Hello Zen Organizers,
I hope you're doing well!
One of my goals for the past year now has been to meditate every day. And since I started doing it regularly, I've noticed many positive benefits (I talk about it in greater detail in this article).
Because some of you might also like to include meditation in your daily life, I thought I'd share with you some of the apps I use. I've started with only three. But if you'd like, I could try others and let you know what I think about them. Let me know in the comments if that's something you'd be interested in!
The three apps I'm going to review today are Insight Timer, Plum Village, and Calm.
I've been using the two first for a while now, whereas I started using Calm last month in view of this article.
Disclaimer: I'm not sponsored by anyone. This is my honest opinion about these apps!
Insight Timer
Insight Timer is, so far, my favourite meditation app. But I still haven't tried all of the available ones, so it's not an impartial opinion 😉. Its main advantage is that it offers thousands of free meditations. Moreover, I really like their meditation timer, which is personalizable with the duration, intermediary gongs and background sounds. Their timer is actually the feature I use most on this app because I usually prefer to practice mindfulness meditation instead of guided ones. But there are so many other great features as well. Here are the positive and negative aspects I've found for this app:
Positives
no need to create an account
most of its content is free (they advertise 70 000 free guided meditations)
it's available in 42 languages, and you can select up to 5 languages at a time
comprehensive statistics
possibility to create meditation support groups
downloadable meditations
7-day free trial for the Premium Membership
Negatives
Honestly, I don't see any truly negative aspects of this app. The only one is that you have to pay 60$ a year or 10$ a month if you want to have access to their classes. But there are so many free guided meditations that you can have everything you need with the free version!
Plum Village
The Plum Village app was created by the homonymous monastic center founded by renowned Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn. It's a free app that offers a lot of different types of meditation. There are also some lessons about Buddhism if you're interested to know more about it. Here are the positive and negative aspects I've found for this app:
Positives
it's completely free
no need to create an account
various meditations and talks by Thich Nhat Hahn
bell of mindfulness to help you stay mindful throughout the day
possibility to download the meditations and listen to them offline
Negatives
most meditations are in English (there are a few in French as well)
no statistics available
Calm
Whenever I search for meditation apps on the Internet, Calm is always among the ones that are recommended. So I thought I'd give it a try to see how it is. Well, I have to say I was pretty disappointed by it. There are very few free guided meditations (less than 10 in total!). You have to pay for almost everything. And apart from a breathing exercise, there aren't many other interesting free features. Overall, it's the app I liked the least. Since there are so many meditation apps that offer excellent free content, I don't really see why I should pay for their subscription. Anyhow, I did find some positive (and negative) aspects:
Positives
different languages offered (English, German, Spanish, French, Korean, Portuguese, and Japanese)
check-ins that allow you to reflect on your feelings, your gratitude and a daily quote
breathing exercise with timer
comprehensive statistics
possibility to download the meditations and listen to them offline
7-day free trial
Negatives
need to create an account
there are very few free meditations
you have to pay for most of the meditations (the yearly subscription costs 49,99€ and they offer a lifetime subscription which costs 349,99€)
I hope this review can help you start meditating regularly! It's a great habit that has many positive consequences on your overall health and wellbeing, and I highly recommend it to anyone!
Do you already meditate? What apps do you use? If you don't meditate, would you like to implement it into your daily routine? Let me know in the comments below, on Instagram, or Facebook!
I wish you a zen and meditative week,
Sarah
