There is no shortage attentiveness and meditation apps these days that promise to help you fight anxiety, sleep better, improve focus, etc. in fact, Wall Street Journal reports that more than 2,000 new meditation programs were launched between 2015 and 2018, and offerings have only increased as a result of higher demand during the pandemic – according to New York Timesin 2020, the number of mindfulness apps has increased. We’ve taken the trouble to find the most valuable and easy-to-use meditation apps available for free and narrowed it down to these five apps.
Summary
Mindfulness.com
- Platforms: iOS, Android, web
- The main points: Over 2,000 guided meditations with a customizable “Just for you” experience, quick mini-exercises, sleep aids, and soothing soundscapes.
- Paid upgrade: offers Mindfulness Plus+ for advanced features like daily learning.
Timer Insight
- Platforms: iOS, Android, web
- The main points: A huge library of 80,000+ free meditations from 10,000+ teachers, live events and a global community showing real-time meditation stats.
- Paid upgrade: Annual subscription unlocks courses, offline downloads, and advanced player controls.
A smiling mind
- Platforms: iOS, Android, web
- The main points: A non-profit organization with structured programming for a variety of age groups and needs, including fast-paced classes and family-friendly content.
- Price: Completely free with no premium options.
UCLA Attentive
- Platforms: iOS, Android
- The main points: Developed by UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center, featuring research-based bilingual meditations and practices, as well as longer “podcast” sessions.
- Price: Free.
The program is a healthy mind
- Platforms: iOS, Android
- The main points: combines neuroscience with meditation training using a four-pillar approach (awareness, connection, understanding, purpose) and offers micro-practices for mindfulness on the go.
- Price: Free.
5 free meditation apps we’re excited to download
1) Mindfulness.com
Available for iOS, Android and web
Entrance fee: Free of charge
With more than 2000 guided meditations from the world’s leading teachers, this app caters to both beginners and experienced practitioners.
The interface includes five tabs: Mini, where you can find quick and easy mindfulness exercises that can be done at any time during the day; Meditate, where you’ll find all over 2,000 guided meditations; Sleep, which contains calm and relaxing meditations for deep sleep; Radio, where you can find music for mindfulness and soundscapes for concentration and peace; and finally, the For You tab, which really makes this app stand out.
Throughout your use of this program, you will be asked to provide information about your preferences, goals and the type of support you are seeking. The app will offer personalized daily instructional videos paired with guided meditations under the For You tab. You can choose the length of your daily meditations – from five to 30 minutes – depending on your schedule and level of practice. Opportunities to dive deeper include meditation classes, expert Q&As, breathwork, journaling tips, and more.
If you want to reduce stress and anxiety or seeking support for general mental health, the Mindfulness.com app is a powerful resource. The many features offered by this app give you a path to mindfulness and allow you to progress in your chosen direction at your own pace.
Paid option: For $84.99 per year (with a 14-day free trial) or $169 for a lifetime membership, both with a 30-day money-back guarantee, Mindfulness Plus+ includes: daily mindfulness and meditation video tutorials; courses and tools to help manage anxiety, sleep and stress; over 2000 meditations, relaxing music, nature soundscapes and more.
Available for iOS, Android and web
Entrance fee: Free of charge
Insight Timer has a huge content library of over 80,000 free meditations from over 10,000 teachers on topics such as stress, relationshiphealing, sleep, creativity and more.
From the beginning, the program looks like a global community – a world map on the main screen shows a collective of 18 million meditators and announces: “741 thousand today, 7 thousand now.” After you’ve finished meditating, you’ll know exactly how many people have meditated “with you” during that time—and by setting your location, you’ll even be able to see nearby meditators and what tracks they’re listening to.
Once you find a teacher you like Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Sharon Salzbergor Rhonda Magee— you can follow them so you don’t miss new content. You can also join free chats for life advice and inspiration. For those who crave real-time interaction, Insight Timer offers live events every hour of the day that you can join on demand or schedule around your schedule.
You can even sign up for Circle for Teams, one of their new offerings, which lets you create circles (read: groups) for real-time meditation with friends or colleagues.
However, if you prefer a quieter meditation, you can simply set a timer and meditate to an intermittent ringtone, soothing ambient noise, or soothing music.
Depending on your preferences, Insight Timer’s extensive collection can be both a blessing and a curse – an endless list of choices that leave you bewildered, or an array of tempting options to indulge in.
Paid option: For $60 a year (with a 30-day free trial), you get access to courses with renowned teachers, the ability to download meditations and listen to them offline, and advanced player features like repeat mode and fast-forward and rewind.
3) A smiling mind
Available for iOS, Android and web
Entrance fee: Free of charge
Smiling Mind hits the sweet spot for a free mindfulness app in many ways.
The non-commercial app has hundreds of meditations, enough to keep you interested without overwhelming you with choices. They are organized into structured programs such as Mindful Foundations (35 sessions), Sleep (6 sessions), Digital Detox (8 sessions) and Stress Management (10 sessions), but you have the option to choose where to start and switch between programs easily. Most meditations last between five and fifteen minutes, with some practices lasting up to 45 minutes for advanced meditators. Smiling Mind also offers short 2- to 5-minute meditations for those moments when you need a quick mindful pause in your day.
The app, which has been downloaded by more than 5.5 million people, also contains a variety of specialized programs for families, children and adolescents of all ages, health professionals and teachers (including educational programs that they can use in the classroom); all developed with the help of psychologists and medical professionals.
While you can use a meditation app as a temporary break from your busy life, Smiling Mind wants you to take your mindfulness practice off the pillow and into the rest of your day. Interspersed with some of the meditation programs are instructions for “activities” such as Journaling, Offline, Where My Food Came From, and Count Your Feelings. In Count Your Senses, for example, the audio prompts you to pay attention to your senses by counting things you can see, feel, hear, smell, and taste.
Originally created for children, Smiling Mind offers a wide range of mindfulness sessions suitable for children and young people.
Created by the non-profit organization of the same name, Smiling Mind is completely free, so you won’t be distracted by paid content that isn’t available to you as a free user. The app wants to put a “smile in your mind” and it might succeed.
Paid option: No
4) UCLA Attentive
Available for iOS and Android
Entrance fee: Free of charge
If that’s all mindfulness studies convinced you that you need to meditate, the UCLA Mindful program might be a good place to start.
The app, developed by the Mindful Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), contains about a dozen meditations of various types in English and Spanish. You can learn to focus on your breath, body or sounds; working with complex emotions; and cultivate loving kindness in sessions lasting from 3 to 19 minutes.
If you’re new to mindfulness, you can take advantage of their Getting Started section, which provides information on what mindfulness is, how to choose a meditation, which posture is best for your practice, and what research-backed benefits you can expect from it.
As a bonus, the app also offers longer meditations, which it calls “podcasts.” These are half-hour audio meditations that include talks, usually by UCLA Director of Mindfulness Education Diana Winston, before and after the meditation, and plenty of time for silent practice.
If you are looking for an application that relies heavily on the science of mindfulnessyou can trust UCLA Mindful.
Paid option: No
5) The program is a healthy mind
Available for iOS and Android
Entrance fee: Free of charge
Healthy Minds Program wants to help you develop skills for a healthy mind by strengthening mental focus, reducing stressas well as increased resilience, compassion and better immune health.
Founded by neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson (who also founded the research institute Center for common sense at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), the app combines neuroscience techniques and research with meditation training to improve overall well-being.
The program’s framework for teaching mindfulness and wellness consists of four pillars: awareness, connection, understanding, and purpose. Each pillar consists of three to five parts, and each part contains three episodes and several sessions inside. For example, the Innate Self-Esteem series includes five sessions focused on improving self-esteem (think the sessions “Practice Seeing the Good in Yourself” and “Learning the Negativity Bias”). You can choose between a sedentary or active type of practice—“active” practices include mindfulness during exercise or while commuting—and you can customize the length of time (from five minutes to 30 minutes).
The app offers a collection of 27 meditations outside of the four-pillar wellness complex, including one-minute micropractices when you need a quick respite.
Sometimes a podcast-style program can be more thought-provoking than regular guided meditations, but for the listener looking for guided meditations with a greater purpose of increasing awareness, cognition, and well-being, the Healthy Minds Program may be just the ticket.
Paid option: No
