In this day and age, our lives are becoming more and more busy and fast and we are bound to stress out because of that. As we all know, 2020 has been even more stressful for many people compared to last year, as the current public health situation has changed almost all aspects of life.

Due to the stressful times, many of us may search for ways to take our minds off things or just give ourselves some time to relax. For this, meditation can help – it’s one of the greatest ways to relax the mind, to focus on the current moment and to even obtain enlightenment. No matter what your religion or views are, meditation can be helpful to everyone.

However, not all of us are monks capable of closing our eyes and instantly freeing ourselves from thoughts and worries. Some of us need guidance in relaxing our minds. Luckily, these days there is a mobile app for almost everything, so we can use our smartphones as a useful relaxation tool. To help you pick your next favorite meditation app, we have compiled a list of the best meditation apps out there. Those will help you calm down your worries and guide you to be present in the moment, as the current moment is all we actually have.

Headspace

The Headspace app is great not only for meditation but for sleep and mindfulness. It has a free version and a paid subscription. The app offers guided meditations for stress management, anxiety management, personal growth and health, along with sleep management for those of us who have trouble sleeping. The free version offers a Basics course with meditations, along with a pack of exercises to cope with sadness, anger and the conflicting emotions that change brings in our lives.

Additionally, Headspace offers a paid subscription which unlocks over 40 different meditation courses, mindfulness exercises, short mini-meditations to fit into your busy schedule and sleep meditations and sounds to help you fall asleep, even if you wake up in the middle of the night.

What’s more, the app also has a Move tab, which provides workouts that help with stress release and anxiety management.

Calm

The Calm app also has a free version and a paid subscription. It can help you improve your performance, reduce stress, develop gratitude, sleep better, build self esteem, increase happiness and reduce anxiety. Calm offers courses on mindfulness meditation, which explain basic concepts, such as focusing on the present moment, paying attention, developing patience and awareness. These can be helpful even if you’ve practiced meditation before.

The paid version offers more than 100 guided meditations for stress relief, anxiety management and sleep, an entire library of sleep stories, along with music for sleep and various masterclasses.

Insight Timer

Insight Timer is another great meditation app. It has 54 000 free guided meditations that can be filtered by different categories. For example, you can browse the meditations for beginners, trending and popular, or just scroll through them A-Z or choose by duration. If you want to meditate without guidance, Insight Timer offers a great timer feature with a gentle bell to remind you to start and finish your meditation.

The app also helps with falling asleep, managing stress and anxiety, improving your performance and health. It provides courses to help you work on your relationships and develop your intuition and inner wisdom. The app even has courses for parents.

All those options come in a very intuitive, simple and easy-to-use interface, which makes this one a great app to explore if you don’t want to lose yourself in all the different features meditations apps generally provide.

Buddhify

Buddhify is a paid app which has a different approach as it will first ask you what you are doing and feeling so that it adapts the mediation to the current moment. You will be able to enjoy guided meditations, divided in categories, such as meditations for walking, a stressful situation or a difficult emotion, work break, going to sleep or waking up, all with different duration.

Buddhify also features Foundations, which will teach you important principles about meditation and mindfulness. Additionally, if you choose to do so, you can meditate without guidance and use the app’s timer feature.

What’s more, you can also give someone a meditation as a gift. They will not need the app to play the mediation you’re giving them. This way, if you know your friend is having a hard time or you just want to give them a gift, you can send them a helpful meditation.

Sattva Meditations & Mantras

The Sattva Meditation app has a free version and a paid subscription. Its guided meditations and music help get you to a meditative state. The difference here is that this app is built upon the ancient principles of the Vedas and the meditations, sounds and music in the app are delivered by Sanskrit scholars.

Sattva also has mantras, which are Vedic sounds, prayers and music used to guide your mind to meditation and mindfulness. The app also features personalized reminders to help you stay on track on your road to calmness, along with inspirational quotes, various challenges that you can choose to motivate yourself, along with statistics to help you monitor your progress.

The Mindfulness App

The Mindfulness App is another great option that has a free version and a paid subscription. It introduces you to a five day guided practice towards mindfulness. On iOS devices, it can sync with Apple’s Health app and it can even measure your heart rate with Apple Watch while you meditate.

The Mindfulness App has free courses on mindfulness and meditation, as well as resilience training, developed especially to help you cope with the current pandemic situation.  Featuring programs to help you stay motivated, the app helps you improve your sleep, manage your emotions, and develop your focus and relationships.

Download The Minfulness App:
Apple App Store | Google Play