Let's be honest, the world feels like it's gone off the rails lately, right?
Perhaps the world has always been stressful and will always continue to be. Throw a Pandemic in the mix and the wild year we've all just experienced in various levels of emotional response and it feels like all that stress has compounded.
So, why shouldn't meditation and mindfulness apps be taking a distinct advantage in app stores and across the internet?
If you're in the market for a little peace of mind or trying to figure out how to strengthen your mental resilience, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to figure out which app or service to go with. The very tools meant to help relieve stress become stressful themselves when weighing them against each other and trying to figure out which one to go with.
So, here's a little help. Let's take a closer look at 5 of the top meditation and mindfulness apps on the market. Let's check them out…
1. Headspace
If you want to learn how to meditate from an expert who has studied it closely for a decade, then let Andy Puddicombe, the co-founder and voice of Headspace be your guide.
Headspace is for those who want to learn traditional approaches to meditation, but are either new or still learning the ropes. It's a great place to start and to build your foundations for a lifelong pursuit of meditation.
- Founded in 2010 by Andy Puddicombe and Rich Pierson, Headspace is a global leader in meditation and mindfulness through its meditation app and online content offerings.
- Headspace is backed by co-founder Andy Puddicombe's deep knowledge of the time-honored tradition and practice of meditation, coupled with his expertise at translating those learnings into modern day applications.
- Headspace has 70M users across 190 countries.
- Headspace is available in English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese
Headspace has a great collection of guided meditation, sure to fit anyone's time restraints. Ranging from just a minute to a few minutes, or something more substantial, there is a lot of flexibility worked into its app and offerings.
More than meditations alone, there are guided breathing sessions, pep talks and motivation, interesting short videos, and a friendly feel worked throughout the entire thing. You never feel talked down to for not knowing something, or left out if you don't understand right away. Instead, you feel comfortably guided through everything.
Headspace is committed to advancing the field of mindfulness and meditation through clinically validated research, with one of the largest research pipelines of any digital health and wellness
company (Headspace.com)
Headspace is the right app if you're just beginning, or want to go a little bit deeper with the helpful guidance of an experienced team, and if you want flexibility in the length of meditations and specific themes covered. If you want control, comfort and to be guided, this is the app for you.
2. Meditopia
Meditopia is an app that proves both the need for and steady interest in personal mental health, meditation, mindfulness, and achieving happiness from these things. They are a meditation and mindfulness app on a mission, and if you're looking for a guided experience similar to Headspace or Calm, but with some different offerings, this just might be the app for you.
"Our mission is to help people all over the world discover happiness within themselves and develop the mental resilience to apply to their daily lives" (Meditopia.com)
Their mission to help you reach and sustain personal happiness, and to develop the mental strength and resilience you need to carry it throughout your life. Where other apps on this list may offer guidance and even a more traditional classroom setting, Meditopia acts as a meditation coach, pulling together the experience of instructors, teachers, and healers to create powerful opportunities for your personal growth.
"We were privileged to be able to work hand in hand with mindfulness instructors, yoga teachers, and emotional healers to determine and analyze the root causes of emotions like stress, anxiety, anger, compassion, and gratitude. We then combined these perspectives with the latest scientific research on mental wellness and mindfulness exercises to produce what is now over 350 meditations in 7 different local languages" (Meditopia.com)
They have a large library of meditations and a growing list of languages they off them in. Meditopia is definitely a meditation app to keep your eye on as its growth is sure to continue, and its unique offerings will grow as well. If you want a mental health and wellness coach, Meditopia just might be the app you're looking for.
3. Calm
Calm is less about a guided experience and more about creating an environment for relaxation, mental wellness, and openness to meditation.
"Calm is the leading mental wellness brand with the #1 app for sleep, meditation and relaxation, designed to help you manage stress, sleep better and live a happier, healthier life. With hundreds of hours of original audio content available in seven languages, Calm supports users in more than 190 countries" (Calm.com)
Calm is the right fit for you if you already have an understanding and healthy practice of meditation. Some of the other apps on this list show you how to meditate, guide you through the process and even evolve the process using various techniques, but this is not the core purpose of calm.
Just as its name implies, the purpose of Calm is to establish an atmosphere that helps you relax, lower stress, and be receptive to opportunities for mental health and wellness (through meditation and mindfulness habits and routines).
4. Bindupoint
For a more traditional approach to meditation, mindfulness, and yoga, Bindupoint is your go-to spot. They offer live virtual classes for meditation and yoga, giving you a sense of community and connection with others that are also learning and developing their meditation practices.
"Bindupoint's primary goal is to enhance the value of life through knowledge, education and qualities of dynamic transformation achieved through direct experiences within mindful practices in the body" (Bindupoint.com)
Sometimes, you really need an instructor, and if you find yourself in this position, having live virtual classes and workshops with knowledgeable instructors to guide you and help you grow and develop in your mental health journey is an essential element. Bindupoint is great for those wanting to build a regular routine around their meditation and mental health practices for this very reason. You are surrounded by a community of like-minded individuals and an instructor with experience to help you grow and develop in your journey.
5. Synctuition
If you want to experience something entirely different with your meditation and mindfulness, try Synctuition. Meditation with this app feels less like a class, or even a structured event, and more like a journey with a map. Each journey takes about 25 minutes or so, which can sound like a lot, but once you plug in, time becomes the last thing you think about.
Facts and stats about Synctuition:
- Over 10 years in development (in Estonia)
- Based on 106 scientific studies
- First mindfulness/relaxation app recorded entirely with 3D sounds
- Over 1500 people were involved in creating the app
- Launched in January 2019
- Over 4 million app downloads in just over 1 year
- Over 100k positive reviews
- Became the Top 3 most popular (highest-grossing) mindfulness app in the United States
- The company is still completely self-funded
- Chosen by Google as one of the top 10 fastest growing startups in Europe in 2019
Synctuition is a fully immersive experience. A hybrid between many of the other approaches to meditation, mindfulness, and mental wellness, Synctuition is an experience closer to what you might describe as Meditation 2.0
"Through regular headphones, Synctuition is able to provide a fully immersive soundscape and transport the listener into a sound environment that feels real. Synctuition's binaural sound technology provides more than just immersive entertainment. Each Synctuition sound journey is encoded with special sound frequencies that are beneficial for the brain and highly effective at relaxing the body. A 25-minute listening session of Synctuition has the same effect as four hours of regular deep meditation" (Synctuition)
Synctuition calls their experiences journeys, and it's a fitting description. You plug into each experience using a mixture of sounds ranging from binaural beats, nature sounds, and chanting and human voices. It pulls you in right away and with a little practice, helps you connect to a deep meditative state quickly and more easily regardless of your level of experience. Beginner and old pro can both benefit from the approach this app takes with mindfulness and meditation.
Wrapping it all up
There you have it, 5 of the top meditation and mindfulness apps and services on the market, and a little less stress in trying to figure out which one (or ones) you might want to sign up for.
The next time the world feels a little overwhelming, or your stress a little heavy, take a moment to catch your breath, center yourself and plug into one of these great meditation and mental health and wellness tools. You can take your mental health and wellness to the next level, and face whatever life throws at you. You've got this!
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