Are you interested in meditation? Finding the best meditation app for you is a great way to get started. According to Marie Claire, studies have shown that breathing exercises and meditation affects your brain with positive, long-term effects. Meditation helps keep you calm in stressful or anxious situations, increases health benefits, enhances creativity, and improves your attitude and moods. Not only does meditation improve your mental health, but also your physical well-being.
If you have an iPhone, take advantage of the available apps for meditation. Listed below are suggested meditation apps for iPhones.
Stop, Breathe & Think
Description:
This app is free and helps you monitor your moods at different times of each day. It also is a Webby Award-winning app and guides you through daily meditations. Monitoring your moods daily and practicing mediation helps improve your well-being because it allows you to check and review your anxiety and creativity levels. The exercises are meant to help with things like falling asleep faster, improving focus, and lessen anxiety and depression.
What makes this app unique?
The Stop, Breathe & Think app comes with simple voice commands, making it easy to follow the daily meditations. It is designed to educate you about mindfulness and teach you why mindfulness is important and beneficial. Before you start meditation immediately, the app guides you through what mindfulness means. Through the guidance of this app, you are not only able to practice meditation, but you are also able to connect to your thoughts and feelings.
Calm
Description:
As the app title implies, Calm brings an immediate sense of calmness as soon as you open it. When you open the app, you are greeted with relaxing sounds of your choosing, such as rain, a crackling fireplace, crickets, or something called “celestial white noise.” With this app, you choose what guided meditation experience you would like, which includes sessions that range from three to twenty-five minutes long or the ten minute program called Daily Calm.
Although the app is free, there are some features that require you to purchase a subscription. The subscription to Calm costs about $4.99 per month when you buy it for a year. The features that are locked seem to be the most interesting, so it is up to you if you decide to pay for the extra sessions.
What makes this app unique?
Besides the several features offered for meditating, there are also other features such as sleep stories. Sleep stories are basically described as bedtime stories for adults. They provide the perfect relaxing setting before bed. The stories range from science fiction to scenic landscapes to help you drift into sleep. The app also offers features like breathing exercises, unguided meditations and over twenty-five sounds to help you go to sleep faster.
Insight Timer
Description: As one of the most popular free meditation apps, Insight Timer has an array of options. It is very interactive and gives people the opportunity to listen to professional talks and podcasts. By viewing the home screen, you can see how many other people are meditating when you are. The app also allows you to view what others are listening to while they meditate.
However, if you would rather skip out on the social side of the app, you can participate in a quieter, more personalized meditation. You have the control to pick how long you would like to meditate by setting its interval timer. You can also decide what background sound you want, whether it is intermittent bells or a soothing music.
Unfortunately, the app does not list meditation practitioners nor does it offer meditation steps to follow. That being said, you should not feel discouraged in trying the app. Insight Timer has a lot to offer and is similar to having an endless supply of meditation features.
What makes this app unique?
The Insight Timer app stands out due to its popularity and high reviews. It is noticeable that the app has over 4,500 free-guided meditations from at least 1,000 teachers. They cover topics like self-compassion, stress, and nature. Additionally, there are 750 meditation music tracks to choose from. If you know exactly what you want and exactly what you are looking for during your meditation practices, this app is perfect for you because it offers thousands of choices. You have the opportunity to customize what you want your meditation to be like, especially with the ability to set a timer and choose the background sound.
In sum…
There are many meditation apps to choose from, but a few of the best and popular ones are listed above. If you would like to look at more recommended meditation apps, visit Healthline.
