APPS
Daily Mindfulness Apps
These apps will help you establish a daily mindfulness practice if you have no idea where to begin. Establishing a daily practice is a good way to build a mindfulness habit, and before long practicing mindfulness will come naturally.
Whether you have an iPhone or Android phone, and whether you’re looking to spend some money or none at all, these apps should help you.
The Headspace app is an iOS and Android app that includes hundreds of themed meditation sessions designed to help you destress, rid yourself of anxiety, improve your focus, and even get to sleep (or get back to sleep) quicker which guides you through daily meditation 10 minutes at a time.
Headspace aims to be your mindfulness “personal trainer” in helping you establish a daily meditation practice.
Headspace offers some of their basic content for free, as well as offering a free trial; however, after the first two weeks, you will automatically be enrolled in the annual plan. While the fact that you eventually have to pay for a subscription might turn some people off, you have nothing to lose by trying it for free.
*Headspace is offering their app for free in 2020 to all LA County Residents** Click here for additional information.
Calm is a free iOS and Android app that offers guided mindfulness meditation and touts itself as “the #1 app for meditation and sleep.” It’s free to download, although the free content is limited. The app initially offers a “7 Days of Calm” course which introduces you to mindfulness meditation, as well as some guided and unguided meditation sessions.
Insight Timer is a free iOS and Android app which aims to aid mindfulness meditators by letting them set their session time and be notified once the time is up.
Like Relax Melodies, it is mostly aimed at more experienced meditators; however, the Insight Timer app also offers some guided meditation sessions, music tracks and ambient sounds, and tools to share your progress.
Meditators might prefer it to a regular timer, as you can choose an alarm sound that will gently let you know that time is up rather than notifying you with a more traditional jarring alarm sound.