Whether you prefer guided meditation, deep breathing, or to just go at it on your own, meditation can bring a huge benefit to your usual wellness regimen. Research shows that meditation can improve the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia. Moreover, meditation also has a lot of physical benefits: reducing blood pressure, inducing quality sleep, and improving your heart rate variability, a metric telling you how well you handle stress.

Commonly, meditation is best learned with expert guidance. However, for many people, finding the time to maintain a regular practice is difficult. So, there is a solution much closer at hand: meditation apps! They are a welcome window into a world of chirping birds, gentle bells, and encouraging words. Try these apps to practice meditation and relax your mind.

SmilingMind (Free) 

Smiling Mind (available for iOS, Android) is incredibly comprehensive and totally free. There is a three steps to introduce mindfulness and meditation, preparing beginners for the many programs and modules from which they can then choose. Smiling Mind also offers meditations for kids sorted by ages and for the classroom; meditations for adults sorted by issues like stress, relationships, sleep, and difficult emotions, sorted by events like sports performance, or the workplace; and meditations for those confident in meditating with limited guidance. You can download sessions to listen to offline, keep track of your progress, set reminders, and save your favorite ones to access them easily.

Buddhify ($4.99 on iOS, $2.99 on Android)

Buddhify (available for iOS, Android) is out to change every part of your daily life. It asks you what you are doing and gives you various meditations to accompany that activity. It’s particularly useful for busy people to do the meditations with eyes openning while they’re walking on a busy sidewalk or on public transportation. It also includes a timer for those who want to do meditation on their own without guidance.