Anxiety and stress are very common, but they can be deeply troublesome experiences. Anxiety can mean sleepless nights, missed opportunities, feeling sick, and panic attacks that can keep you from performing at your optimal self. Stress can lead to fatigue, restlessness, and even physical or mental ailments, wreaking havoc on your personal and professional life.
Trying one of these best calming apps listed in this article can help you to cope with & manage your issues. Having the tools to deal with or embrace your anxious thoughts & stress can be a great alternative to therapy with a professional. It can also offer a sense of empowerment.
Top Calming Apps
1. Calm
One of the most popular & famous apps out there, with 1.5 million ratings, Calm has skyrocketed to the trending top list in the health space. Calm is celebrated for its tranquil approach, gently guiding users into meditation and mindfulness practices. Daily guided meditations are simple to complete in schedule-friendly sessions, ranging from 3 to 25 minutes, and targeted programs help to address anxiety, stress, or sleeplessness.
In addition to bedtime stories narrated by soothing voices and a wide collection of relaxing music, this app can help you establish mental guided imagery, letting you use more than one of your senses to mentally isolate yourself from your current surroundings.
2. Dark Noise
Ambient noise is an ideal way to help you relax or focus on your daily task. Dark Noise is a user-friendly & powerful way to use sound. There are more than 30 different noises to choose from—everything from simple white noise to more exclusive sounds like a spaceship engine or a cat purring.
Once you choose a sound, setting a timer to end it after a precise duration or time is easy. You don’t have to open the app to start a specific noise. You can start using a voice command shortcut or pick a selection from an extension widget.
3. Headspace
Headspace is one of the most popular and best calming apps for both guided meditations & mindfulness methods. You can try the free Basics course that teaches the basics. If you want to learn more, a subscription can unlock all of the app’s features, including the complete meditation library. There is a wide assortment of topics to explore, like sleep, focus & exercise.
For a quick break, the app also provides short meditation sessions. There are special sessions designed for moments of panic, anxiety, or stress. You can add friends to help to inspire & meditate with as well. Unique animations can teach new skills & help to answer questions about mindfulness.
4. 10% Happier
According to its website, this particular app offers “meditation for fidgety skeptics.” Unlike similar apps, 10% Happier features world-famous meditation teachers, so you can be assured that you are learning from the best.
Squeeze mindfulness into your everyday routine by watching videos of guided meditations designed for small segments of free time throughout your day: your morning & evening commutes, lunch break, and many more. Relaxing isn’t always easy, but meditation can be simple with this app.
5. Aura
With guided stories & music choices, this meditation app has many ways to help you self-reflect, and it produces them for you based on your mood. It keeps track of how much meditating you are doing, plus there is an option to track your moods eventually, as well as set reminders to practice mindfulness all through the day to boost those moods.
6. Insight Timer
Insight Timer offers more than 30,000 meditations & music tracks you can access for free. Some of the most popular subjects you can find include dealing with anxiety & stress, better relationships, and sleeping peacefully. You can select a meditation by the time when you are on the go to better combine the app with your everyday routine. The app’s namesake meditation timer offers several different sound choices.
To understand the app better, there are many community features & discussion groups with other users worldwide. You can also see stats & milestones to get a better sense of your accomplishment.
A Member Plus subscription offers numerous additional options. Along with unlocking all the courses, you can also download the whole library of meditations to listen offline and look at the Daily Insight mindfulness practice.
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7. Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock
Having a calm & relaxing day usually starts the night before, when you go to bed. Getting a good night’s sleep has a wide assortment of benefits for your health. But for many of us, that is not easy. When it is hard to fall asleep, we wake up too lethargic to tackle the day ahead.
Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock offers several features to help you to track your sleep & wake up at the most appropriate time in the morning. The app uses particular sound technology to track your different sleep phases. If it detects you are snoring during the night, Apple Watch & smartwatch wearers will feel a slight vibration that could help you to change sleep positions & stop snoring.
Before going to bed, you can set 30 minutes in the morning that ends at the set alarm time. The app will then wake you up in a light sleep phase during that period. The available subscription provides more features like long-term sleep trends, Philips Hue smart light support, and how the weather can affect your sleep.
8. Exhale
Exhale was founded & designed to offer service to BIWOC (Black, Indigenous, Women of Color) users & offer targeted services that weren’t available on other leading apps. Founder Katara McCarty created Exhale with hopes that users will have better trust in their services after downloading the app, which includes offerings directly targeted at various issues like microaggressions, grief & childhood trauma, and many other crucial topics.
Users can sign up for free to start meditations & guided “imagining” sessions, with access to daily assertion services that feel more deliberate for the app’s core issue-directed offerings, as opposed to common wellness.
9. Sattva
If you take pleasure in auditory or vocal meditation, the Vedic-style meditation featured in these guided sessions—with an abundance of mantras & chants—will definitely appeal to you. Sessions last from 6 minutes to over 1 hour.
There are sessions developed to be simple while you work on expanding your sessions in length. Moreover, there are in-app playlists & audio collections that can make your sessions much better. It is one of the best calming apps.
Conclusion
What is keeping you up at night? Is tomorrow a vital presentation? One too many coffees? Is your significant other angry at you again? Do you wish you could escape from all these at the tap of a button? So do we, just about every day.
The modern age—with its harsh deadlines, social pressures, and constant stress—takes a toll on all of us. Instead of turning to temporary fixes that often bring side effects, these calming apps can help restore inner peace, reduce anxiety, and provide the motivation you need to face life’s challenges.
