15 Meditation Apps for Sleep, Anxiety & Mindfulness
the best meditation apps
Meditation has been proven to reduce stress, improve sleep and encourage a healthier sense of self overall. Despite these benefits, however, meditation remains challenging for most people. Our busy lives lead to busy minds, and it can be hard to quiet our thoughts and sit still to reap the benefits that mindfulness and meditation have to offer.
Fortunately, there are many apps designed to help guide you through a meditative moment. Whether you’re brand new to meditation or you’re looking for something different, the wide range of options available means there’s something for everyone. In this list, you’ll learn about 15 popular meditation apps for sleep and anxiety — including what types of meditations they have, how much they cost, and how their offerings stack up against the rest. Simply choose the app for you, press play, and prepare for all your stressors to fall away.
our top picks for Meditation Apps:
1. Insight Timer
Best for: All-in-one app for sleep, meditation, and education
Price: Free for basic access, $9.99/month for Member Plus
Insight Timer is one of the most popular meditation apps, meaning it also has one of the largest content libraries.
In addition to daily meditations and relaxation, this app offers a wealth of sleep-specific meditations, bedtime stories, and soundscapes that can help you sleep better and wake up feeling more relaxed. If you’re looking for more insight around the art of mindfulness, this app has an insightful talks and courses section with topics ranging from beginner spirituality building sustainable happiness habits, some of which require a Member Plus membership.
2. Balance
Best for: A tailored meditation experience
Price: First year free, second year starting at $11.99/month
Balance is a meditation app with a unique premise: it adapts to your preferences and growth over time. Every time you log in, you’ll be prompted to answer questions about how you feel, what your goals are, and more.
That information is used to tailor your experience over time, so that you’re given specific meditations selected from their vast library of content. Balance also offers fresh experiences, such as vibration-based immersive meditations, and detailed tracking that shows how far you’ve come and which skills you’re strengthening.
3. Waking Up
Best for: Grounding meditations, but also philosophical insights on the practice of meditation
Price: $19.99/month
Touted as “A new operating system for your mind,” Waking Up goes beyond the practice of meditation by offering tangible knowledge and thought-provoking conversations about what meditation is — and why it matters.
Created by neuroscientist and author Sam Harris, this app also has a daily mindfulness reminder that grounds and inspires you for the day ahead. By understanding the purpose of meditation, Waking Up helps you cut through the fluff to see real progress in the areas of mental health, sleep, gratitude, relationships and so much more.
4. Calm
Best for: Sleep stories
Price: $14.99/month ($399.99 for life)
Calm is another popular meditation app with a huge library, and in recent years, they’ve expanded their offerings to include more sleep-specific content.
Aside from basic breath-focused meditations, their greatest differentiator is their sleep stories, in which beloved actors like Kate Winslet and Idris Elbra narrate stories that take you to fantastical, relaxing worlds as you drift asleep. They also have many soundscapes, such as rainforest noises or beach noises, that can calm your busy mind.
5. Slumber
Best for: Sleep meditations
Price: Free
Slumber is a sleep-focused app that offers a few different content types for falling asleep. For one, their dream stories immerse you in specific experiences, such as going for a dive in the ocean, that help you stop worrying before falling asleep.
Their sleep meditations also have the same effect, yet with greater focus on breathing techniques and relaxation as you’re encouraged to let go of your previous day and focus on peacefully drifting off.
6. Headspace
Best for: Beginners
Price: $69.99/year or $12.99/month
Headspace is known for having a wide range of accessible, beginner-friendly meditations. Choose from goals like more focus, better sleep, and more gratitude, then decide on your length of commitment and narrator of choice.
Headspace makes it easy to start small, with short meditations that aren’t overwhelming and helpful reminders for when to meditate, what to try next, and how far you’ve come on your mindfulness journey.
7. Healthy Minds Program
Best for: Science-backed meditations and philosophy
Price: Free
Similar to Waking Up, the Healthy Minds program app emphasizes its scientific foundations and is based on four decades of neuroscience research.
It offers podcast-style lessons on what it means to be well in our modern world. Additionally, you can find seated and active meditations ranging from five to thirty minutes in length, making it great for busy people. Lastly their Healthy Minds Report gives you a quick overview of how far you’ve come and what skills you’re gaining.
8. Smiling Mind
Best for: Programs to do with kids, short meditations
Price: Free
Smiling Mind is an Australian-created meditation app designed to offer easy, family-friendly meditations. This evidence-based app has programs for goals like stress, relationships, wellbeing, mindful eating, and much more, so there’s something for everyone.
They also have a section just for teens, which is an added bonus given the current youth mental health crisis. They suggest using their app for just ten minutes a day to see lasting change.
9. iBreathe
Best for: Programs to do with kids, short meditations
Price: Free
iBreathe is a minimalist app focused specifically on helping you and your family reap the benefits of focused breathwork. This simple app has classic breathing exercises (like the 4-7-8- breath), but also allows flexibility to create your own breathing methods based on the foundational skills you learn.
It also has an option for adding alerts that remind you to take deep breaths throughout the day, which shows you just how much a small change can have a major impact.
10. Sleepiest
Best for: A mix of sleep stories, sounds, and meditations
Price: $9.99/month
Sleep sounds, sleep stories, and relaxing meditations make up the bulk of content available on the Sleepiest app, which has a library of over 1130 programs.
This award-winning app is known for its creative, soothing bedtime stories for people of all ages. Their sleep sounds include everything from ocean waves to white noise, so you can use this app to try out different sleep experiences and find the best for you.
11. Ten Percent Happier
Best for: Bite-sized wisdom about mindfulness and life along with meditations
Price: $8.33/month, billed annually at $99.99
With Ten Percent Happier, you’ll find a wide library of meditations — and so much more. Started by Dan Harris, who decided to transform his relationship to stress after he had a panic attack on live TV, the content here is made to help you overcome life’s daily challenges.
This means you’ll find insightful courses and challenges designed to help the everyday person excel at meditation, no matter how new you are to the practice.
12. BetterSleep
Best for: Sound-mixing and personalization
Price: $9.99/ month, $59.99/year, or $249.99/life
BetterSleep is one app that delivers on its name. Like other sleep-focused apps, you’ll find meditations and sounds designed to foster better rest. BetterSleep differs from other apps, however, with its personalization experiences.
For example, you can mix sounds to create the perfect soundscape — whether you’re adding binaural beats with river noises or cranking up the white noise crackle in the background. This sound-mixing element is a great way to find the perfect sounds to help you drift off in peace.
13. Simple Habit
Best for: Busy people who need a quick, effective reset
Price: $11.99/month, $89.99/year, $299.99/life
While most meditation apps have short meditations, Simple Habit is created with busy people in mind. They specialize in five-minute meditations that can be done in the morning or at night.
They also have daily motivations and inspirations that can encourage you to start your day with the right mindset. There are also quick, sweet meditations for kids. Featured on Shark Tank, Simple Habit has tens of thousands of ratings that show just how beneficial it can be.
14. FitMind
Best for: Science-backed mindfulness skill-building
Price: $19.99/month $99.99/year
Backed by neuroscientists, FitMind offers a 30-day meditation program that helps you strengthen your mindfulness abilities in just one month. Users can access mental fitness charts that score their progress, as well as scientific techniques that boost their understanding of mindfulness along the way.
FitMind takes mindfulness to the next level by seeing it as a skill that anyone can learn and strengthen with the right tools.
15. Breethe
Best for: Dealing with daily frustrations, hypnosis
Price: $12.99/ month
Breethe is a meditation app that targets the daily frustrations of normal people. For example, you can find meditations that muse on ideas about the difficulties of doing taxes or the frustrations of dealing with a rude boss.
Additionally, Breethe offers multiple mindfulness courses, including 7-day, 30-day and 90-day courses that hone your focus skills. At the same time, you can find a range of one-time meditations, sounds, bedtime stories, and even hypnotherapy courses.
About the Author
Michelle Polizzi is an independent writer and storyteller with 7 years of experience creating content online. Her writing has appeared in leading publications like Bitch, WELL+GOOD, Insider, and Healthline, and she covers topics like sustainable living, mental health, and intersectional feminism. Currently, she's pursuing an MFA in creative writing.
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