Me and meditation have a love / hate relationship. When I can find the time to do it, and am able to do it regularly, I love it. When when I don’t seem to have the time, I feel guilty for not doing it which totally defeats the purpose! I definitely find it harder to just sit, so have really enjoyed guided meditations in the past. When I was introduced to the Mindfulness App I was very excited to try it out as it sounded perfect for me.
Scientific research has shown that regular practice of mindfulness meditation enhances wellbeing and reduces stress and depression. MindApps, the creators of The Mindfulness App, aim to spread the proven benefits of mindfulness meditation as widely as possible. It’s the no 1 paid health app in 11 countries including Sweden, Holland, Germany and Spain.
The Mindfulness App is just brilliant, I have just fallen in love with it! Here’s a quick breakdown of it’s main features:
- You can choose guided or silent meditations of various different lengths from 3 – 30 minutes
- You can choose to listen to a 5 minute ‘body scan’ meditation
- Set alerts on your phone to remind you when to meditate – and these can be customised to particular days / times and even places
- You can set up a personalised meditation
- The in app store enables you to purchase new guided meditations from world renowned meditation teachers
- The app features a statistics area where you can see how many minutes you have practiced meditation over the last few days and weeks
I’ve been starting to practice either the 3 minute guided meditation or the 5 minute body scan once a day. The meditations are designed so they could really be done anywhere, on the app they even talk about doing it on the bus! I would like to increase my meditations to a 3 minute guided on a morning and a 5 minute body scan on an evening, and this app makes that a realistic and achievable goal.
I’ve also discovered the Mindfulness for Pregnancy App and I’m really looking forward to trying out some of the guided meditations on that, as well as one designed to listen to while you are walking which I think is such a great idea.
The Mindfulness App is £1.49 and available for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone. Find it on iTunes here. The Mindfulness for Pregnancy App is £1.99 and can be found on iTunes here.
Find out more about Mind Apps via their website, Facebook and Twitter pages.
If you have been thinking about getting into meditation, or like me, have tried it on and off but found it difficult to get into, this is the app for you and well worth the £1.49!
Have you tried the Mindfulness App? Is meditation and mindfulness something you feel you’d benefit from? What barriers have prevented you from practicing mindfulness?
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This is a great app Laura. I am the same. When I make the time to meditate daily, I feel awesome and really get so many benefits from it. But then if I miss it I can feel guilty, which like you said is counter productive! I guess, ultimately, it does not matter if we find 5 minutes or 25 minutes to meditate a day – every minute counts. I am also finding I am being more mindful in every day tasks like cooking or eating – just trying to be present with it and not think of anything else :)
I think 3 minutes is a great, achievable amount of time for each day. I think even the busiest of people should be able to find 3-5 minutes each morning to meditate. Great that they have a Mindfulness for Pregnancy as well.
It looks like a good idea, but I know that for me I would just star thinking of my to do list!
Looks like a great app! Even though I’ve dipped in & out of meditation for a few years, I find it near on impossible to keep it going on a regular basis despite knowing it will make me feel good! I’m going to try the app & see if it helps prompt me to do a little even if it just a few minutes here & there!
This sounds brill, definitely going to download it.
I have been setting some time out in the morning to just sit and focus on my breath and it has made me so much more relaxed.