Meditation can be hard. But — as your friends, colleagues, and even your therapist might remind you — there are many benefits to the practice. “Meditation can help create more peace and ease,” says Marvin Belzer, PhD, adjunct associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and associate director at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. “It can help manage pain and difficult emotions. It can help us with negative patterns of thoughts.”
One way to start is by downloading one of the best meditation apps your phone has to offer. They provide access to guided sessions and resources that can help you turn meditation into a habit. Dr. Belzer says that anyone can get into meditation and that the practice can help you create space in your mind for “more clarity about how you want to be living.”
Rachel Webb, director and senior teacher at New York City-based yoga studio Three Jewels, says that a key to successful meditation is recognizing what practice resonates with you and how your mind works. (In other words, if you find that your first meditation session isn’t working for you, try a different style of meditation like one that is visualization-focused or one that has you hone in on your senses.) If you’re not sure where to begin with this, Webb recommends going to a meditation teacher to get their advice.
Meditation apps offer a variety of meditation styles and if you’ve been meaning to download one, we’d argue that now is a great time to start. Ahead, we’ve curated the apps to help you stay cool and calm, with the help of experts.