How to Pick a Meditation App
well.blogs.nytimes.comI've been meditating for over 2 years now and can tell you you definitely do not need to pay for an app to do it.
"One of the more challenging problems in learning to meditate is remembering to do it."
I do it every night before going to sleep. That's not hard to remember, plus it clears your mind for a deeper sleep. You can go to bed at your normal time as well, as the meditation can be considered as part of your sleep schedule. It definitely won't (and hasn't for me) detract from your sleep.
Just start by focusing on the tip of your nose and controlling your breathing. Then when you are ready, allow your body to take over the breathing while you watch. Then also allow it to take over the monologue in your head and you listen. Eventually you become an observer of all your thoughts and senses, and so become free of them.
> Just start by focusing on the tip of your nose and controlling your breathing. Then when you are ready, allow your body to take over the breathing while you watch. Then also allow it to take over the monologue in your head and you listen. Eventually you become an observer of all your thoughts and senses, and so become free of them.
Except it's a lot easier said than done. I've personally enjoyed my Headspace subscription. I have no qualms with paying for it, and feel it has been more effective than all of the material I've ever read on meditation that I've looked at. But YMMV.
I have tried headspace before although found it's constant notifications to be quite annoying. If it makes you put in the time though then great, but the reason I mentioned 2+ years was because these things take time to become good at, app or no app (but it is worth the investment!)
Each session of the trial seemed to contain essentially the same instructions. Is there anything more to it?
2 years on subscription (though I meditate without Headspace more). There're many techniques and ideas in different Headspace courses that were quite useful for me and I added them into my meditation practice.
I've been (trying to) meditate for about four years now. I even attended a ten day silent meditation retreat in September, which I wrote about in another post. I still find it extremely difficult. People vary in their aptitude for meditation, and for those like me these "aids" are appealing. For myself, I don't see the value of the apps; I'd just as soon use any of hundreds of decent guided meditations on Youtube.
The eagerness with which people recommend those very intense ten day retreats to anyone saying they'd like to start meditating indicates a problem, in my view.
Plenty of people find them valuable, but they're also a pretty extreme way to start out. To me it seems likely to turn people off; after all they're designed to be a kind of boot camp experience.
And then on the internet people are often bringing up how they sit in lotus posture for an hour every day...
People can discuss whatever they want and make whatever suggestions they want, of course, but I think it's all likely to construe meditation as necessarily tedious, painful, and time-consuming.
I'm curious, have you tried maintaining a habit of sitting for something like 10 or 5 minutes per day? In some non-contorted posture, like kneeling on a meditation bench?
Not to imply that "everyone should be able to do that" or whatever, but if all your attempts for years have been ambitious, that could be demotivating... whereas kneeling and breathing for 5 minutes is a great way to get started.
I agree that some people recommend the retreats with too little restraint. I'm a fairly young and healthy person, and I still found sitting still while cross-legged for long periods of time very painful. Even on the last day I found it impossible to sit longer than an hour without moving. And this practice is encouraged -- they were called "sittings of strong determination." This is not to mention the difficulty of meditation itself and the ten-day abstention from communication and all intellectual activity.
That said, I can't plead ignorance, just overconfidence. Since the retreat, I have lasted no longer than fifteen minutes at a time. I prefer lying down (I'm not tempted to sleep). It actually feels like I'm a worse meditator now than I was before the retreat, though I've been assured that this is a "sign of progress."
Truthfully, after maybe 140 hours of practice, I have doubts about the purported benefits. The ultimate aim, the end of suffering, seems like an impossible and likely undesirable goal. For now, I use it as needed to clear my mind when I need to focus.
Yeah, meditation is a magnet for grand claims. I ignore that stuff too, except to the extent that I find Buddhist philosophy interesting.
The vipassana retreats are built on Buddhism (though the founder prefers to reformulate it in more secular terms) so it's not surprising that they're aimed towards some notion of nirvana.
At the very least, simple breathing exercises can be super obviously relaxing and mind-clearing. Lots of people do them for just ten breaths. Five minutes is quite a lot from that perspective, so I really think we shouldn't dismiss that kind of duration.
Minor note: Goenka uses the term "vipassana" in a way that makes people think they're synonymous, but many other teachers and schools teach vipassana.
Agreed. I think it's a pretty definitely Buddhist term though, no? Referring to the fundamental insight into the nature of suffering?
There's no shame in using a chair for sitting :) I'm not sure if you attended a ten day Goenka retreat but other teaching styles in the same tradition can be more flexible.
Walking meditation can also help prepare the mind for sitting practice: http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/articl...
>There's no shame in using a chair for sitting
Easier said than believed when there's a sixty-year-old woman within view managing just fine without one ^^.
I actually appreciated the discipline of the retreat, I was just physically unprepared for the sitting (too inflexible). I'm open to other techniques, and when I'm alone I don't force myself into an uncomfortable posture. Thanks for the link.
Totally agree.
I find its best to do 12 minutes in the morning, right when I wake up. No food yet or anything; just leave the bedroom, head to the corner of the room, hit my timer and go. 12 minutes is my happy medium, but it took some time to get there; I started at 3 (can't argue with 3 minutes) then doubled it to 6, then doubled it to 12. On the weekends I do 24, and often times more. But the key was building up from that initial 3 minute daily commitment.
I know everyone hears this all the time, but Meditation is the greatest thing. Hard to explain unless you do it every day, but it has such a wonderful transformative power. Its really helped improve my code, too.
I'm curious how long you did the three minutes per day before doubling to six, and likewise for the time before doubling to twelve.
About every three months I've doubled it. It got to the point where the 3 minutes of time started instantaneously passing and then the same thing happened with 6 and now its starting to happen with 12. A very weird / cool feeling that really builds over time
I struggled for a long time too in the beginning. Mainly I would get bored. I finally broke though that plateau though by realizing boredom was just another thought passing through my mind that I could observe, instead of be a part of. You just have to keep at it to arrive at these insights.
I totally agree. There is no need to pay to meditate. Sometimes, the best things in life are free. You can research breathing methods, posture styles, and more online.
Always happy to meet a fellow meditator.
Quick plug - made a free app with no ads or IAP -
https://itunes.apple.com/app/tiny-calm/id1039698577?mt=8
Has simple reminders, quick access widget, tracking and encouragement - basically all the features I wanted in a meditation app but I couldn't find for free on the appstore.
Could you elaborate a little on how you built the app? There have been lots of small apps like this that I could build quickly in my preferred environment, but I have no idea how to get started on iOS. Any resources you can recommend?
Sure - it's a fun project.
It was my first app and released it after 2 months of learning to code. Mostly learned from reading Apple's swift book, taking a $10 udemy course (there are a bunch out there) and lots of stackoverflow when I got stuck.
I blogged about the process from hello world here - http://tinyhappysteps.com/
Any plans for an Android version?
I've started learning Android so hopefully cant get something out in a couple months, maybe sooner if it's less painful
Tiny Calm looks great - thank you for creating and sharing!
Thanks! If you have any requests just shout out..
The Insight Meditation Center has a ton of introductory talks and guided meditations available for free: http://audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1762/ for example.
All you need is a timer which is already built in to most phones; if you want a slightly better timer that has a soothing chime, use https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.xipa.medigo... which is also free (and has no ads, social networking features or other annoying stuff).
This kind of content seems more appropriate for WebMD or WikiHow than the NYT website.
There's no discussion of any substance here, it's pure filler. Differences in meditation technique and course format between apps find no mention, and there's no evidence provided showing that any of these apps is an effective aid to meditation. Most considerations on the list are applicable to an app focused on just about any positive habit people might want to incorporate into their daily lives.
I think I get it.How to Pick a Meditation App (well.blogs.nytimes.com) 13 points by delambo 1 hour ago user: delambo about: My real-name HN handle. Web developer at The New York Times. @delambro
The whole concept of a meditation app strikes me as kind of contradictory.
Speaking as a guy who has been meditating for a couple decades, the whole concept of meditation apps seems stupid.
It's strange that after a couple decades of meditation you call obviously helpful things "stupid".
Please be mindful, everybody has their own ways.
I've practiced with & without apps for a similar time period. The apps helped me keep a schedule I found difficult without them. YMMV but for me headspace was worth it.
Then it's a scheduling app really, not a meditation app.
I guess you haven't tried it.
Headspace is probably the easiest and best way to get started with meditation, due to its great instructions, sublime voice quality (both technically and phonetically/subjectively), and clear motivating daily progress (with reminders).
This video [1], which occurs early in the free introduction course on Headspace, is a good example of why Headspace is vastly more than just a scheduling app. Meditation can be hard, but Headspaces makes it easy to get into.
Youtubbing for "mindfulness meditation" yields multiple results.
I haven't looked into any of those yet but was wondering if HN would recommend them.
What I've been doing on and off is to play a calming "meditation tune", sit down on a pillow, try to get into lotus (eventually shifting to a simple sitting when it becomes uncomfortable), and flush thoughts out. So far I haven't reached the stage of focusing on breathing, so many things rushing through my mind lately.
The undistracted state of the mind is the meditation. (Gampopa)
I've used the Calm app for the introduction course to learn about how to meditate and start with guidance, then I continued on my own. Paying 10$ monthly for sitting still is hilarious. IMHO the quantity of these kind of apps, guides and whatnot simply offer a paradox of choice, which is ironic, since the user wants to relax, not obsess if he bought the right app, subscription and/or meditation technique.
I now use Enso app [1] just to alert the 15 min duration, it's free on the App Store (optional purchases for different alert bells).
[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/enso-meditation-timer-bell/i...
Personally I just used to use the built in timer with my phone and do 30min sessions. But these days I have far more success with just sitting without a timer. I recommend doing it at night where you can do this unbounded by anything.