The Top 5 Five-Minute Meditation Apps
Meditation is a great way to pause and reflect. It allows you to be intentional and take a little bit of time for yourself. Many people meditate daily. Some think meditation has to be this big production – that they have to make a whole setup and set aside an hour or more to sit in silence. But you can benefit from even just five minutes of sitting with your thoughts and emotions. Even better, there are a ton of apps that can guide you through meditation if you’re unsure where to start. Here are my top five.
1. Simple Habit
Simple Habit was made for people with busy schedules. The app offers a variety of five-minute meditation options to help you relieve stress and live better. They really have meditations for everything – from getting over breakups to improving focus to just a short three-minute break. And if you have a little more time, they have longer sessions as well. You can test it with a short trial period – then they have monthly, yearly, and lifetime subscription options.
2. Calm
Calm is one of the most popular meditation apps. Right when you get the app it’ll ask you what brought you to the app so it can customize your content based on your needs, from improving sleep to reducing anxiety. One of this app’s biggest perks is that you can access some of their content using a free subscription. Also, if you have kids, Calm is a great option with its wide selection of sleep stories, meditations, and lullabies. This app also has a free trial period, then if you want to access premium content it has annual and lifetime subscription options.
3. Headspace
Headspace helps to change your habits and improve your mental health with guided meditation. This app is great if you’re a beginner, with guides to help you start meditating – you can skip to the “pro-level” if you’ve meditated before. They also offer “bite-sized meditations” to fit into your busy schedule, whether you want to get a quick start to your day or decompress for a few minutes. Headspace also offers a free trial – a week if you’ve selected the monthly subscription and two weeks if you’ve selected the annual subscription.
4. Aura
Aura is an “all-in-one” app for emotional health. Meditation is only one of its offerings – it also provides content about hypnosis, life coaching, and behavioral cognitive theory. When you get the app, you can customize what content you receive based on your goals, any types of content you may want to exclude, and session length (as short as three minutes). You can even choose your coach based on their accent. After a sevenday free trial, you can subscribe to their premium plan on a monthly or annual basis.
5. Spotify
Believe it or not, if you’re looking for a good guided meditation, you may not have to exit your music app. Spotify has several curated playlists for guided meditation that you can listen to anywhere. Spotify’s “Guided Meditation” playlist is almost 10 hours long – it includes introductions to guided breathing, body image affirmations, and even a minute-long meditation about being mindful. You can scroll through the playlist to decide what type of meditation is for you. Spotify is free to download.
If you’re new to meditation, or just want to be a little more mindful, try one of these apps to get you started. More gratitude, better sleep, and better overall wellbeing may be only five minutes away.
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