several accessibility options for users with special needs, which is fantastic.
Buddhify: meditation
Developer: Mindfulness Everywhere Ltd
Cost: $4.99 (Offers In-App Purchases)
App Store rating: 4.8
Buddhify is an interactive app that introduces users to urban meditation techniques, fostering a state of mindfulness and well-being in everyday situations. Mindfulness is defined by the app as focused awareness of the user’s current experience. The app requires active listening and is also intended to improve concentration through distraction-free meditations and to promote emotional balance through unpleasant thoughts and emotions.
Buddhify provides 80 guided meditations ranging in length from 4 to 30 minutes. The meditations are designed for a wide range of user experience levels, including beginners. The app contains 11 hours of meditation in total. 5 different experienced meditation guides composed and directed these meditations. The guides, who are both male and female, speak in soothing and comforting tones.
Some well-known meditation techniques are included in the guided meditations, such as deep breathing, focusing on the breath, and body scanning exercises. The guided meditations sharply focus the listener on their present experience, drowning out the noise and other external distractions. The user feels calm, well-being, and balance as distractions are reduced and momentary focus is enhanced.
The app is professionally designed in the initial visual display, and the meditation content is categorized and centrally located on a wheel. The user is drawn in by the colorful, chromatic, wheel-shaped display. Meditations can be accessed quickly by tapping the Play button. By tapping on different captions, the user can easily navigate to different app features. Timing and recording independent meditations, rating and statistics, giving and receiving app feedback, and obtaining other app information are among the features available.
Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame
Developer: Sesame Workshop Apps
Cost: Free
App Store rating: 3.6
Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame is an app that teaches problem-solving and strategies for dealing with difficult situations. Although it covers situations to which anyone developing basic skills can relate, the language and settings (words like mommy, preschool classrooms) make the app appealing and relevant to younger children.
Users experience these strategies by “teaching” them to a little monster who imitates a young child via simple, attractive, interactive animations. You must begin with the first environment when you first enter. You can later go back and select from previously completed environments. When you walk in, you see a “monster” who appears to be upset. His cheeks are flushed, and he is frustrated because he is unable to put his shoes on. The user is instructed to tap the monster’s belly to help him relax. The user is instructed to tap slowly and is eventually praised for assisting the monster in taking three deep breaths. The user then pops bubbles to assist the monster in “thinking” of three different solutions to his problem. The app generates ideas, but the user can select which plan he or she wants to see implemented. The user is then taken to an animation of the monster successfully resolving his problem.
There is no inappropriate content or advertising in the app. It promotes positive behaviors such as deep breathing, careful consideration before attempting to solve a problem, brainstorming multiple solutions and selecting the most appropriate, and seeking adult assistance when necessary. It also promotes life skills such as resiliency in the face of difficult challenges and foreign situations.
Simple Habit Sleep, Meditation
Developer: Simple Habit, Inc.
Cost: Free (Offers In-App Purchases)
App Store rating: 4.8
Simple Habit is a 5-minute meditation app designed to help people who are busy stress less, achieve more, and live better lives. Their sleep and wellness therapy sessions include meditations, coaching, motivational guides, and bedtime stories written by world-renowned experts and tailored to your lifestyle. Whether you have 5 minutes or 30 minutes, Simple Habit will help you feel less stressed, sleep better, and be your best self.
The app only requires five minutes of your time per day and provides specialized meditations for specific symptoms (depression, anxiety, stress) and life situations (waking up, commuting, tough days at work). Its most coveted feature is its On-The-Go mode, which simply asks “What time is it?” and prompts you with options like “night,” “morning,” “dawn,” or “dusk” before directing you to the appropriate meditation for that moment. Simple Habit is one of the best mental health apps available because of its full customization and simple interface.
The app is intended for those who value productivity. It allows you to set a meditation reminder and track your progress in a chart. There are more than 50 free meditations, and if you upgrade to premium, you’ll have access to thousands more.
The Mindfulness App
Developer: MindApps
Cost: Free (Offers In-App Purchases)
App Store rating: 4.8
The Mindfulness App is designed to assist users in increasing mindfulness and satisfaction levels through guided meditation. The app begins with a free five-day trial of guided meditations. The user can customize a “Timed Session” by choosing the duration of the session, voice guidelines, and ambient sound type.
The Mindfulness App, as the name suggests, was created to help you stay present in your daily interactions by using guided meditations and other tools on your iPhone. The meditation tracks range in length from three minutes to a half hour, and they are divided into seven different categories to make it a little easier to find the one that is most appropriate for your needs and preferences.
The “My Profile” feature displays a summary of each week’s meditation practices, including total and average meditation time, number of sessions, and number of courses. Another feature is setting reminders to meditate based on the time of f week or current location. The app is free to use, but users can pay to upgrade to “Premium,” which includes specialized guided meditations, courses, and challenges to target a specific symptom (i.e., sleep quality, stress, etc).
Mindvalley: Self Improvement
Developer: Mindvalley Creations Inc.
Cost: Free (Offers In-App Purchases)
App Store rating: 4.7
Mindvalley is an online learning platform that provides personal development programs in all areas of human transformation. Its learning programs, known as Quests, are addictive and easily digestible. A strong online community distinguishes itself from other online platforms by being dedicated and helpful in enhancing your learning experience. You can buy a single quest or subscribe to the ‘all access’ membership, which is paid monthly or annually. Mindvalley also offers free Masterclasses every week to give you a taste of the platform.
Each week, a free lesson lasting 60 to 90 minutes is made available so that you can try out the platform. Its learning programs are taught by experienced educators, authors, and visionaries, some of whom are well-known. Mind Valley users will find its video content to be both fascinating and participatory. Its quests are frequently composed of bite-sized, 10-20 minute videos that are direct and effective at engaging users. It has a strong and dedicated learner community that is always willing to help, is friendly, and has a good time.
On the Mindvalley platform, you can learn the subjects that are most important to you, as well as everything you wish you had learned in school. Mindvalley is the polar opposite of traditional education, which consists of sitting in stuffy classrooms. Its 50+ Quests provide a unique learning experience, with subjects such as Mind, Body, Soul, Career, Entrepreneurship, Relationship, Kids, Teens, and Parenting taught by renowned academics and celebrities.
Smiling Mind
Developer: SMILING MIND PTY. LTD.
Cost: Free
App Store rating: 4.6
The Smiling Mind app for iPhone is a free mindfulness app. The Smiling Mind app is an Australian app that is becoming increasingly popular. It’s a non-profit app with over 6 million users that was created by psychologists and educators to bring mindfulness to the masses through free, easy-to-follow mindfulness programs for kids, teenagers, adults, and teachers.
Smiling Mind is an excellent one-stop shop for anyone who wants to improve their meditation skills. The app teaches users how to meditate and practice mindfulness exercises daily. Smiling Mind provides guided mindfulness meditation training to help users achieve better mental health and balance.
The app offers graded engagement, beginning with an explanation of mindfulness and progressing to shorter meditations. It progresses to longer meditations, but shorter meditations are still available. The meditations are tailored to the age of the person who has logged in.
This app has a very limited number of visual prompts. A timer is displayed for the meditations, as well as a graph for rating well-being and written prompts. The Smiling Mind Website also assists schools and workplaces in increasing group participation.
Smiling Mind offers programs for children ages 7-9, 10-12, 13-15, 16-18, and adults. The app has a simple interface that allows you to track your progress over time, both in terms of how many sessions you complete and how your emotions change. Families can also create sub-accounts from a single login. This app’s developer is a non-profit organization. They aim to improve the world for the coming generations.
Pocket Meditation Timer
Developer: 倩 赵
Cost: Free
App Store rating: 4.5
Pocket Meditation Timer is one of the most basic but effective meditation apps. If you’re not into “guided meditation” and want an app to help you track and inform the time, this app is for you.
Meditation is a classic, simple, and inexpensive way to enter a wonderful state of inner peace and calm, and it helps to keep you relaxed from being anxious, tense, worried, and so on. Meditation also benefits your physical, mental, and emotional health.
The app includes features such as Prepare Time, Cool Downtime, Intervals, and customizable sounds for starting, switching, and ending your meditation sessions.
You can set up several reminders to ensure that you never miss a session. It also includes some lovely background images for further customization.
