In this post: My review of 5 meditation apps, which ones I think are the best app for creating an effective meditation routine for you, my experience creating a meditation practice using these apps.
When it comes down to it, happiness is more of a mental state than anything else. So, while I don’t believe you HAVE to meditate to be happy, it will definitely help you to be more aware of your thoughts and mental state, and that will definitely help you in your progress to more happiness in your life.
Meditation can have other benefits too, here are some proven benefits:
- Reduces stress
- Reduces anxiety
- Increases your attention and focus
- Helps you sleep better
- Increases your feelings of gratitude
- Makes you more positive
- Improves self-awareness
- Reduces tension-related pain (and possibly chronic pain)
But starting and maintaining a meditation practice can be hard! Especially if you have no idea what meditating actually involves.
So what do you do?
You find an app that can help you out and make things a lot easier!
In this post, I wanted to share with you 5 of the best apps for creating an effective meditation routine. I have been trialling a range of meditation apps on my phone (Apple) to help me get back into a regular meditation practice and wanted to share my findings with you.
I have previous meditation experience from doing a mindfulness course many years ago but stopped the practice not too long after (life got busy and it was easy to forget without the help of phone reminders!!).
What inspired me to start again? I read The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod where he shares his experience of undertaking self-development activities each morning to become the person he needs to be to live his best life. You can read my review on his book here.
Let’s dig in!
OAK
Features:
- 3 different meditation sessions are available and you can choose your length from 10-30 minutes (in
5 minute increments). - 3 breathing exercises
- 2 sleep sessions (one just calming sounds, one guided).
- Badges obtained for meditation streaks and breaths
taken streaks. - You can see how many sessions you have completed and how many hours you have meditated for.
- Reminders that you can turn on and off
- Available on Apple only
- Connect to Apple Health Kit to track your progress
- You can choose female or male voices (both American accents)
Cost:
Free
Ease of use:
Oak is a simple app with not many screens, so it would suit those wanting to get in, do their meditation or breathing exercise and not do much else with the app.
My thoughts:
I enjoy the ‘Loving Kindness’ meditation session and like how much you can customise your sessions even though the app is basic.
It probably lacks a little in encouragement and fun, if you are looking for these factors to help you create a regular meditation habit. But if you are looking for something to help you meditate without too many bells and whistles, the Oak’s a good choice.
SMILING MIND
Features:
- An ‘Introduction to Mindfulness’ 3-part meditation program
- Free programs with a series of meditation sessions for various age groups, length of session, and focus areas such as sport, workplace and everyday mindfulness.
- Favourites tab
- Dashboard showing where you are up to in your current program, number of sessions you have completed, time meditated and streaks. It also has a chart showing which days you meditated, how long for and how you felt.
- Mood tracker
- Available on Apple, Android and desktop
- Male voice with Australian accent
Cost:
Free
Ease of use:
Very easy to use.
My thoughts:
While writing out the features of this app, I realised that it is pretty simple compared to a lot of the other ones, however, this is the app that I have found myself using the most often.
I like that I can progress through various meditation programs for free. This has been helpful in building momentum in creating a daily meditation practice. The dashboard is my favourite out of all the apps, it gives a visual of how I am going rather than just showing me figures.
This app would be great for starting your kids on their meditation journey early as there are lots of programs based around younger, school-aged kids. If you are an adult after a lot of variety in your meditations, this might not be the app for you (although there are still over a hundred different sessions aimed at adults!).
CALM
Features:
- Meditation sessions on sleep, anxiety, focus, stress, gratitude, happiness, relaxation, self-esteem and heaps more
- Bedtime stories you can listen to help you drift off to sleep
- A free breathing bubble to help you slow your breaths
- You can choose from different background scenes and noises
- Ability to save your favourites
- Streaks, total sessions and mindful minutes displayed
- You can set a daily “Mindfulness Reminder” at the time of your choosing
- Access via Apple, Android and desktop
- Connect your progress to Apple Health Kit (again, I’m not sure if Android has something similar?)
- Female voice (American accent)
Through Calm Premium you can access:
- all of the meditation sessions available,
- calming music to relax, focus and sleep,
- monthly Masterclasses from mindfulness experts, and
- videos of mindful moving.
Cost:
Free 7 day trial then $79.99 per year. If you stay unsubscribed, you can access the first session of about 10 series (eg. ‘7 Days of Happiness’ etc) and 1 sleep story, although you can do a timed meditation or open-ended meditation for free as well.
Ease of use:
Not hard to use, but probably not as easy as some of the other apps mentioned, simply because they have so much available through the app that it’s easy to get distracted. There is almost too much choice!!
My thoughts:
I like the holistic approach this app takes with the range of sessions and services on offer, however, unless you are willing to fork out the fee for Calm Premium, it’s a bit frustrating that you only get access to one session of selected series they offer (but then, I suppose that is the point to encourage you to upgrade!!).
Personally, I find some of the other apps provide more options without having to spend anything, so they are more appealing to me. But, if you wanted to get serious about meditation and mindfulness, I think Calm would be a good way to learn a lot about it in a fun environment.
INSIGHT TIMER
Features:
- A free course ‘Learn How To Meditate In Seven Days’
- A range of free individual meditation sessions
- A timer for ‘freestyle’ meditation where you can select the length, background music and various bell options
- Paid ‘courses’ on a range of mindfulness topics
- Free soothing music tracks
- Free talks including poems and mindful
- Free sleep preparation tracks
- Stats viewable with chart option
- Available on Apple and Android
- Optional daily reminder and ability to connect with Apple Health
- A female’s voice (American accent) for the introduction series and then varied on each of the individual sessions available
Cost:
Free with ‘courses’ you can purchase (generally $7.99 each)
Ease of use:
It was a little hard to navigate to start with but after clicking around to explore what the different tabs contained, it soon made sense. Easy to start listening and meditating.
My thoughts:
I was a bit thrown by the lady’s voice in the learn how to meditate course, I found it a little ‘dreamy’ at first, but it is quite soothing when I got over that. I love how much you can access for free in this app, it has most of the features available in the Calm app, but you can access nearly all of it without paying a dime. It probably isn’t as user friendly as Calm, but I can overlook that with the cost difference!
HEADSPACE
Features:
- A number of free and paid Headspace courses available with between 10 to 30 sessions and include topics like Basics, Health, Brave, Happiness, Work & Performance, Students, Headspace Pro and Sport, as well as some individual sessions on additional topics.
- Free animated videos on learning techniques and overcome obstacles.
- Free ‘Sleepcasts’, ‘Sleep Sounds’, and ‘Wind Downs’ audios
- Run streak goals’ with colourful badges
- Shows you how many sessions you have completed and how many minutes you have meditated for
- Optional reminders to meditate as well as mindful moments and recommendations (day and time can be set)
- Available on Apple, Android and desktop
- Connect your progress to Apple Health Kit (not sure if Android has something similar?)
- Voice is male with a British accent
Cost:
Free for the first 10 basic meditation as well as 1 trial meditation of the first session of the various ‘courses’ of meditations that Headspace has as well as free animated videos and sleep audios. To access the full Headspace Library, it is $19.99 per month, $149.99 annually or one payment of $599.99 for lifetime access.
Ease of use:
Login via Facebook, Spotify or you can create an account with Headspace. Easy to find sessions and be meditating within seconds. You can also now choose the length of meditation you do in certain sessions.
My thoughts:
There is no doubt that Headspace provides a thorough array of meditation sessions and is easy to use. Personally, I don’t feel the need to have so many different courses and so don’t feel the need to purchase the Headspace subscription (and there are other apps that provide more sessions for free).
The introduction to meditation Headspace provides is useful and I like the encouragement offered during the sessions. I did have trouble feeling comfortable in the Headspace meditations and initially thought that it was because it was a male’s voice, but one of my favourite meditation apps also has a male voice, so I think it’s just a personal preference.
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CONCLUSION
Looking at these meditation apps side-by-side, I think they all have something to offer and can help you to establish an effective meditation routine.
I think it will come down to your personal preference, so maybe give them all a go if you can – try one out per week and make notes of what you liked/didn’t like for each. Most, if not all, of them had the ability to sign up via Facebook, so it’s easy enough to get started without having to remember login details left, right and centre (we have enough of that with other programs, hey!).
Here’s a quick summary of my reviews:
- Insight Timer – it has SO MUCH free stuff available, so if you are comfortable with the layout and having a lot of variety, this could well be the app for you.
- Smiling Mind – this one has great programs of meditation sessions you can use (and they are all free!), but it lacks a daily reminder and integration with Apple Health to help keep you on track. You can easily overcome this by setting a reminder directly on your phone.
- Oak – sometimes simple is best and Oak is a great app that is really straightforward to use. If you like consistency in your routines, then this one will be a winner for you.
- Calm – I love the wealth of resources available through Calm and I found it a little more user-friendly than Insight Timer that has similar resources available. The downside is that there is a fee attached to these resources and you are limited in what you can access for free.
- Headspace – a great range of meditations and animations are available, as well as some audios to help you wind down and sleep. It is a bit pricey to access their full resource library, so if you are going to take the leap and pay for a library of meditation sessions, I think Calm provides more value for money – but choose the one that you can see yourself using the most!
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I hope these has helped you to find a meditation app that you are interested in giving a try!
As someone who fell off the meditation bandwagon and is getting back on, I’m finding these apps very helpful in easing me back into a daily meditation practice. The reminders and gamification provide me with encouragement to keep going and I have noticed myself feeling more mindful during the day and more intentional about how I spend my time.
See which one of these apps you feel most comfortable using and if there is one that you enjoy using more than the others. This is the key after all, that you actually use the app!
If you can, try to meditate for a short period of time everyday. A regular practice is going to be the most effective meditation routine as well as bringing you the most benefits.
Don’t stress out if you miss a day or a week here and there. Like me, you can just get started again and try to increase your average of sessions from your new starting point.
I’d love to know, have you try any of these apps yourself? What was your thoughts on them helping you to create an effective meditation routine?
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