Five Wellness Apps to Help You Stay Mindful on the Go

We’ve talked before about using mindfulness apps as a way to stay on top of your wellness while stuck at home. Regardless of your current speed of life, however, being able to keep wellness apps with you for a little respite and maybe even a way to track your progress is a great thing. If you have the opportunity for a little You Time, take it. Here are five free apps that could help you on your way to a more relaxed you.

Smiling Mind

This not-for-profit app comes packaged with a few hundred meditations that are designed for very specific needs. It can serve as an app specifically for meditation, but it also features programs like Digital Detox and Sleep, giving you the tools to help accomplish the things that will help increase your wellness. It is replete with programs that work for kids, as well.

UCLA Mindful

The Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA has developed their app by concentrating on 12 or so meditations that are guided toward working on emotions, kindness, or even simply concentrating on your body or breathing. The app is available in both Spanish and English, and features podcasts that are intended as meditation audio and feature talks that help you think about the inner you.

Insight Timer

There more than 80,000 guided meditations in the Insight Timer app. The subjects range from the obvious like stress and healing to relationships and even creativity. Insight Timer is also built on a foundation to help remind you that you aren’t alone – once you’ve finished your meditations, the app can tell you how many people participated in the same meditation at the same time.

Healthy Minds

The Healthy Minds app comes from the mind of Dr. Richard Davidson, founder of the Center for Healthy Minds research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The app uses four main categories to help define the areas you can train yourself toward mindfulness in: Connection, Insight, Purpose and Awareness. There are lessons underneath each category, or pillar, that allow you to explore yourself through active or sitting practice – perfect for those who are busy or less so.

MyLife Meditation

The MyLife Meditation app is centered heavily on identifying the things making you well and keeping you from your ideal wellness, and when you open the app you’re guided through thinking about your current state. Based on that, it gives you suggestions as to how you might approach your current state to improve your mindfulness and wellness.

Summary

Increasing wellness is one of the many important roads to a healthier life. Anything that makes that easier is a boon. People sometimes look at shortcuts as a means to avoid the hard work to improve yourself, but some shortcuts are simply tools that allow you to concentrate on the steps even easier. With a busy, full, distraction-filled life, anything that reminds you to take time for yourself can help you improve.