Not a sleep app, a working day app
Most meditation apps are designed around two use cases: a course for a beginner, and something to fall asleep to. Neither is what somebody wants at half past two in the afternoon with a difficult conversation behind them and another at three. That need is short, it is unscheduled, and it has to work with headphones in an open office or with no sound at all. The apps that handle it are not always the famous ones, and several of the best cost nothing.
What ten minutes can and cannot do
- Slowing your breathing deliberately
- A pause between one thing and the next
- Noticing you are wound up before it shows
- A repeatable routine that needs no decision
- Something to do with your hands and attention
- Treatment for an anxiety disorder
- A substitute for sleep you did not get
- A fix for a workload that is genuinely too big
- Anything at all if you never open it
- A reason to avoid seeing a doctor
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The apps
Medito. Free throughout, run by a non-profit, no advertising and no upgrade screen. Short sessions are easy to find rather than buried under a course. The first one to try.
Healthy Minds Program. Free, from a university research group, and structured as a course you can do while walking rather than sitting still, which suits a lunch break unusually well.
Mindfulness Coach. Free, from a public health service, plain and unpushy, with a set of short practices and no account required. The least commercial app in this category.
Prana Breath. Breathing patterns with a visual guide and a vibration cue, so it works with the screen dark and no sound. The one that fits a desk best.
Breathe. A small, focused breathing app with a simple timer, for people who want the exercise and none of the surrounding programme.
Rootd. Built specifically around panic rather than general relaxation, with a grounding exercise designed to be usable when you are not in a state to browse a library.
Insight Timer. An enormous free library from many teachers, plus a plain interval timer for people who want silence and a bell. The free tier is genuinely the product here.
Headspace. The best-structured beginner course of the paid apps, and its short sessions for a specific situation are well made. Subscription, with a limited free set.
Calm. Strongest at the evening end, and included because its daytime breathing exercises are good and many people already have it installed for the other reason.
Balance. Adjusts the programme around answers you give it, which suits somebody who does not want to choose from a library every time. Subscription after a generous trial.
Waking Up. More philosophical than the rest, with a daily session and long-form discussion. Subscription, and it grants free access on request to people who cannot afford it, which is unusual and worth knowing.
Mindfulness with Petit BamBou. Strong in French and several other European languages, which matters because doing this in your own language is not a small detail.
Meditopia. Broad language coverage including Turkish, Spanish and Portuguese, with short sessions organised by the situation you are in.
Smiling Mind. Free, from a non-profit, with programmes written for different ages including children and for use in a workplace.
Plum Village. Free, from a monastic community, with walking meditations and bells rather than a course to complete. Quiet in every sense.
White Noise Lite. Not meditation. A steady sound that covers an office and a timer that stops it, which for some people is the entire requirement.
Forest. Puts the phone down for a fixed period by making something grow while you leave it alone. Included because the thing making you tense is frequently the phone itself.
Daylio. Two taps a day. After a month it shows which days were bad and what was happening, which is more useful than any single session and takes less time.
Free, non-profit and subscription
| App type | What you get free | What the money buys |
|---|---|---|
| Non-profit apps | Everything | Nothing; they take donations |
| Public health apps | Everything | Nothing; no account either |
| Large commercial apps | A starter course and some daily content | The full library and sleep content |
| Timer and library apps | A very large free library | Offline downloads and extras |
| Breathing-only apps | The core exercise | Patterns, themes, statistics |
A routine that fits in a working day
- Put it on the home screen, not in a folder This is a decision made in ten seconds or not at all. Two taps is the difference between using it and not.
- Pick one exercise and stop browsing The library is the trap. One breathing pattern, used daily, beats a different guided session every time.
- Attach it to something that already happens After the stand-up, before lunch, on the train. An unattached intention at an arbitrary time does not survive a busy week.
- Use the screen-dark option in a shared office Several of these work by vibration or sound alone. Nobody needs to see what you are doing.
- Do not count streaks A streak turns a five minute pause into another obligation, and losing one is the usual reason people stop entirely.
One free app, one breathing exercise, attached to something that already happens in your day. Cancel every trial on the day you start it.
Frequently asked questions
Does any of this actually work?
Short paced breathing has a reasonably clear effect on how wound up you feel, and there is a research literature behind structured mindfulness programmes. Individual results vary a great deal, and no app claims otherwise once you read past the store listing.
Which should I install if I do not want a subscription?
One of the non-profit or public health apps. They are complete, free, have no advertising and ask for no account, which is a rare combination in this category.
I get panic attacks. Is an app enough?
An app can help in the moment and can help you notice patterns. It is not treatment, and recurring panic attacks are worth taking to a doctor rather than to a better app.
Why does the free tier keep shrinking?
Because the large apps are subscription businesses, and the free content is the trial. That is a reason to prefer the non-profit ones if you want something that will still be free next year.
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