Meditation apps for beginners: how to find the right app for you

march mindfulness is an annual Mashable series that explores the intersection of meditation practice and technology. This article is part one of his two-part series looking at how to choose apps based on your personality.

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I decided to download a meditation app. Maybe you’ll trust a friend’s recommendation or take advantage of your employer’s discount and be happy to go. It’s surprisingly difficult to make that choice.

This is because meditation apps are often positioned as lifestyle and wellness products. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Combining sleep, exercise, yoga and meditation content in his one app with friendly design is very convenient for users. In short, one-stop shopping for your health needs.

But all of that comes bundled together, which can make navigating the crowded meditation app market difficult. I have little choice but to upgrade. It helps to know what you want before you get into that position. That’s what this series deals with.

In the next part of our series, we’ll share specific guides for meditation apps based on responses from seven market leaders, including Headspace, Calm, and Simple Habit.

Ultimately, though, it may depend less on the specifics of each app and more on finding the one that best suits your personality and style.

Consider the following three steps.

1. Know what you want from a meditation app.

If it feels like some apps are fiercely competing against each other for the biggest celebrity spot, it’s because they are. Headspace hired John Legend(opens in new tab) as Chief Music Officer.Keep calm, Matthew McConaughey(opens in new tab) Tell sleep stories.Russell Brand(opens in new tab) Shares his own guided meditations on Insight Timer. These kinds of cultural references might be exactly what you need to open your meditation app every day.

But it’s also important to make that choice consciously. Otherwise, it’s easy to get distracted by famous names, flashy features, and digital sticky notes if your needs aren’t clear.

For example, if you want your app to be multitasking, products that offer different forms of movement, such as stretching, yoga, and “mindful” workouts, are great choices. Such content is available in apps like Calm, Headspace, and Simple Habit. Also, Apple Fitness is not a meditation app, but it also includes guided meditations in its content library.

But if your goal is to learn basic meditation techniques or deepen your practice, and you don’t need other kinds of features, then apps like Ten Percent Happier, Balance, Healthy Minds Program, etc. may be more suitable.

Beginning meditators often turn to Insight Timer, billed as the world’s largest library of meditation apps, with over 160,000 guided meditations and music tracks in 44 languages, many of which are free. We also host yoga and breathwork classes, live events and journaling.

When making decisions about your app, it’s also important to answer questions such as:

• Need an app with meditation resources for kids?

• Looking for content to help you sleep?

• Do you have a disability and need an app with accessibility features like closed captioning?

• Would you like access to live group meditations or individual coaching?

No single meditation app can meet all your needs, but some are better suited than others. For example, Simple Habit has guided meditations and lots of sleep content for kids, but no accessibility features. Ten Percent Happier includes captions for most meditations, offers group meditation practice and individual coaching, but has few in-app resources for kids.

Finally, if you’re looking for a particular style of meditation, know that apps typically don’t advertise the types of practices included in their guided tracks. That’s because it’s a large category that describes the practice of “basic skills that nurture introspection,” says meditation teacher and author Diana Winston. Being Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness(opens in new tab).

In general, Winston says common types of meditation focus on skills such as: Developing specific qualities of mind and heart such as awareness, concentration, guided visualization, and compassion and love. Try to determine if there are any.

Meditation apps are also often packaged as secular to appeal to a wide audience, even when the meditation practices offered are rooted in spiritual traditions such as Buddhism.

This doesn’t mean your app is secretly religious, but it reflects a decades-long trend to secularize meditation for the American public, and unfortunately its roots and obscures the source.

2. Consider your strengths and challenges before choosing a meditation app.

For most people, forming new habits is difficult. Repetition and consistency are required to make interests and tasks part of everyday life. Building a meditation practice comes with its own challenges. People tend to have high expectations of both themselves and the benefits they experience.

However, there is no perfect way to practice, and meditation is difficult and unsatisfying. , may trigger pre-existing trauma.

It’s helpful to consider these factors when choosing an app. Unfortunately, that choice is an art, not a science – at least for now. Several studies show that mindfulness interventions can affect people differently, depending on their individual characteristics It suggests that

a British Journal of Health Psychology research it comprehensively(opens in new tab) Examining its effects, it was found that participants who scored higher on tests assessing motivation, medical conditions, mindfulness, and interpersonal problems had increased levels of positive meditation outcomes. Higher baseline levels of psychiatric disorders or depression were associated with worse mental health following meditation interventions.

In other words, who you are and what you go through can affect how well meditation works for you.

This field of research is still in its infancy.A much smaller study published last year Journal of Clinical Medicine(opens in new tab)found that personality traits can also influence the success of mind-body interventions.

They were also more likely to report increased well-being and body awareness. Those with more vulnerable personality traits, such as high anxiety and low self-compassion, also saw more benefits.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Karin Matko, a postdoctoral fellow at the Technical University of Chemnitz in Germany, asked Mashable and, ultimately, which type of mindfulness approach, such as yoga or mantra meditation, is suitable for whom. He said he wanted to better understand the To help people get the most out of it.

Science may not be able to provide these answers right now, but it’s worth considering that a particular app or style of meditation may not suit you.

3. Be a little skeptical and trust your intuition when choosing a meditation app.

Even if you’re particularly interested in meditation, you may find some guided meditations laughably banal and way out of your comfort zone. If the overall style of your app seems too tactile or humorless, it probably isn’t for you. Not wanting a guided meditation at all is also a legitimate choice.

Just because a guided track is uploaded to a meditation app doesn’t mean it’s a famous practice handed down by monks and gurus for thousands of years. Meditation doesn’t have to meet that criteria to be useful, but Diana Winston also says it’s “the wild west of meditation out there.”

Those who teach meditation are coming up with highly creative practices that may broaden the definition of what meditation means. may be included.

Winston isn’t concerned about people’s physical safety, but he does believe that exposure to certain types of guided tracks might discourage people from continuing their meditations.

“I think there are many [of meditations] It’s unhelpful, ineffective, and can keep people from meditating even if they’ve received proper instruction elsewhere,” said director of mindfulness education at UCLA’s Center for Mindful Awareness Research. Winston, who serves as

Winston recommends that people “rely on their own best thoughts” when evaluating meditation and the apps that host it.

After all, a marketing campaign for a meditation app might just get you noticed.