Meditation makes my day complete.
I’ve been using meditation apps for more than a year now. This post has been sitting in my draft folder for a while now and it is time to be published.
Last May I took a a 6-week-meditation class and shortly after I started using meditation apps regurlarly. In the class I learned about mono tasking , sitting, walking, eating and chakra meditations. I’ve been meditating almost every morning ever since, with only a few exceptions. Meditating helps me to focus better, to be more relaxed, to accept more and to resist and regret less. I have to say that I got kind of addicted to this special time in the morning, when it is just about me, about stillness and being offline. It makes a noticeable impact on my life. The daily routine of meditating helps me to go through the day calmer and more mindful. Every time I did not meditate in the morning, I can see a difference during my day.
The benefits of meditation
Meditation can help you leading a happier life, to be more mindful and to deal better with every day challenges and stress. It improves concentration, increases self-awareness, benefits cardiovascular and immune health and it slows aging!
What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate
8 Ways Meditation Can Improve Your Life
20 Scientific Reasons to Start Meditating Today
Six Meditation Apps I’ve tried.
Most of these meditation apps can be downloaded for free, but then have limited access. After using all the free meditation programs, they want you to buy monthly subscriptions, hence go “pro”. If you click on the icon, you’ll get to the iTunes version, if you click on the name, you’ll get to the Android version of the apps.
Simply Being
This is the first meditation app that I used. And even though, I’m more advanced in my practice by now, I still like to use this app. You can choose between 5, 10, or up to 30 minutes. The female voice is very pleasant and the guidance very gentle. The background music is optional and you can adjust the volume of music and voice separately. In my opinion, it is the perfect app to start with meditation because it has a such a simplistic approach to meditation. You pay $1.99 once and that’s it. Simply Being is one of ten different meditation apps from Meditation Oasis.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Calm
The Calm app seems to be one of the highest rated apps for meditation.
It offers a good number of free meditation series, like 7 Days of Calm, Body Scan, Loving Kindness, Calm Light, Forgiveness, a meditation timer and an open-ended meditation that plays bell in your chosen intervals. You can use more meditations for a free 7-day trial, but for all the other programs (anxiety, stress, relationships, kids, inner peace, …) you have to subscribe. The monthly subscription costs $12.99, the annual $59.99 and lifetime costs $ 299.99. Personally, I think it is too expensive for what it offers and I really don’t like the voice of the women giving instructions. That’s why I stopped using it, but this is a very subjective feeling. You should definitely give it a try for the free period.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Relax Meditation
It offers a free 5-day introductory path to meditation, a free basic breathing meditation, and a basic body scan mediation. You can actually mix and match 50 free sounds and create your own custom melody to accompany your practice.
I purchased the lifelong access for $19.99 last fall and this offer still exists. It is a pretty good deal in my opinion. With full access, the app offers a wide variety of meditations appointing numerous areas of life: relationship, self -esteem, creativity, sleep, success and a large selection of life coach meditations.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Breethe
This app offers an interesting mix of free meditations. You can just sign up with your email or facebook to use the free programs. First, there is a “Learn to Meditate” 7-day program, the “Sweet Dreams” sleeping meditation and I also like the 5-min. meditation “Wake up with intention”. My favorite meditation of this app is the 15-min. “Blanket of Love”. I really like the woman’s voice, too. You can try the full access free for 14 days, then the monthly subscription is $12.99, annual $89.99 and lifetime $119.99 right now.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Headspace
is a very simple and candid meditation app. It offers two free “Basics” packs, each one for ten 10 days. Before starting each day, make sure to choose the length of the meditation. It is set for only 3 minutes, but you can also choose 5 or 10 minutes. Some of the daily meditations start with a little animated video like this one. Watch more on their YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2WduswTxao
To get more packs, you need to subscribe. The monthly subscription costs $ 12.99, the yearly subscription costs $7.92/month, and forever costs $ 399.99. They had a promotion in January and I subscribed for this year for only $59. I’ve been doing different packs like kindness, acceptance, happiness, anger (each one is for ten days) and I really love meditating with Headspace every morning, sometimes even twice a day. The biggest difference between Headspace and all other meditation apps I tried, is that it has no background music and the speaker is male. Headspace teaches less spiritual, more science-based meditation techniques and is designed to appeal to men and women in the same way.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
10 Percent Happier
This app says that they offer meditation for fidgety sceptics and it claims that happiness is a skill susceptible to training. It is a clear, simple approach to meditation with author and news anchor Dan Harris and some very respected teachers and scientists. You can sign up for a 7-day free-trial. After that you can either subscribe to it monthly for $9.99 or $99.99 for one year. I’ve just started the free seven days and I like the simple and straight-forward instructions.
10 % happier has its own YouTube channel.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I found this article “14 Relaxation and Meditation Apps for 2017” on the Kaiser Permanente page and it presents even more apps, that I didn’t try yet.
I’m curious which meditation app you are gonna try first, based on my article. I’d love your feedback and if you are using another app you love for meditation, please share it in the comments, too.
