13 Best Meditation Apps for Anxiety, Depression, and Worry

Cost: $9.99/month, $59.99/year (that’s $4.99/month), or $299/life. Or the free version is decent.

Buddhify, a membership-based program, has some of the most pleasant graphics and design of any of these apps. Among the regular soothing offerings, membership includes what the app makers describe as a “karaoke-style feature,” which allows users to lead others in guided meditations by reading along with prompts on the app.

Buddhify is navigated using a strangely lovely colorful wheel, which guides users to a number of readings, courses, and longer meditations.

Cost: $4.99 to access the app

Tide has plenty of good meditations, with slightly more unusual themes (“basking,” “emptiness,” “headache”), but the app’s distinguishing feature is sounds. Luxurious sounds (with a much less computer-generated quality than those on other apps), like “ocean” and “storm,” can be layered over meditations or breathing activities. Or you can pay for more couture “sound scenes,” like the sound of paint being spread on a canvas (seriously, it’s nice), a dishwasher (surprisingly great), and wild gibbons (not sure this is necessary).

Cost: $11.99/month, $59.99/year (that’s $4.99/month), or $399/lifetime with a decent amount of content in the free version.

The premise of Simple Habit is that just five minutes of meditation should be enough to help you feel better. A diverse group of teachers lead micro meditations on this aesthetically inviting app, which recommends themed sessions based on goals you input, or allows you to choose.

Cost: $11.99/month or $89.99/year (that’s $7.50/month,) or the free version has some content.

10. Meditation app

This straightforward-named, charmingly illustrated app offers courses with a series of different voices that can be personalized with background sounds and various durations. It comes with plenty of ambient tracks and sleep sounds, as well as bedtime stories that Glamour found…kind of chilling? But hey, some people fall asleep to true-crime pods; we’re not here to judge.

Cost: $3.99/week, with a decent amount of content in the free version

Smiling Mind is a little different—it’s not a glossy start-up or the genius work of a college-aged coder. It’s an app made by an Australian nonprofit, developed by psychologists and teachers with kids, teens, and families in mind. It asks users to note how they’re feeling (happy? content? alert?) and offers intro courses, family courses, classroom courses, and sleep programs. As you go along, the app explains why everything is being done, without being condescending.

Cost: Free

This app accompanies the number one New York Times best-selling book of the same name, by Dan Harris. That book’s full title is 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story.

The app is just as comprehensive and just as wordy. Harris aims his app at “fidgety skeptics,” and the app is a series of video courses—not just audio, like most apps—each led by a different teacher. The app keeps track of your mindfulness practice with a fitness-tracker-style statistics page.

Cost: $99.99/year

Aura, with a shimmery, flowing interface, asks users to share information to personalize their experience, then offers daily meditation sessions led by one of a number of experts, based on that day’s emotion. The app also includes a number of soundscapes, coaching, and antianxiety exercises as short as 30 seconds long.

Cost: $59.99/year (that’s $4.99/month)

Bonus

Okay, it’s not a meditation app…it’s so much more. Multiple Glamour staffers insist that the app Design Home—an interior decoration mobile game—has the calming powers of walking while being gentle showered in CBD drops. “Long before COVID-19, I’ve used Design Home to help curb anxiety,” says Glamour senior entertainment editor Anna Moeslein. “The premise is simple: Furnish beautiful homes with delightfully bland furniture, then vote on others’ designs to win prizes. The highest stakes are whether or not your new glass West Elm coffee table would look best in your Denver townhouse or Palm Springs ranch home.” If Tibetan singing bowls and ocean sounds don’t float your boat, Design Home just might (or it will at least give you a covered garage in which to store your fictional boat).

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter.