The Best Meditation Apps and Monday Mindfulness

The purported benefits of meditation include refined focus, reduced stress, improved memory, increased creativity and better sleep.

Have you tried meditation before? It’s sometimes challenging to take on a new habit if we don’t understand what the benefits are for us.

To help ease newcomers into practicing mindfulness, we’ve rounded up the best meditation apps, including Headspace, Smiling Mind and more to help get you started. Pre disclosure, some of the apps are a little on the pricey side (a few come in at more than your monthly Netflix subscription), however, many offer free trials so if you’re a beginner so, there really is nothing to lose and your peace of mind to gain.

Breathe in, hold, breathe out, and here we go!

1. Headspace

Get happy. Stress less. Sleep soundly. 

As if the tagline for the Headspace app isn’t enough to get you on board, the guided courses and quick meditations should do the trick. Headspace is meditation made simple. In just a few minutes of a day you will learn the life-changing skills of meditation and mindfulness.

Cost: $13 per month (with a 7 day free trial) or $70 per year (with a two-week free trial).

Download on the App Store | Get it on Google Play

2. Aura

Take care of your emotions, get restful sleep, and become the best you

Aura is perfect for the busy bees and the hustlers who have barely enough free time to read this blurb. Just stop reading and download this app. Aura is a collection of three-minute sessions and 30-second anxiety busters are designed to calm the nerves and soothe your soul whenever an intense situation occurs. You had me at my best me!

Cost: $13 per month (with a 7 day free trial) or $70 per year (with a two-week free trial).

Download on the App Store | Get it on Google Play

3. Smiling Mind

Thrive inside with a smiling mind

Achieving a state of mindfulness is the goal with Smiling Mind, a free meditation app developed by psychologists and educators that offers a wide variety of programs for all everyone. Particularly if you feel anxious about the coronavirus or stressed about disruptions to your everyday life, this is an app that will support your wellbeing while you’re spending extended periods of time at home. Get your inner smile on!

Cost: FREE

Download on the App Store | Get it on Google Play

4. Insight Timer

The world’s largest collection of free guided meditations

It’s easy to find a meditation app that offers a free trial. It’s a lot harder to find a quality meditation app that is in its entirety, free. Enter the unicorn of meditation apps: Insight Timer. Offering more than 30,000 guided sessions that tap into every emotion rattling your nerves, for coping with anxiety, meaning stress and the golden child improving your sleep. Who doesn’t love a unicorn?!

Cost: FREE

Download on the App Store | Get it on Google Play

Support Services

Information for International Students

MindSpot is a free service for those who are experiencing difficulties with anxiety, stress, depression and low mood and can provide assessment and treatment courses, or help you find local services that can help.

eHeadspace can help if you are having a tough time. Here you can talk 1-on-1 with an eheadspace clinician via an online chat, email or over the phone.

This Way Up provides a range of courses and information to help you understand and improve your wellbeing.

Positive Mind Works provide online access to registered psychologists from the comfort of your own home, delivering empowered solutions at a time that is most convenient for you. There are psychologists who can speak a range of different languages across a variety of channels.

Lifeline is a national charity providing all support to those experiencing a personal crisis with access to 24 hour crisis support and suicide prevention services.