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Headspace: The Only Meditation App You’ll Ever Need

10-Minute Mindfulness

By SamPublished 5 years ago 5 min read
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I’ve been a longtime sufferer of anxiety, depression, and OCD. I’ve been in treatment for these mental illnesses for about seven years at this point, and I’ve tried everything. One on one therapy, group therapy, coloring books, meditation, talking to adults and mentors I trust, exercising, meeting people who’ve been in the same situation, etc. The list goes on, of course.

I still do almost all of those things, and there’s one more that I do every day. Mindfulness is a practice that seems to be popping up more and more these days. I think it’s pretty exciting to see people get more into it. To put it simply, mindfulness is the awareness of yourself in the present moment. Being aware of your body and mind helps to ground you and keep you from being too caught up in anxious thoughts and worries.

Keeping yourself to daily meditation, however, is more difficult than it sounds. Enter Headspace. I honestly don’t remember who recommended this app to me or how I found it, but I can tell you that I pay a $90 yearly subscription to unlock all their meditation packs. It’s that good.

Headspace is a meditation app developed by Andy Puddicombe. Andy is an English writer and speaker who developed the app after leaving his studies to train in Buddhism in Asia. He traveled to many different countries and years later opened his own meditation consultation practice. A few years later, he launched Headspace. To put Headspace in its most basic terms, it’s an app that makes meditation a part of your day for only ten minutes and make it something more accessible to the public.

The app more than does its job. You start with a simple ten session Basics pack to introduce you to the practice. It’s very simple. You sit up straight in a chair, breathe in and out, and listen to Andy guide you through the breathing process. You always focus on each part of the body to be aware of how you feel both mentally and physically. Each session is ten minutes and you do it on your schedule. They recommend you meditate in the morning when you wake up to start the day right, but I actually do it at night. My night anxiety is really bad, and I always listen to a sound machine or ASMR videos to help distract and quiet my mind enough to fall asleep. I feel the worst at night, so that’s when I do Headspace and put myself in the present instead of worrying about tomorrow.

After the Basics, which have three levels, you can branch out to other packs. Many of these are ones you have to subscribe for, but it’s so unbelievably worth it. They really do make meditation accessible with having different packs and categories for all your needs. Some of their categories include Grief, Pain Management, Pregnancy, Self-Esteem, Relationships, Creativity, and the list goes on. They cover everything from illnesses to work-related stress and more. Once you select a pack, you get to complete the sessions at your pace and gently guide yourself through the meditation.

What makes it so great is also the lack of pressure the app puts on you. It’s all at your own pace. In the narrations, Andy acknowledges that it’s fine to not be a master meditator, and that getting distracted and restless is normal and bound to happen to everyone. So keep at it! Meditation is such a great tool to have in your pocket for any of your stresses. I do it before job interviews, or even just sending in an important job application. I do it when I know I have a scary doctor’s appointment coming up, or if I’ll be in an overwhelming social situation with a lot of people. You just need your body, your breath and a place to sit.

Besides the packs, there are singles and minis that are good for quick breathers. They have SOS singles in the event of panic attacks or high anxiety moments. There are meditations for running and walking, sleeping, before interviews, and those other intense moments in life. There are quiet noises like rain and thunder to help you sleep, and even a newer section to help children get into mindfulness as well.

The kids section in particular is something I’m happy to see. Introducing mindfulness at a young age is such a critical skill that will help them grow into better people. Mindfulness can teach creativity, empathy, gratitude, and optimism just to name a few. Learning skills like this in the early years could be part of the solution to many problems faced by young adults in the world today. Bullying and self esteem issues in particular are difficult for people to grow up with. These kind of things can grow into mental illnesses or just poor mental health and wellness in general. Headspace is helping to right this by having an easy to understand program that children of all ages can use.

What helps to bring in adults and children alike are the cute little animations that accompany some of the meditations. In them, cute characters are shown learning how to meditate and other important lessons that put life into perspective. What makes them great is that they use metaphor to easily visualize what is going on, and Andy uses metaphors to help things get across.. For example, one that sticks with me is of a character biking in a park. There are a few white clouds in the sky, because of course. there will always be a little bit of cloudiness to your day, but nothing to stop you from doing things as you normally would. Then as negative thoughts and anxieties build up, so do the clouds. Soon the character, who is now walking, gets overcome by black clouds and torrential rain; his thoughts have gotten so chaotic that he can’t think of anything else and it’s scary and worrisome. However, a little arm suddenly reaches down and pulls him above the clouds. This is because no matter how bad things get, there is always a blue sky behind those clouds. Andy ends the one minute short with a simple, “It’s easy to forget what we’re looking for is already here. And that’s why we need reminding.” Though it’s barely a minute in length, the short sets the tone for the rest of the meditations to come after it. It inspires you to keep going and see that anxiety isn’t forever.

Headspace is an incredible app, and I can’t recommend it enough to anyone even remotely interested in meditation. Even without a subscription, the free packs are worth it. They are a foundation that you can build on and repeat as much as you want. You can still do the singles without a subscription, so your options are still open. Meditation is becoming a force in society, and Headspace is the perfect app to get you into this culture. Happy meditating!

self help
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Sam

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