Mobile Enlightenment: 4 Meditation Apps to Get You Mindful
I don't think I'd be going out on a limb if I guessed that you - like me - struggle with mindfulness in your daily life. Despite our best efforts to stay calm and centered, when the world comes crashing in we all told to lose ourselves.
In the lives we lead these days, it doesn't even take the world crashing in for us to feel out of control and overwhelmed. I've long heard of the powers of meditation, and have tried for years to make it a daily part of my life. This year, I decided that guided meditations would help me better get there, as they felt like an e
asier way to make it work for me. It gives me something to concentrate on (the words of the meditation), as opposed to just my crazy thoughts.
Here are four mindfulness apps that I've downloaded that I think will help anyone who is in the early stages of the mindfulness journey.
1. Headspace
Headspace as free and paid options and is a sleek, well-designed and well-liked app aimed to teach you to meditate, and teach you the power of making meditation a part of your daily life. It starts with a free version of a 10-day meditation series (1 meditation per day) and is a great intro into all this app can offer at the paid levels. I really enjoy this one, and fully recommend. It also comes with some great animation videos that talk about the power of meditation in general, and showing you what it can do for you.
Related: 5 ways your smartphone can keep you healthy
2. Mindfullness -- Guided Meditations
This app is free, and although it has some good meditations it is a bit beginner level -- more interested in teaching you HOW than in providing guided meditations. I like both, but am currently into the guided meditations that target a specific issue or concern I'm dealing with, so this would not be my top choice for that kind of content.
3. Simply Being
This app is $.99 and has some good simple guided meditations of different lengths you can choose from. Good for the price.
4. Meditations for Stress and Relaxation
Joan Borysenko is one of my favorite authors, and this app (which is the priciest of the lot at $5.99) gives you a host of guided meditations that she walks you through. Since I love her, I'm a fan of this, and would recommend it.
Although I'd be exaggerating if I said an app could transform your life, I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that a mindfulness app can really transform your approach to meditation. Honestly, something that I can just press "play" on is so much easier than relying on my own willpower to keep my mind thought-free. Furthermore, it encourages me to use it anywhere - not just in a quiet room. Listening to my guided meditation in a cab might not be the best, but it's a start, right?
-By Claire Diaz-Ortiz
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