Practice that says how long it takes
Guided programmes with a stated length, a stated daily commitment and the completion rate published beside them — so you can judge whether it is worth starting before you do.
Body scan, and why it is first
Every programme opens with a body scan because attention has to have somewhere to go before it can be trained, and sensation is the only object that is always available. It is also the practice people find most boring, which is why it is eighteen minutes rather than forty. The sequences are drawn from MBSR and we say so, including the parts of that literature that did not replicate.
Written by clinicians, narrated by one voice
Every programme here is written by a clinical psychologist and reviewed by a second before it is recorded, and all of them are narrated by the same person because switching voices mid-programme is the most common reason people stop. We publish the completion rate rather than the download count, and we publish it including everyone who quit — a completion figure that counts only finishers is not a figure at all.
Programmes
Pick by what you came for. Each states its length and what it will not do.
Anxiety
Twenty-one days, twelve minutes a day. Breath-pacing and attention training drawn from MBSR. It reduces the intensity of anxious episodes for most people who finish; it does not treat panic disorder, and if that is what you have, a clinician should be the first call rather than an app.
Sleep
Fourteen days, eighteen minutes at night. Body scan and wind-down sequences. The evidence for meditation on sleep onset is decent and for sleep maintenance is weak — if you wake at three and stay awake, this is the wrong tool and CBT-I is the right one.
Stress
Twenty-eight days, ten minutes a day. Short practices designed to fit a working day rather than to be added to it. This is the programme most people finish, which is mostly a fact about its length.
Focus
Ten days, eight minutes a day. Single-object attention practice. Improvements show up on sustained-attention tasks and fade within weeks of stopping, which is worth knowing before you start.
What actually happens
Measured across everyone who started a programme in the year to March, including the people who stopped.
Guided practices to start with
Three that need nothing but ten minutes and a chair.
Mindful breathing
Six minutes, paced at five breaths a minute. The pacing is the active ingredient; the narration is only there to keep you in the room.
Body scan
Eighteen minutes, lying down. The most common reason people abandon this one is doing it in bed, which turns it into a sleep aid and stops it being practice.
Deep breathing
Four minutes, sitting. Longer out-breath than in-breath, which is the part that does the work and the part most apps get backwards.
Three things that move the needle
And one of them is not an app, which is why it is first.
Conscious nourishment
Eating and sleeping at consistent hours does more for baseline anxiety than any programme here. We say so at the start rather than after you have paid.
Self compassion
Fourteen days of practices aimed at the internal commentary rather than at the breath. The hardest of the four and the one with the most durable effect.
Mindful movement
Ten minutes of slow movement with attention on sensation. Useful if sitting still makes the anxiety worse, which for a fair number of people it does.
From someone who finished one
The thing that kept me going was the honesty about what it would not fix. Every other app I tried promised the world in week one, and when week three was hard I assumed I was failing. Here it says in the first session that days nine to fourteen are the worst, and knowing that was most of the battle.
Get in touch with us
If you are in crisis this is the wrong channel and we will say so in the reply. For anything else, one of the clinicians answers within two working days.