Relax, reduce stress and tune into yourself with guided meditations you can take anywhere.
*Photo by Deana Johnson Photography
Meditation is my favorite practice for getting grounded, reducing stress, and connecting more to my intuition.
I believe that taking the time to tune into ourselves is such an important practice for improving our lives.
Meditation can help us reduce stress and anxiety, get more in touch with ourselves, increase self-acceptance and self-esteem, improve our mood, increase relaxation, make us more optimistic and make us healthier. Meditation can be a great first step in increasing self-awareness to begin to make healthy changes.
When I began my meditation practice, I followed guided meditations. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing. These meditations provided some guidance, so I just had to sit with my eyes closed.
Now, I do a mix of guided meditations and timed meditations using a meditation app. If I’m having a hard time focusing, a guided meditation is nice. If I want to tune into what my body needs, I set a timer for five or 10 minutes.
Finding an app that you love means you can meditate anywhere and anytime. Here are some meditation apps to try…
10% Happier (free) – This meditation app is targeted to fidgety skeptics, and was created by ABC news correspondent Dan Harris (a self-proclaimed fidgety skeptic). I read his book, 10% Happier, and it was so good! The app features a 7 session course, guided meditations, videos featuring short conversations with meditation experts, an unguided meditation timer and coaching from a real live person. You can purchase a subscription for $9.99 a month for access to more content and coaching.
Calm (free) – This app features guided meditations that are 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 minutes long. You can choose meditations based on specific topics such as calming anxiety, managing stress, deep sleep, focus and concentration, happiness, gratitude, self-esteem and a lot more. It also features 7 day and 21 day programs, unguided timed meditation and soothing nature sounds. You can subscribe for $12.99 a month for access to more.
HeadSpace (free) – Headspace has some free features such as access to Take10, a foundation course, personalized tracking, a buddy system for you and your friends to stay motivated, reminders and the ability to download sessions to use offline. After a 10-day free trial, you can subscribe for $12.99 a month for access to more courses and meditation sessions. I used the free version and really loved the foundational course. It was a good introduction to meditation.
The Mindfulness App (free) – The Mindfulness App features a five day guided practice and introduction to meditation, timed sessions – guided and silent, meditation reminders, meditation tracking and personalized meditations. You can purchase a monthly subscription for unlimited access to meditations and courses on calm, relationships, focus and more.
YogaGlo (free) – When you subscribe to YogaGlo and download the app, you get access to 3,500 yoga and meditations classes from top yoga teachers. I use YogaGlo, and love the curated yoga and meditation collections. If I only have 10 minutes and want something relaxing for stress, you can filter to that type of practice. The app is free to download and there are free yoga classes and meditations on the app, but to access the full site you must have monthly subscription.
Buddhify ($4.99) – This app features over 80 custom meditations for 15 different parts of your day including being online, travel, taking a work break, going to sleep and different emotions such as stress. There’s also a solo meditation timer.
Insight Timer (free) – This app features guided meditations by teacher like Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. There are 3,500 guided meditations, 500 meditation music tracks, 900 meditation teachers and 22 playlists.
Meditation Studio ($3.99) – The Meditation Studio features 200 guided meditations featuring 25 different teachers and a wide range of styles. You can track your progress and schedule meditation sessions.
What’s your favorite meditation app?
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