As it’s national stress awareness week, we’ve put together some mindfulness apps which you can listen to whilst commuting to work, on your lunch break or when you get home from a long day. Stress in the workplace has become a widely talked about topic with a focus on employees taking sick days as a result. One way to combat stress before it gets too much is mindfulness, which is something which has been hugely praised and become ever increasingly popular. We all do this. From the moment we wake up we’re thinking about the tiniest things that could go wrong in our day, rushing around getting ready for work, thinking about the day ahead. What if my meeting doesn’t go well? Then we get into work and stress about the bills we have to pay and the housework that needs to be done when we get home. Have the kids done their homework? What am I going to cook for dinner? And then when the day has finally ended and we should be relaxing, we’re thinking about the next day! Will my presentation go well? Quite frankly, this is exhausting to write let alone actually live like this. The idea of mindfulness is to bring attention to yourself and ordinary everyday things, instead of overthinking about stressful events that are upcoming or past. For example while we are catching the bus into work, instead of thinking about everything we need to do that day we could be reading a book, listening to music, looking out the window and people watching. We’ve personally tested the following apps to see how they perform!
Let’s Meditate: Guided Meditation
Let’s Meditate is completely free and has 30 guided meditations to choose from. You can select categories of various lengths and types. It also has an offline mode so you can still listen when you’re out in the wilderness on a mindful hike without wifi.
Stop Breathe & Think: Meditation and Mindfulness
This is a great app to keep track of how you’re feeling each time before and after you meditate. You can log your emotions and the app will suggest meditations tailored to how you’re feeling. The meditations are guided but you can also set a self guided time for you meditations and your breathing. You can upgrade to pro but there are a good amount of meditations to choose from with the free version.
Headspace
This is a brilliant app for first time meditators, giving you a step by step guide. The first 10 meditations are free and after that you pay a small amount but it’s worth it. You get unlimited amounts of bite sized guides that anyone can fit into their busy lives. There’s so much research proving that meditation is worth doing even if you just take five minutes out of your day. Take your pick of these apps and let us know how you get on!