If you’re looking for help making meditation an everyday habit, you will be interested in the Aura app. The goal of this app is to meditate for at least 3 minutes each day and tie it to a daily habit so it sticks. This app allows you to choose meditations based on how you’re feeling when you’re ready to meditate. It also features life coaching, inspirational stories, relaxing music and nature sounds. It is available for free for a 7-day trial for both Android and iOS. If you’re pleased with the app and would like to continue using it, there is a $59.99 annual subscription free ($4.99 a month).
How it works
After downloading the app, you will be asked for your name and to briefly describe yourself. You’ll note what daily habit you’d like to tie with meditation. You can select from one of their suggestions or create your own custom habit. You’ll set a specific time to meditate each day. Next you’ll register for the app. You can easily sign up with your Facebook or Google accounts, or sign up with your email address.
The app will then ask you how you are feeling. You can choose from great, okay, stressed, anxious, sad or can’t sleep. The app with recommend a meditation based on how you’re feeling. Press play to listen to the meditation. Most meditations in this section will align with the 3-minute goal. However, there are longer meditations in another section of the app (must have a subscription to access). As part of the 7-day trial you can access one free meditation per day for each of the 7 days. If you like the meditations, you can save the specific channel to access later (with the paid version). The app also features life coaching, inspirational stories, music and nature sounds; however, the only additional features you can access with the trial include the music and sounds. The final feature of this app is a community section where you can post to other app users to provide and receive encouragement and inspiration as you utilize the app.
Pros
- The more you use the app, the more it learns about you to better personalize the experience.
- Tracks your progress and celebrates your successes.
- Notifications to remind you when to meditate—you can even set different reminders for the weekends.
- The narrators of the meditations have soothing, calming voices.
Cons
- The 7-day trial is limited and doesn’t allow you to get the full experience of the app. While the meditations are the focal point, it would be more helpful to access all the features when deciding if the app is worth the fee.
- There are many features to this app; it would be nice if there was a brief tutorial to help users understand what is available to fully take advantage of it.
Consensus
This is a great app for beginners to meditation, individuals who seek to deepen and expand their practice, and everyone in between! Try it out today.
For Health Advocate members
If you’re a Health Advocate member with access to the wellness coaching component of our Wellness Program, contact a Wellness Coach for more great tips to help you improve your well-being.
