Mindfulness Through Apps and Websites

Can mindfulness apps and websites help in the quest to become more mindful? As a mum of two who works its hard enough finding time in a morning to straighten my hair and have clothes not smeared with remnants of food from the children or with toothpaste (I could have written much worse)!

So to have time and more importantly be in the right frame of mind to sit and practice mindfulness well I admit I’m doubtful.

One of the most well known of these Apps is Headspace, when you sign up you can get a 10 day free trial which has limited access and then after this you need to pay and this gives access to more content.

It’s a UK based site so prices are;

£7.95 for month

£4.99 per month for 1 year

£3.74 per month for 2 years

£249.85 is the cost for forever!!

It covers the following areas

Health

Performance

Relationships

Headspace pro

Unfortunately as I write this it won’t let me download the app to my kindle as I don’t appear to have enough room (this didn’t help my mindfulness) however I have found they have a couple of short sessions on their YouTube channel which I have tried. The voice was very calming and I felt I could have listened to the man for much longer. I did however find the animations distracting and they seem a little pointless as most people probably close their eyes.

Another well known website is Calm, they’re an American site. When you register you get access to quite a few free meditation sessions. The following is what is available please note not all of these are included in the free sessions.

7 days of calm which is about learning the basics of mindfulness meditation and is split into the following by day;

Day 1 Concentration lasts 10 minutes

Day 2 Paying Attention lasts 11 minutes

Day 3 The Present Moment lasts 9 minutes

Day 4 Working with Thoughts lasts 10 minutes

Day 5 The Value of Non-Doing lasts 10 minutes

Day 6 Patience lasts 10 minutes

Day 7 Awareness lasts 12 minutes

There are also Body Scan Programs to focus on specific goals

• 21 Days of Calm, to deepen your mindfulness meditation practice
• 7 Days of Managing Stress to help alleviate stress in every day
• 7 Days of Focus Enhance improved ability to focus
• 7 Days of Calming Anxiety Experience reduced levels of anxiety
• 7 Days of Sleep Improve sleep
• 7 Days of Happiness Simple techniques for well-being
• 7 Days of Gratitude Learn to appreciate what you have
• 7 Days of Self-Esteem Develop self-esteem with mindfulness
• Unguided Meditate on your own without a voice guiding you
• Timed Meditation Set a meditation timer
• Open-Ended Meditation Bells will remind you to stay present
• Body Scan A relaxing meditation
• Loving-Kindness For self and others
• Calm Light More silence, less guidance
• Forgiveness Forgive yourself and others
• Sleep Stories Soothing stories to help you drift off
• Walking Meditation A stroll of the senses
• Daily Calm: Winnie the Pooh Series Pooh and Friends
• Best of Daily Calm An archive of the Calm Team’s favorite Daily Calm sessions
• Calm Kids Sleep stories and meditations for children
• Deep Sleep A relaxing body scan for sleep
• Deep Sleep Relax A progressive muscle relaxation for sleep
• Deep Sleep Release A passive muscle relaxation for sleep
• Calming Anxiety Release lingering tension
• Deep Concentration Focus your mind
• Emergency Calm For immediate relief
• Commuting A mindful journey
• Returning to Now The only time
• Non-Judgment See more clearly

As you can see there’s quite a lot here and it will suit most people from the completely new and unsure (me) and to those more experienced.

I have tried the 3 minute body scan, I wasn’t overly keen of the ladies voice at first but after about 30 seconds I focused more on what she was saying instead of how she spoke.

As there are no distracting animations I preferred Calm and there were a lot more options if you didn’t want to subscribe to dip in and out of instead.

Apps and Websites and mindful meditation are a difficult combination though as like most people our mobiles, tablets or kindles are distracting devices how many times have you gone on the internet for instance to look something up only to be distracted by news, Facebook, Twitter etc so I suggest if you have any alerts set up to disable these before you start.

Will I keep it up, yes I think I will. Even 3 minutes helped me to feel more relaxed and focused on myself rather than everyone else. 3 minutes isn’t long I think this is more than achievable at various points in the day and as there seems to be a good choice of free options on Calm I feel this is more suitable for me at the moment. Now to go free some more space on the kindle for the App!!

Have you got any suggestions for websites and apps? What works for you?