No matter your goal – improving sleep, decreasing stress or sharpening focus – these mindfulness apps offer guided meditations, breathing exercises and tools to promote mental wellness.

Calm is an extremely popular app offering many features to improve sleep, relaxation and overall well-being. These include themed meditations dedicated to sleeping well, stress reduction and more. Furthermore, background music, nature sounds and brainwaves allow users to customize their experience further.

1. Calm

Calm was established in 2004 to assist people at every step of their mental health journey, from sleeping better and relieving stress to building mindfulness habits. It offers guided meditations, breathing exercises, sleep stories and other soothing sounds which have been clinically researched to reduce anxiety and insomnia; its content has even been approved by doctors and psychologists!

Calm offers an exclusive “Daily Calm” session available only to premium members that changes daily and features 10-minute guided meditation on wellness topics such as managing overwhelm and stress management for busy nurses. Their friendly narrators make following along easy.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which introduces four key principles of mindfulness–awareness, connection, insight, and purpose–is particularly helpful for those dealing with mental health conditions and disorders. It includes both an introduction course for beginners as well as dedicated courses covering each one.

Healthline editors often turn to this app as a means of relieving anxiety before bed or during the day. One editor reported listening to its soothing sleep stories while reading or working and finding it helps her drift off faster; another uses music or soundscapes played from within it while at work to stay focused and stay in her focus zone.

2. Headspace

Headspace was launched in London by Andy Puddicombe and Richard Pierson in 2010, who have grown it into an app trusted by major brands like Google, LinkedIn, and Adobe to help their employees feel more relaxed and at peace. It offers guided meditations, mindfulness tips, stress reduction techniques, focus tools, sleep support features and courses all on one platform.

The straightforward onboarding process enables users to get started easily without an overwhelming learning curve, while its gamification features are executed flawlessly, offering positive reinforcement and nudgings necessary for forming habits. One such feature, Headspace Streaks, rewards users when they meditate daily with one month free for their friends – encouraging subscribers to practice together as well as providing businesses with a powerful means of supporting employee wellness programs.

Headspace makes life easy by providing customizable session lengths. From full 20-minute meditations to three-minute quick fixes when time is tight or your sleep problem or anxiety are lingering, there is something suitable for every need when it comes to meditation and mindfulness. Plus, Headspace features easily followable courses on topics like mindfulness for parenting and mindful eating so you can easily take control of your mental wellbeing.

3. Refocus

Users of this app can create and customize a meditation plan using different audio recordings of soothing sounds, as well as track their progress over time. Available both on iOS and Android devices.

Refocus was developed as part of the REFOCUS project, an NHS-funded programme of research designed to create community based adult mental health services more recovery oriented. ReFOCUS-PULSAR training was provided to 84 staff during step one workshops and 106 during step two workshops respectively, co-facilitated by professional staff as well as people with lived experience such as the project’s consumer researcher.

4. Sanvello

Chris Goettel and Dale Beermann, founders of Pacifica (now Sanvello), developed this app with tools designed to reduce feelings of anxiety, depression or stress while providing a supportive community. Based on cognitive behavior therapy and mindfulness meditation techniques, this application uses quick activities, coping tools and journaling as ways of managing mental health symptoms more effectively. Features such as guided journeys of activities including videos and audio files as well as mood tracker tracking mood tracking goal setting as well as online community are among the many available to users.

Celebrities like John Green and gymnast Aly Raisman believe in the power of digital self-care to support mental wellbeing, making this app accessible for users at every age and stage. With its user-friendly design, combination of behavioral science and CBT techniques make engaging with its content easy; and multiple behavioral design tactics proven effective at prompting daily usage encourage regular usage of this app.

Although the free version of Sanvello provides many useful resources, its most advanced features can only be accessed with an annual paid subscription that begins at $54 USD. UnitedHealthcare members aged 13 or over qualify for complimentary membership; Syracuse University faculty, staff and students can enroll for a premium account using their campus or system email address for no cost as well. For more information visit their website or download it from either App Store or Google Play.