Why You Should Start Meditating Right Now
My Unbiased Opinion of the Calm App
Last June, while muddling through the early months of the pandemic, I learned that the Calm app was offering a free annual subscription with my health insurance. I downloaded it immediately. Since then, I have meditated nearly every day.
It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that it’s changed my life.
It is hard to believe that something as simple as sitting and seemingly doing absolutely nothing can have so many benefits. By taking just ten minutes a day, it’s possible to achieve greater self-awareness, less stress and a longer attention span.
Initially, I only meditated before bed to help with drifting off to sleep. The effect that this has had on my sleep has been immediate and profound. The most tangible benefit is that I have not had a single sleepless night since. Before meditating regularly, sleepless nights would sneak up on me when I least expected them to.
The Calm app has given me a solid introduction to meditation that has allowed me to build this almost-daily habit. Meditating on your own is difficult. Calm walks you through each meditation with gentle reminders that help you to stay focused and offers a variety of meditation topics to keep you interested. This month, I have consistently meditated six out of seven days a week. Some months, it’s closer to four days a week. Regardless, Calm has provided me with the motivation and the structure to build a habit that I plan to keep for the long-term.
However, once my free subscription runs out, I’m not convinced that I will pay to renew my subscription with Calm. As someone who uses the app regularly, and mainly for sleep, I wish that there were more sleep-orientated mediations. There are only thirteen meditations on the app specifically for the purposes of sleep, of which I have practiced to the point that they have become annoyingly repetitive. The daytime meditations end in the abrupt clanging of a gong, which I find counterproductive to sleep.
I also found the 30-day introduction to meditation to be misleading. This is the program that hooked me on the app, and is narrated by Jeff Warren, who narrates only one other series on the app, “Dating Courageously”. His narration makes mediation fun and approachable in a way that Tamara Levitt’s voice, the narrator behind the majority of meditations on Calm, unfortunately lacks.
My favorite meditation on the app is the “Daily Calm.” Every day, Levitt narrates a new 10-minute meditation that ends in helpful reminders about life according to themes such as loneliness, family or renewal. Choosing the Daily Calm eliminates the decision making of having to choose a meditation topic on the app, while keeping the daily topic fresh and interesting.
While I am not fully convinced that Calm is the perfect meditation app, it has undoubtedly convinced me of the benefits of the practice of meditation as a whole. I recommend the practice of meditation to anyone who breathes, and the vehicle of meditation whatever motivates you to keep coming back day after day.
