GENERAL RESOURCES

• Teacher's Toolkit - Talking to Students about COVID-19

Mindfulness APPS

Apps for dealing with stress have grown more popular with the rise of the smartphone, many of which have exercises or guides to help you de-stress. The most popular focus on mindfulness training and meditation, but there are others that feature quick ways to get some help. Here are some popular apps currently available:

1. Liberate

   • Available for iOS and Android

   • Entry price: Free

   • The largest free and centralized library of dharma talks and guided meditations from teachers of Color

   • Mission is to empower Black, Indigenous and People of Color on their path of finding inner peace.

   • Paid Option: None at this time but subscription fee will be imminent.

2. Insight Timer

   • Available for iOS and Android

   • Entry price: Free. But you have to navigate around the subscription screen with the button that says “Start 7 Day Trial. Once you scroll past that, you can access the free content.

   • Huge library of content: over 25,000 guided meditations from around 3,000 teachers on topics like stress, relationships, creativity, and more.

   • Right from the beginning, the app feels like a community—the home screen announces, “420,065 meditations today, 5,059 meditating right now.” In fact, Insight Timer has attracted more than 6 million meditators from around the world. After you finish a meditation, you’ll learn exactly how many people were meditating “with you” during that time—and by setting your location, you can even see meditators nearby and what tracks they’re listening to.

   • If you prefer a quieter meditation, you can always set a timer and meditate to intermittent bells or calming ambient noise.

   • You can also tune in to 2,000 free talks and podcasts for life advice and inspiration, and music tracks to soothe your mind or help you sleep.

   • Paid option: For $59.99 per year, you get access to courses with well-known teachers, a new daily meditation for anxiety and stress, and the ability to download meditations, listen offline, and fast forward and rewind.

3. Smiling Mind

   • Available for iOS, Android, and web

   • Entry price: Free.

   • The app features hundreds of meditations are organized into structured programs like Mindful Foundations (42 sessions), Sleep (6 sessions), Relationships (13 sessions), and Workplace (41 sessions), but you have the flexibility to choose where to start and to easily jump between programs.

   • Most meditations are in the five- to fifteen-minute range, with a few practices up to 45 minutes for advanced meditators.

   • Downloaded by over 4 million people, the app also has a variety of specialized programs for educators (including curricula they can use in the classroom); for children and teens of various ages; all developed with the help of psychologists and health professionals.

   • While you could use a meditation app as a temporary break from your hectic life, Smiling Mind wants you to take your mindfulness practice off the cushion and into the other 23 hours of your day

   • Paid option: None

4. Stop, Breathe & Think

   • Available for iOS and Android

   • Entry price: Free. If you explore “All Sessions” you can access the free meditations all in one place and also take a peek at what the upgrade to a paid plan offers.

   • If other apps expect you to dive right in, Stop, Breathe & Think wants to create a more deliberate, intentional experience. A section called Learn to Meditate explains what mindfulness is and why it’s beneficial, including some of the neuroscience and physiology behind it.

   • The app works in several ways that could benefit people looking for some stress relief, whether it’s COVID-19 related or not.

   • It features a daily check-in to get a gauge on your stress level and how you’re feeling physically. Or you can go straight to selecting a variety of exercises whether its ambient music or guided.

   • Meditations based on how you feel

   • A progress page keeps track of how your mind and body have been feeling over time, and your most common emotions (before and after meditating, when the app invites you to check in again).

   • Paid option: $6.00

5. Stop, Breathe and Think Kids

   • Available for iOS and Android

   • Free with subscription content.

   • This app is much like Stop, Breathe and Think except it’s focused on children, with less time juggling the interface and the daily check-in is less complicated. There’s little instruction involved and simplicity is a plus.

   • The app is more tailored to current emotional states, according to the website psyberguide.org website than other apps and it’s easy to operate by kids.

   • The app has a subscription component for $11.99 a month, but it has an abundance of free exercises. There’s not much in the way of explanation, it gets to down to business with the exercises.

6. UCLA Mindful

   • Available for iOS and Android

   • Entry price: Free

   • If all the research on mindfulness has persuaded you that you need to meditate, the UCLA Mindful app could be a good place to start. Grounded heavily in science.

   • Developed by the Mindful Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the app features about a dozen meditations of different types in English and Spanish. You can learn to focus on your breath, your body, or sounds; work with difficult emotions; and cultivate loving-kindness in sessions ranging from 3 to 19 minutes long.

   • If you’re new to mindfulness, you might choose to take advantage of their Getting Started section, which offers information on what mindfulness is, how to choose a meditation, which posture is best for your practice, and what research-backed benefits you might expect from it.

   • As a bonus, the app also offers longer meditations that it calls “podcasts.” These are half-hour audio recordings of lunchtime meditations that take place weekly on the UCLA campus, including comments before and after the meditation as well as plenty of silent practice time.

   • Paid option: None

7. 10% Happier

   • Available for iOS and Android

   • Entry price: Free

   • The tagline for 10% Happier tells you the most important thing you need to know about the app. It’s “meditation for fidgety skeptics”—a relatable, no-nonsense way to learn mindfulness for people whose goals veer more toward sharpening their brains than befriending their souls.

   • Unlike some other mindfulness apps, 10% Happier comes with a tour guide. Dan Harris is a news anchor who famously had a panic attack on live TV, an experience that eventually led him to pursue meditation.

   • Authoritative conversations about meditation

   • There’s really only one 7-day free offering on 10% Happier, and we hesitated to include it in this list, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in accessibility, authority, and unique perspective. What’s free is The Basics series, a one-week orientation to mindfulness. Each day features an introductory video by Harris (often in conversation with instructor Joseph Goldstein), and a meditation by Goldstein.

   • Harris also hosts the 10% Happier podcast for free (outside the app), featuring conversations with people from Richard Davidson to Jon Kabat-Zinn, Arianna Huffington to the Dalai Lama. If other mindfulness apps don’t speak your language, 10% Happier might be the app for you.

   • Paid option: For $99.99 per year, you get access to over 350 guided meditations, the ability to download meditations for offline listening, and courses on stress, focus, performance, relationships, and more.

8. Headspace

   • Available for iOS and Android:

   • Entry price: Free

   • Headspace has free specific sessions for moments of panic, anxiety and stress.

   • There are also quick 2-3 minute meditation sessions and special animations that teach skills and answer questions about mindfulness.

   • Paid option: Completely free for educators

9. Simple Habit

   • Entry price: Free “all people who are impacted by the pandemic and can no longer afford to pay.”

   • Those who qualify need only email help [at] simplehabit.com and note that they’re in a precarious financial position due to the pandemic. Access includes free meditation collections through the end of April.

10. Calm App

    • Available for iOS and Android

    • Free or 7-day trial with subscription content.

    • The Calm App and the Stop, Breathe and Think app are the two most used amps for dealing with anxiety or stress. It has far fewer free options than the Stop, Breathe and Think app, but it also has additional options if you pay the subscription. There are guided mindfulness and meditation exercises as well as ‘sleep stories’ from celebrities like LeBron James, Eva Green and Matthew McConaughey it also has a more focused approach on dealing with anxiety in the moment. Both apps use many of the same meditation and mindfulness techniques.

    • The app also works with the Apple Watch

11. Ambi Pro

    • $1.99 for iOS.

    • Ambi Pro specializes in ambient music, using algorithms to change tracks instead of recordings that are looped. The app also blends tracks together so one doesn’t end abruptly.

    • For those who relax with music or the sound of nature, this is considered a top app.

12. Breathe2Relax

    • Available for iOS and Android

    • To quote MakeUseOf.com, “Breathing from our diaphragm has shown to reduce anxiety and stress while helping you stay calm.” And there’s an app for that – Breathe2Relax – which focuses on breathing rather than meditation or mindfulness training. The app guides users through breathing exercises and it offers support for the Apple Watch Health app.

13. Colorfly

    • Available for iOS and Android

    • Free with subscriptions and in-app purchases.

    • Some adults have taken in the recent trend of grown-up coloring books to relax. Now those are available on Colorfly and other apps.

    • Colorfly features 1,000 different pictures to color, is capable of use offline and you can share your coloring expertise on social media through the app.

14. Solitaire

    • Available for iOS, Android and Window

    • Free

    • If you aren’t into mindfulness, ambient noises or meditation, Solitaire is a go-to for people wanting a few minutes away from whatever it is that has them stressed.

15. Buddify

    • Available on iOS and Android

    • $4.99 on iOS and $2.99 on Android

    • Buddhify gets past the barriers of trying to figure out what’s free and what’s paid by requiring payment upfront. But with it comes 80 guided meditations in mindfulness training that can help you deal with occurring or re-occurring stress.