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Life is hectic, isn’t it? It’s stressful and we often get so wrapped up in our problems and get stressed out that our mind and body just screams for some peace. The best remedy to get some mental peace lies in healthy lifestyle choices, exercise, and meditation. Most people often exercise their bodies but neglect their mental health. Over time this leads to developing mental illnesses like anxiety, depression and other mental diseases. These mental illnesses in turn can affect your physical health too.
Meditation is great for your mental health. Contrary to popular belief it’s not that hard too. You can do a quick 5-minute meditation session before going to work and 5 minutes before your bedtime. Not only will this help you destress after a long day but over time boost your mental health. Meditation also has a lot of physical benefits like improved sleep and more energy; it can also reduce blood pressure, help with pain, insomnia, anxiety, depression smoking cessation and provide other benefits.
Today due to the boon of technology you can learn how to meditate using your phone. There are a lot of free meditation apps without subscription plans out there. There are also apps that are free with in-app purchases that will help you in your quest for mental peace. While these free apps are good for meditation you can benefit from using these apps that offer paid subscriptions. Apps with paid subscriptions provide more meditation programs, routines, sleep sounds, sleep stories and other tools to help you meditate.
Here in this blog, you’ll find the names of the 7 best meditation apps for you to try out and have the best meditation possible.
Let’s Choose from the best meditation apps available
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On its Play Store page, Insight Timer claims to be the best free meditation app, and it probably is. From guided meditations to sleep music tracks Insight Timer has it all. This app also has talks led by the top meditation and mindfulness experts, neuroscientists, psychologists and teachers from Stanford, Harvard, the University of Oxford and more. Insight Timer has music tracks from world-renowned artists. Being one of the best meditation apps Insight Timer helps calm the mind, reduce anxiety, manage stress, and sleep deeply. Insight timer is available on Android and iOS.
Insight Timer is probably the best meditation app for beginners while being great for experienced meditators. The app has a huge selection of exercises to choose from. ( It has over 100,000+ guided meditations in its free version).
Features:
Short Meditations: There are short meditations which you can do. These will help you build the habit of meditating daily.
Calming sounds: There are lots of music tracks and ambient sounds to calm the mind, focus, sleep better and relax available in the app.
Customizable meditation timer: Insight timer has a customisable meditation Timer
Teachers: You can follow your favourite teachers here. ( Some of the popular teacher's name includes Tara Brach, Sarah Blondin, and Andrew Johnson).
Discussion Groups: The app has thousands of discussion groups.
Stats and milestones: Insight timer gives you stats and milestones for tracking your progress
Lots of freebies: You can access a lot of the app's features for free. There are 100,000+ meditations in the library available for free.
Good for beginners: Those new to meditation will find hundreds of free introductory meditation sessions on a variety of topics.
Yoga Classes: There are free, easy-to-follow, live yoga classes in the app.
Kid-friendly: There are engaging and interesting meditations and stories for kids and teens on a range of topics, like sleep and how to express yourself.
Drawbacks
The free trial of the insight timer is only a week long.
The free version of Insight Timer doesn’t allow access to the full app.
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Calm is yet another of the best meditation apps out there that provides quality meditation programs for its users. Calm is one of the best mindfulness apps out there that provides meditations, sleep stories, and soundscapes. Calm is available on Android and iOS devices.
Features
Meditation and mindfulness: You can meditate with expert meditators here. The mindfulness meditation topics in calm include deep sleep, calming anxiety, focus and concentration and others.
Sleep Stories: Calm has a wide range of sleep stories that are voiced by celebrities. It has bedtime stories and soundscapes for people from all age groups.
Sleep Sounds: Calm has a lot of calming music, sleep sounds and full soundscapes to tackle sleep problems.
New Music: You can relax and experience deep sleep with new music added every week, from top artists in Calm
Anxiety Relief and relaxation: You can manage your stress and relax with daily meditation and breathing exercises.
Daily Programs: There are a lot of daily 10-minute original programs like Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt or the Daily Trip with Jeff Warren that will help reduce your anxiety.
Drawbacks
The sleep stories in Calm are sometimes too long for some users
There are fewer features included in the free version of Calm than in the premium version
Headspace is one of the leading players in the field of the best meditation apps out there. Headspace provides you with a lot of options like courses, and meditation tips, helps you sleep better and even provides you with exercises to release stress from your body. The easy-to-use nature of Headspace and its basic programs makes it perhaps the best meditation app for beginners.
Features
Wide range of meditations: Headspace has a wide range of meditations and being one of the best meditation apps offers a lot of meditation courses on topics like relationships, putting down your phones for your mental wellness, reframing loneliness, self-esteem etc.
Headspace is well-known for its guided meditations. If you’re a beginner Headspace can be the best meditation app for you with its basic meditation courses. The app also provides meditation tips.
Meditations for sleep: Headspace helps you unwind at the end of the day with winddown exercises and fall asleep. Headspace has soundscapes and soothing sleepcasts available for your good night's rest. There is sleep music available like rain, wind, forest, desert etc.
Stress and anxiety relief sessions: Headspace helps you manage your anxiety with SOS meditation sessions and manage your stress level by managing your emotions during difficult times.
Breathing Exercise: Headspace provides you with breathing exercises and calming meditations to help you release tension
Meditation for anxiety and depression: There are meditations designed to help you cope with the challenges of life in terms of anxiety and depression.
Meditation music for increasing focus: Headspace helps you improve your concentration and focus with music, there are 12 music stations that energize and help keep your focus. On Headspace you can listen to music genres like Lo-Fi, Jazz, and more with musicians like MadLib and John Legend.
Headspace Move feature: Headspace has quick workouts in the app which you can do to relieve stress and anxiety with its Move Mode. Headspace has a 28-day cardio workout with expert trainers.
Meditation for kids: On Headspace, kids can practice meditation and mindfulness to help boost their mood and there are exercises for kids that can help them find kindness, calm, and focus in their day. There are also guided meditations for kids to help manage stress.
Progress tracking: Headspace lets you track your progress in the app.
Compete with your Buddies: As meditating on your own can get daunting, tiresome and boring you can challenge and compete with your buddies to keep you motivated from the buddies section.
Drawbacks
After you’ve been using the app for a while it can become a bit repetitive at times.
It can also be costly for some although its premium features are worth paying for.
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Medito is yet another one of the best meditation apps on this list. It has a soothing and welcoming user interface. It is easy to use and offers a lot of features. You can use this best meditation app free of cost.
Medito feels that mental health support should be free and that’s why they provide free meditation sessions. Despite being a free meditation app it is feature-loaded and has a great User Interface as well. Its features include:-
Features
Guided meditations: Medito has guided meditations, breathing exercises, mindfulness practices, relaxing sounds, and a myriad of learning courses. Medito is perfect for beginners and is one of the best meditation apps for experienced meditators as well.
Daily meditation: Medito has a different meditation session for each day. It is available by two different narrators:- Will and Steven.
Clean UI: Medito has a pretty easy-to-use User Interface and the app is easy to navigate.
30-day challenges: Medito has 30-day challenges that have been carefully designed to help build a consistent habit of meditating.
Meditation Timer: Medito has a meditation timer. You can set the time you want to meditate from here. The timer has 3-minute intervals to 60-minute intervals available.
Meditation for sleep: You can get a peaceful night’s rest with Medito’s sleep meditations, sleep stories and meditation music. It has guided meditations with soothing sounds and narratives to promote deep, rejuvenating sleep.
Comprehensive Courses: Medito covers topics like stress management, work-life balance, compassion, philosophical contemplation, and coping with societal crises.
In addition to meditations on gratitude, body scans, and breathing exercises, Medito offers unique content to address emergency mental states, empowerment, and personal insights, ensuring a comprehensive toolkit for mental well-being. Medito is in my opinion probably the best free meditation app available today.
Drawbacks
The options for different narrators are limited in Medito.
The sound quality of the audio could improve.
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Balance is a unique app that adapts to your meditation needs. Balance adapts its meditation program to your feedback and adjusts accordingly. In the app, there is a feedback option where you'll have to answer questions about your meditation experience, goals, and obstacles. This makes Balance one of the best meditation apps as it adjusts to your preferences and your busy schedule. You can decide whether you’d like the narrator’s voice to be masculine or feminine. Although Balance recommends a duration you can choose how long you want to meditate. Balance is available on Android and iOS.
Features
Extensive library: Balance has an extensive library where you can choose from personalized guided meditations tailored to your mood, goals, and experience. It has 10-day Plans to help you develop and deepen your meditation skills. Balance has research-backed activities to help you relax, reduce stress and anxiety, and get restful sleep.
Balance has bite-sized Singles you can use to get more out of any moment. It also has 10 concrete meditation techniques to build your practice: Breath Focus, Body Scan, Labeling, and more
2. Breathing exercises: Balance has animated breathing exercises to quickly calm and relax.
3. Meditation for Anxiety: Balance has plans to help manage your anxiety.
4. Beginner-friendly: Balance is by far the best meditation app for beginners as it takes into account your meditation experience.
Progress tracking: Balance will prompt you to complete a progress tracker that looks at your use of the app and get your feedback, how many days you have used it in a row, how much time you spend meditating overall and which meditation you have done.
It will even quiz you about the meditations you have done to see if you’ve benefited from the educational information.
Meditation for couples: Balance has meditation programs for couples. You can easily start the day meditating together with your partner.
Meditation for sleep: You can have a great sleep with Balance's sleep meditations, sleep stories, sleep sounds, and wind-down activity—a first-of-its-kind interactive that uses bilateral stimulation and controlled breathing to help your mind relax before going to bed, overcome anxiety, and find more restful sleep.
- Free for the first year: Balance is free for the first year, after that, you have to pay for the subscription prices. (It's for people from the US, Subscriptions in other countries may vary.)
Drawbacks
Balance often advertises other apps by the creators.
Balance also encourages you to buy the premium; although these prompts are not that intrusive they can hinder the experience for some.
Atom is one of the best meditation apps that has a unique way of building daily meditation a habit. It has different paths in the app to choose from, these paths are pretty unique and fun to take. The uniqueness of the app is that after every time you meditate a random tree will be planted in the forest in the app. This is extremely satisfying in its own nature and will give you a sense of accomplishment. its fun way to approach meditation makes it one of the best meditation apps for beginners. Atom is currently available for Android devices on the Play Store.
Features
Different paths
Atom has lots of different paths for you to choose from. Some of the paths in Atom include:-
A path for habit Building
A path for managing anxiety
A path for improving Productivity
A path for practising Happiness
A path for managing Emotions
A path for better sleep
These paths do as their names suggest and are designed to improve your mental well-being.
Beginner-Friendly: The reason Atom is one of the best meditation apps in terms of its beginner-friendly attitude. The encouragement it provides and the easy-to-do meditations with short duration make it easy for those who are starting on their meditation journey.
Good audio quality: The audio quality of the meditations is pretty good.
Simple Interface: Atom has a rather simple interface
Cheap Plan: Atom’s plans are pretty cheap compared to other apps out there.
Quizzes: The app quizzes you after you complete the meditations and read the articles provided.
Additional resources: Atom provides additional resources along with their meditation programs.
Discord Community: Atom has a discord community for you to join.
Drawbacks
There are limited options for meditation in the app as compared to other names out there.
The app can lag at times
If you skip sessions then there is a mismatch between the session and the article related to it.
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Mindfulness with Petit BamBou has all the features needed in a meditation app. What makes it one of the best meditation apps is the fact not only does it focus on mindfulness meditation but also the stories it has to explain the basics of meditation like how it’s difficult to learn meditation at first but after some practice it becomes second nature.
Petit Bambou is a good meditation app because of its conciseness and the features it provides. Mindfulness with Petit BamBou will help make you feel calm and peaceful at bedtime and clear-headed and focused throughout the day, It’ll also help you understand your emotions better and learn to take control of them, rather than being controlled by them.
Features
The features that are included in the free version of Mindfulness with Petit BamBou are:
Easy-to-use interface: Petit BamBou has an easy-to-use and visually appealing user interface
A wide catalogue: Mindfulness with Petit BamBou has a wide catalogue of meditations that are divided by themes like Progression, Breathing, Sleep, Emotions, Mind, Body and others. It has open-access programmes like Discovery and Discovery for kids. There are Free, Daily and Guided meditations in the app.
Quick Sessions: The app has two quick sessions available: Calming down and Soothing breath.
Sounds: Petit BamBou has a Relaxing Sounds section in the app. It is divided into categories like New, Nature, Water, Cozy Atmosphere, Travel, Dream World, Tibetan Gongs, Kalimba, and Lo-fi so you can take your pick from this myriad of sounds.
Stories: In the free version you get 3 daily meditations of your choice. It has animated stories to help you understand the basic principles of mindfulness
Meditation Tools: Petite Bambou will give you access to unlimited access to free-breathing and meditation tools for your relaxation and heart coherence exercises
The paid version of Petit BamBou contains more features. Besides being one of the best meditation apps on the internet it also brings together a wide range of other practices, including sophrology, visualisation and positive psychology as well You can access all of these with guidance from the leading experts in their field (psychologists, psychiatrists, meditation instructors).
Drawbacks
The option in the free section is a bit limited.
The voice of the narrator can be a bit robotic at times.
Hope this article has been helpful to you and that now you can choose the best app suited for you. I’ve tried to put as much info about these apps as possible so that you don’t have to look elsewhere. As always it is a pleasure to write for you. Until next time!
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Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)
Which is better, headspace or Calm?
Headspace might be better for beginners while Calm is more suited for experienced meditators
Is the Calm app 100% free?
Although Calm is free to download and there are some free features most of its content is premium.
Is there a free app like Calm?
There are apps like Medito that are completely free as of now. Insight Timer has a lot of great free content that is available in the app as well.
What distinguishes Insight Timer from other meditation apps, making it suitable for beginners and experienced practitioners alike?
Insight Timer offers a range of free content that you can access through the app.
What sets Insight Timer, apart from meditation apps making it appealing to both newcomers and seasoned practitioners?
Insight Timer shines with its extensive collection of free guided meditations, customizable options and vibrant community discussions making it a perfect fit for individuals at any meditation level.
How does Calm set itself apart in the world of meditation apps in terms of mindfulness practices and sleep assistance?
Calm provides a selection of meditation programs bedtime stories narrated by celebrity personalities and calming sleep sounds that focus on mindfulness training, stress relief and enhancing sleep quality.
What features position Headspace as a choice for beginners stepping into the realm of meditation?
Headspace offers meditation courses, tools for sleep stress management techniques and specially designed programs for children to make it an accessible option for those new to meditation.
How does Medito emphasize inclusivity in health support by offering guided meditations and an easy-to-navigate interface?
Medito presents a variety of guided meditations, breathing exercises and mindfulness activities at no cost with a user interface for individuals, at all levels of experience.
9. Is Atom suited for Beginners?
Atom's interactive method of meditation, where you can plant a tree in a forest after each session, along with its user-friendly design and budget-friendly subscriptions appeals, to beginners looking to start meditating.
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