The best meditation apps to download in 2022
How often do you meditate? If you don’t practice meditation regularly, then we highly recommend you consider starting now. Meditation has numerous benefits, such as improving sleep quality, reducing stress levels, boosting creativity, and even helping you live longer.
One thing that might be stopping you from meditating is fully understanding what it’s all about and how to do it. Well, we’re here to help you grasp what the practice is and find the right style for you.
Then, we’ll guide you to discover a meditation app that can slot seamlessly into your routine.
Meditation apps are great because they make it easy to turn meditation into a daily habit - plus many of them offer hundreds of guided sessions for free, saving you time and money in the long run.
So, let’s start at the beginning. What is meditation?
What is meditation?
Meditation is a type of exercise that focuses on your breathing and thoughts with the objective of quietening the mind. Most people meditate to help reduce stress, anxiety and improve their overall mental health.
There are many types of meditation from mindfulness meditation to focused meditation and transcendental meditation. All have their own benefits, therefore before you begin practising it’s important to understand what you want to gain from taking part in order to choose the right type of meditation for you.
Which type of meditation is right for you?
When it comes to choosing a type of meditation to practise, not only should you think about what benefits you want to gain from your time, but you should also aim to find a technique you feel comfortable with and enjoy practising. The more you enjoy meditating, the more likely you are to stick with it.
You may need to try a few different techniques before you find the one for you, therefore be prepared to persevere with patience at the start of your meditation journey.
Here’s an overview of the most popular types of meditation and the benefits they offer:
1) Mindfulness meditation
Good for increasing awareness and observing your thoughts and feelings. Experienced practitioners are able to use mindfulness techniques to let thoughts arise and pass in the mind, without getting caught up in them. It’s because of this that this type of meditation is commonly used to help people dealing with anxiety and depressive disorders.
2) Focused meditation
Essentially, another form of mindfulness, this one does exactly what it says - it helps you to focus. Concentrating on any of your five senses, such as listening to sounds, or counting your breaths, focused meditation enables you to sharpen your attention.
3) Movement meditation
You can practise this through yoga, but you can also carry out this type of meditation while walking or even gardening. Great for developing body awareness and bringing you into the present moment.
4) Mantra meditation
Often used in Eastern religions, this is when you repeat a word, sound or phrase. The repetition, not only gives your mind something to focus on but helps quieten down automatic thinking, increasing feelings of peace and awareness.
5) Transcendental meditation
Best taught by a certified practitioner, this type of meditation is very similar to mantra meditation. Traditionally, teachers will give students a mantra specifically for them to use and repeat during their meditation practice.
6) Progressive relaxation
Carried out to reduce tension in the body and unwind, progressive relaxation meditation involves tightening and relaxing one muscle group at a time.
7) Loving-kindness meditation
Used to strengthen feelings of compassion, kindness and acceptance towards yourself and others, it involves opening your mind to receive love and then pass it on to someone, such as friends and family.
8) Visualisation meditation
Often used to boost moods, confidence and positivity, the practice involves imagining a scene and adding detail to it using all five senses. Can be used to visualise goals too.
How to choose the best meditation app for you
There are many meditation apps on the market It can be difficult to know where to begin. But our recommendation is to check each of them out before buying into the monthly subscriptions.
Most apps are either free to start with or will have a free 7-14 day trial. Just make sure you cancel any subscriptions if you don’t like the app to make sure you’re not paying for something you don’t use.
Meditation apps are a great resource to invest in as they help you incorporate healthy habits into your daily life. The apps not only make meditation accessible, but you also have your very own meditation expert right in the palm of your hand.
The best meditation apps to use this year
We’re big advocates of meditation and most - if not all - of our team use a variety of meditation practices to help with anxiety, especially before any public speaking requirements.
Here are our top 7 meditation apps we recommend you download and try. To make it as easy as possible for you we’ve noted the benefits and costs too.
1. Headspace
Good for: Beginners, daily practice.
Cost: Free to download with limited free features. Headspace Plus is £9.99 a month or £74.99 a year.
Headspace is one of the biggest and most popular meditation apps in the industry with over 700,000 reviews and a 4.9 rating. It’s a great first step if you’re a beginner looking to start incorporating meditation into your life.
The App offers daily themed meditations, sleepcasts to help you sleep better, calming and energising workouts, plus activities to help you declutter your thoughts.
We personally like using this App, hence why it’s at number 1. It is a bit off-putting that it asks for your bank details straight away, but we recognise the benefits it gives us, and because of that, feel it’s money well spent.
2. The Mindfulness App
Good for: Meditation courses from well-known experts, building new habits.
Cost: Free to download. The premium membership is £9.99 a month or £44.99 for a year.
The Mindfulness App is the underdog of the meditation app world. It has a lot more helpful elements you can use for free over the others apps, and has very good reviews. This is why it’s our number 2.
Like many of the other apps it offers guided and non-guided meditation sessions that help you manage your stress, anxiety and compassion.
The feature we really like is the timer that enables the App to remind you to meditate at a specific time each day. The other thumbs up feature are the notifications with a thought-provoking message. Great for making you stop, think and focus.
3. Calm
Good for: Advanced meditators, timed sleep music, mood tracking.
Cost: Free to download with a 7-day free trial of guided meditation. The monthly cost is £7.99 or an annual subscription is £29.99.
Calm is great if you’re experienced with meditating and already know what you like and don’t like. It’s ideal for incorporating meditation into your daily routine and discovering new techniques and classes.
The meditation section offers different categories such as stress relief, anxiety and relationships. And the meditation sessions range anywhere from 3 to 30 minutes.
The unique proposition Calm has over all the other meditation apps on the market is its sleep stories and bedtime stories narrated by celebs, such as Matthew McConaughey.
4. Chopra
Good for: Setting challenges for personal growth, helping overall wellbeing.
Cost: Free to download with a selection of signature programmes, or unlock premium access for £69.99 a year.
Deepak Chopra is a well-known author and alternative medicine advocate. His Chopra app developed by him and his team follows his definition of meditation, rooted in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
The App’s motto is ‘self-care simplified’ and its aim is to help with your overall wellbeing, not just through daily meditations, but using other tools, tips and scientific research too.
There is a range of 0, 20 and 30-minute sessions you can use for free to help you find calm and relieve your anxiety wherever you are.
5. Insight Timer
Good for: Experienced meditators, joining a community, live yoga classes.
Cost: Free to download or subscribe for more features. Yearly cost is £59.99 and monthly cost is £9.99.
Insight Timer has a very large pool of meditation sessions and the element that makes it different to the other apps is the access to courses and live events, including yoga classes.
The main user feedback about the App is that it can feel overwhelming for beginners, but bear with it and browse for a bit longer as we feel this app offers a lot of goodness - for free!
If you’re into connecting with like-minded people, there’s also a great community hub where you can chat about specific topics and recommended meditations.
A good solid all-round app that offers a lot of varied content.
6. Sleep Cycle
Good for: Improving your sleep, understanding how your sleep works.
Cost: Free to download. The optional premium subscription is £29.49 a year.
Sleep Cycle has all the tools you need to help improve your sleep and in turn feel healthier, happier and more balanced. It offers an extensive sound library of music, meditations and stories.
Okay, this App isn’t for you if you want to meditate during the day, but if sleep is an area you need to improve, then this is a great free app to try.
Not only does the App help you get better sleep, but it analyses your sleep and even wakes you up at the perfect time - your lightest sleep stage - where you feel most rested.
If the act of sleep interests you too, there is an abundance of insightful sleep-related articles you can get lost in.
7. Omvana
Good for: Motivational guides, career growth, changing music tracks to suit you.
Cost: Free to download or an annual fee of £59.99 for full access.
Omvana promotes itself as the only meditation app for performance and flow. And, when you explore what it has to offer it does certainly provide more meditation sessions for a more varied need. For example, there are 17 categories to choose from including meditations for money mindset and confidence, as well as the usual stress and anxiety topics.
As with most of the meditation apps there’s a huge library of soundtracks, but Omvana’s selling point is that it lets you adjust the background music to a track or sound that suits you better.
The user reviews for this App are very good and it definitely offers a more flexible approach than the others.
Meditation is a great tool for helping manage anxiety and worries associated with public speaking. If you’d like to chat more with one of our instructors about this, do drop us a note here.