High levels of stress and anxiety cause turmoil in anybody’s life. They can upset relationships, impact your performance at work, disrupt your sleep, and rapidly alter your overall wellbeing. Thankfully, there are things you can do to help yourself, such as using one (or a few) of these best mindfulness and wellbeing apps:
In the following sections, you’ll discover more about each of the top wellbeing apps to help you choose the one that’s your perfect fit. Plus, we’ll dive into a couple of your burning questions too.
Headspace is one of the most recommended mindfulness and wellbeing apps available. It offers spoken-word exercises designed to take up just 10 minutes of your day.
With the initial download, you get a ten-session introduction pack that walks you through the basics of meditation. Generally, these exercises are a mere five minutes, allowing you to ease yourself into the world of meditation and mindfulness gradually. Alongside that, you can access “SOS meditations” of one-minute breathing guidance to give you a moment of clarity in an otherwise overwhelmingly stressful situation.
While it is a paid app, you can try it before committing to any payment plan. But we’re almost sure you’ll be hooked after the first ten sessions — users have reported numerous benefits from this one of the best wellbeing apps, including:
· Increased ability to deal with everyday stressors
· Improved attention span
· Enhanced equanimity
· Extra boost of alertness
· Reduced symptoms of anxiety
Breethe is a free mindfulness and wellbeing app that holds your hand through the whole day (if you let it). Consider it a comfort blanket for your mind.
The app provides you with countless supportive tools and guidance to help you create and stick to a meditation routine. You’ll find all kinds of quick, five-minute meditations, alongside a wealth of advice on numerous topics, including:
· Overcoming pressure
· Living with inner peace and intention
· Feeling love
Our favourite feature (and one we think all best mindfulness and wellbeing apps should have) is the “My Place” function. It allows you to save your preferred meditations, explore exciting new launches, and receive tailored recommendations based on your habits.
Dubbed the “best therapy app” by Marie Claire, Babylon gives you access to support and guidance from qualified professionals. It was designed to be used by individuals seeking help who feel they can’t head into their GP practice straight away.
This one of our top mindfulness and wellbeing apps provides virtual video appointments with registered behavioural therapies. Not to mention you’ll gain limitless information about healthcare, medical prescriptions, and easily schedulable doctor’s appointments all from within the app.
As you might’ve guessed by now, you will need to pay for it (you’re receiving high-quality, registered therapeutic help, after all). However, you can choose whether you want to pay per-session for £49 or pay yearly for £149.
Insight Timer boasts the largest free meditation catalogue in the world with roughly 6,000 guided soundtracks from 1,200 of the globe’s best teachers and musicians. This best wellbeing app doesn’t just help you relax with acclaimed meditation sessions, it also hosts podcasts and talks on various topics, such as:
· Stress
· Self-compassion
· Nature
It works with the ethos that “meditation is a privilege, not a product”. Thus, it has built a community that understands and appreciates the privilege of daily meditation and mindfulness practices.
Unlike the other top mindfulness and wellbeing apps we’ve mentioned so far, Smiling Mind’s programmes are split up into age groups — the youngest being 7-11 years. The not-for-profit business is doing nothing more than trying to make a positive change within today’s youth and their parents.
The free app includes a bunch of fun, easy-to-understand programs for children and adults. Used by over two million people across the globe, it has built up quite an audience (and for a very good reason).
Available for both Android and iOS, this best wellbeing app helps you develop the skills necessary to grow a healthy mind. What are these skills, we hear you ask? Well, they include (but certainly aren’t limited to) the following:
· Decreasing stress
· Improving mental focus
· Growing resilience
· Enhancing compassion
· Bettering immune health
The app combines research-based techniques and neuroscience with meditation and mindful practices to increase all-around wellbeing. Founded by Dr Richard Davidson, a respected neuroscientist, you can guarantee you’re getting nothing but the best techniques and training.
Healthy Minds Program is perhaps the most structured app we’ve mentioned (and will mention). Its training is divided into four pillars — Awareness, Connection, Insight and Purpose. Under each one, you’ll find between three and five parts, with every part containing a trilogy within which you’ll discover multiple sessions.
Outside the four-pillar framework, the app provides 27 meditations, including a one-minute mini practice for when you need a short break (think Headspace’s SOS meditations).
Thrive is one of the best mindfulness and wellbeing apps recommended by the NHS. It’s designed to help you deal with anxiety, stress and gloom. The app allows you to track your mood, eventually enabling you to spot trends in your thoughts and feelings so you can begin to understand your triggers.
While noting your mood, Thrive educates you on multiple coping mechanisms that can be used to manage sadness, negative thoughts and stress.
With over three million users around the world, you’re sure to get something from this top mindfulness and wellbeing app.
From brief, chest-tightening occasions to debilitating, stop-in-your-tracks suffocation, Beat Panic is designed to help you do just that — beat your panic attacks.
You can use this expertly compiled app anywhere. By helping you switch your focus to something else and guiding your breathing, it decreases your thundering heart (and thus, panic levels) in a matter of moments.
Expressing your feelings to friends, family members, and professionals is hard, particularly when you’re struggling with your mental health. Why? Because mental illness often convinces you to isolate yourself from everyone around you.
But with Cove, you’re given a chance to express yourself in a brand-new way — through music.
Whether you’re happy, sad, at peace, frustrated, angry, or something else entirely, this one of our best mindfulness and wellbeing apps helps you put it into a tune.
The final one on our list of the top mindfulness and wellbeing apps is My Possible Self, the NHS-approved app developed by the globe’s leading mental health professionals. In fact, the NHS has clinically certified and approved it.
The app boasts a myriad of features that promote positivity and wellbeing. You’ll find everything from a run-of-the-mill daily mood tracker to learning sessions for a deeper understanding of the aspects of your life that are causing you stress. Perfection!
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Mindfulness Apps Really Work?
To tell you the truth, this is quite a complicated question. Why? Because there are so many different apps (as you’re now more than familiar with!). In fewer words, meditation is a huge category. And not all meditation is mindfulness — yup, tricky.
With that said, most meditation apps aim to bring your focus to the present moment. Therefore, the majority of these apps work by allowing you to practice mindfulness.
Another reason behind the difficulty of the question is that you get out what you put in with mindfulness and meditation alike. Therefore, if you aren’t fully engaged in the process, you may not receive the benefits you were hoping to achieve.
Put simply, it’s only you who can make the changes. Apps are there for mere guidance and education.
Do You Need a Meditation App to Meditate?
Absolutely not! Even though it’s incredibly helpful to have a meditative guide when you begin, as you go deeper into meditation, the voice instructing your practice will become an annoyance. Our advice? Whenever you feel comfortable to go it alone, switch off the guidance. It’s as simple as that!