Headspace: A Guided Meditation Companion

Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2019/10/14/headspace-a-guided-meditation-companion/

If you struggle to sleep, can’t seem to focus, or grapple with persistent stress, you might want to check out Headspace. It’s a personal meditation guide available for iOS, Android, and the Web with a large catalog of guided meditations for people of every experience level.

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I’ve been using TenPercent Happier meditation app for 2 1/2 years. It’s phenomenal. I have not tried Headspace so cannot compare them. I like the idea of a family plan tho I think Ten Percent is cheaper than Headspace. I like that some of the country’s leading meditation teachers present the courses and stand-alone meditations in Ten Percent. Whatever helps people develop mindfulness, focus, stress relief, control of difficult emotions, relationships, sleep, awareness of self and others, pain relief is all positive. The more who do it, the better and healthier the planet.

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I’m also using 10% Happier, and very much for the same reasons as you, Jackie.

Previously I had looked at Calm, Insight Timer, and also Headspace, but 10% Happier is my favorite so far: its approach is very down-to-earth, solidly presents the science behind meditation, and has zero esoteric overtones. Oh, and it also does not try to be cute. :wink:

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I’m with you on this, @dohlink.

Whatever helps people develop mindfulness, focus, stress relief, control of difficult emotions, relationships, sleep, awareness of self and others, pain relief is all positive.

There are a bunch of good apps out there as well as meetups in most cities for group guided meditation. Use whatever works for you!

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10% Happier seems to be getting a lot of love from App Store promotion recently too. I’ll have to check it out. (I’ve tried a bunch of others but not that one.)

I actually like that Headspace tries to be cute haha. I completely get why you wouldn’t, but I find the little illustrations fun. :smiley:

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I’ve been quite happy with Insight Timer for 3 years. The meditations are contributed by teachers from around the world and include music, guided, beginners’ “tutorials”, and meditation courses.

The free version is excellent but you can also opt for the $5/month subscription which adds playback options and downloading tracks for offline listening. One can also submit comments to the tracks and send messages to other meditators around the world.

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Thanks for sharing, @apta.

It’s cool to find TidBITS readers that enjoy meditation apps and to know that there are a bunch of good options for iOS.

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I love using the Synctuition meditation program. I have started using it every evening after my workout as part of my relaxation routine and I gotta say that, once you get used to it, it is simply mind-blowing. At first it was a bit weird, as the binaural beats and gamma waves really give your brain a workout and, like any muscle, it takes time to get it working to its full potential. Now I wake up feeling more rested than ever before and my energy and happiness levels have skyrocketed. I am amazed at how quickly Synctuition became a habit I can’t do without. The 25 minutes I spend listening to it every day leave me feeling like I can take on the world!

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Hi Timothy,

you mention in your TidBITS article that Headspace comes in English, Dutch and French. As a native Dutch speaker, this surprised me, so I went to have a look. It turns out that it is in English, Deutsch and Français, and ‘Deutsch’ means ‘German’ in German… I don’t know why the English language refers to the language that is spoken in the low countries as Dutch (and not as Netherlandish or Hollandish), but it surely is a source of confusion…

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It’s fixed now. Thanks for the heads up!

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After reading the article I checked the wikipedia page for Headspace

It struck me as, once again, people monetizing mental wellbeing; for my parents’s generation it was usually a church telling you what to think (or providing sermons for you to contemplate).

In the 1960s Transcendental Meditation™ was very popular by way of American Culture exploiting it’s marketability, aimed at younger adults…

I’m happy if some people find this stuff beneficial and don’t end up getting fleeced.

I AM surprised that TidBITS would give it space (and a platform). AND I can’t help wondering if some of the positive reviews are posted by bots…

Good luck,
Ron

I fail to see the problem with a company providing a (legal) service for a fee, whatever the field. No one is being forced to subscribe, and if Headspace’s particular approach helps someone in a real way, that seems like a good thing.

As far as positive reviews being posted by bots, I’m not sure what venue you’re thinking about, but I’m confident there are no bots posting comments here. Aside from Discourse’s automated bot prevention techniques, I read each and every post on this site, and am familiar with most of the people. I think I’d notice if bots started posting. (And in fact, there have been a handful of spammers who have registered accounts and then posted here in the last few years; I’ve banned them and deleted their messages as soon as I realized.)

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It’s good to know you delete bots and spammers, Adam.

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My wife is a clinical social worker who specialized in PTSD, victims of trauma (esp. domestic violence, sexual abuse and child abuse. She has promoted meditation and mindfulness for years, as I (a Christian pastor). Much of this work has been done through many different faith traditions for centuries. There is much that is available out there and if a company is providing the latest clinical resources and it provides people better health options and healing then those looking at the company should welcome the option - it is up to them to decide if that is a good option. I, for one, am very grateful to TidBITS for offering the information and their view of the item. I happen to use a program called Pray as you go (at APP store) which I find very helpful. Deeply appreciate all the previous comments, which, if TidBITS had not offered the original post I might not have known about - and am copying comments to send to people in our fields as additional information. So, I sort of disagree with your concern but also think you offer a good point about the financial end of the program. Thanks.

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I also meant to include that I too work with victims of violence and difficult life circumstance, including traumatic grief. Thank you all for your input because it will be used to help others!

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As a psychiatrist treating many anxiety disorders, it is nice to be aware what different modalities are available and that included apps. Many studies have been done that show that Computer Assisted Therapy (CAT) can be as beneficial as a human therapist and easier for some people. If it helps them, then they should use it. Mindfulness therapy techniques have been used for years but are only recently becoming more popular, but they are very useful for many people. As long as privacy issues are addressed in these treatments, I am OK with them.

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Every psychologist and psychiatrist is “monetizing mental wellbeing,” and every doctor is “monetizing physical wellbeing.” I find it remarkable that that concept could be reason for concern for some.

While apps like Headspace will never replace human mental-health experts, they both share the same scientific underpinnings from sound meditation research. And unlike other “offerings” that, sadly, do exploit their customers’ gullibility — such as psychic readings, “energy healing,” and similar non-scientific nonsense — these apps support a meaningful meditiation practice for their users, and do so at a relatively modest subscription fee.

Why, then, should TidBITS not feature these kinds of applications?

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Thanks for the input, @jochen. That’s encouraging.

Headspace is an app that has been beneficial in my life, and my hope in writing about it was to help anyone else who happened to be interested.

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yb379
Ron Gillmore

    October 21

After reading the article I checked the wikipedia page for Headspace

Because entries on Wikipedia are not always vetted or updated, I did some quick search which turned up quite a lot of recent research from very respected sources that came to the conclusion that meditation, as well as meditation combined with yoga, does help adults suffering with PSTD and hypertension. Here are just five examples:

Impact of Transcendental Meditation on Psychotropic Medication Use Among Active Duty Military Service Members With Anxiety and PTSD

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26741477

Mindfulness meditation may ease anxiety, mental stress

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/mindfulness-meditation-may-ease-anxiety-mental-stress-201401086967

Meditation and Yoga for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Meta-Analytic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5939561/

Meditation Helpful In Reducing Blood Pressure:

https://www.kent.edu/research/meditation-effective-reducing-blood-pressure

Benefits of mindfulness meditation in reducing blood pressure and stress in patients with arterial hypertension

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30425326

It struck me as, once again, people monetizing mental wellbeing; for my parents’s generation it was usually a church telling you what to think (or providing sermons for you to contemplate).

News Flash - healthcare is not free, including mental healthcare. In Britain and other countries with universal health care, taxes pay for it. Though I am not religious, I do know many good and kind people who are. And many religious leaders, like Martin Luther King, have been greatly beneficial to society.

In the 1960s Transcendental Meditation™ was very popular by way of American Culture exploiting it’s marketability, aimed at younger adults…

Around 1970, A young hippie college drop out, Steve Jobs, followed in the footsteps of Transcendental Meditation devotees he admired, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Donovan, Mia Farrow and others and travelled to India to study spirituality and meditation with a different guru, Neem Karoli Baba, who happened to consider apples the perfect fruit and had a habit of tossing them around. Though the guru died just before Steve arrived, Steve did spend considerable time and studied extensively at the ashram. Mark Zuckerberg, who considers Steve Jobs his mentor, began studying there on Steve’s recommendation when Facebook was getting off the ground. Zuckerberg recently returned from another of his many visits to the ashram, which has since become a sort of Mecca for tech leaders from companies including Google:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/inside-the-indian-temple-that-draws-americas-tech-titans/2015/10/30/03b646d8-7cb9-11e5-bfb6-65300a5ff562_story.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/kainchi-dham-the-indian-ashram-where-silicon-valley-s-finest-go-to-discover-themselves-a6720006.html

I AM surprised that TidBITS would give it space (and a platform). AND I can’t help wondering if some of the positive reviews are posted by bots…

I’ve been a TidBITS Talker since the day Adam started the list, and I’ve always been glad TidBITS covers a wide variety of Apple related subjects, including meditation. And Adam does an outstanding job of vetting every article and post.

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Another meditation app (free) hat has been very helpful to me is Smiling Mind from an Australian not-for-profit of the same name (www.smilingmind.com.au). As long as non-Australians don’t mind the accent :slightly_smiling_face:.

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