Meditation (app)station.
If you have been following what’s going on in the wellness or preventive health measures movement, you most likely noticed the popularity and momentum gained by any type of mindfulness practices.
Multiple people from physician leaders, artists and athletes try to incorporate them in gospel to their (mostly social media and apps) followers and subscribers. When I started thinking about trying meditation practices I noticed the app Headspace and later on American Medical Association made it available for free to its members. I subscribed and last summer I had an immersing experience with a really delightful meditation practice consistent with a package of classes teaching you basic meditation techniques like sitting still, finding quiet space to practice, counting breath and body scanning. I really liked it, but wanted to explore more other options especially after my class was over and the rest is subscription only. I found out about Oak app from a friend doctor - this app is very simple and provides a very basic guided meditation, but if you really want to go in the deep side of things there’s another app that I discovered a few months ago, and that I found on the website of American College of Rheumatology, which I am a mere of. InsightTimer has pretty abundant access to free classes with descriptions of background on each teacher. There is also sleep meditation selection, meditative and relaxing music. I really enjoy its LIVE sessions [like zoom] from multiple corners of the world.
Thus far I meditated with teachers from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and even Bali.
One of the teachers is Matthew who will start his practice with meditation and later on, with the input from attendees, he creates a song based on the words that the audience provides. I listened to a few of those and some products are really fun and beautiful. More recently I learned about Calm app. Tuning into this one is not incidental for me as the place where I work provides free subscription for all employees. However I have to say that I really like a few teachers in this app, selection of classes and courses that are enriched with certain themes, like dealing with emotions, another one for workplace, then daily meditation exploring basics, but also ideas that are less known, but worth investigating. They also have a number of meditation guided by celebrities, people who describe their own journey through and with meditation.
I recently finished a brief series, reflection on mindfulness, by very well-known basketball player LeBron James, who talks about his meditative methodology to stay focused and present for the best of what can be done in any given moment, whether it’s in his professional or personal life.
The episodes are brief, between 5-6 minutes, but really easy to listen to, memorable and LeBron also incorporates a sense of humor into each part of a series. Obviously the idea is that you learn some techniques suggested by the teachers and then continue meditation practices on your own. I would say that while a very ambitious goal I still really like tuning into guided meditation. I find the joy and fun in LIVE sessions from InsightTimer. The concept of subscription services of apps is very intriguing and evolving. I predict we will gain better access to very reasonably priced or free classes for either introductory period or basic selection from the growing number of virtual meditation libraries.
Listen to powerful, repetitive sound of waves hitting the shore.
