Meditation is a simple way to improve caregiver health and well-being
Caregiving is a tough job and the stress can seriously affect your physical and mental health.
An effective and simple way to combat that is to meditate.
Rest assured, you don’t have to be a zen master before you benefit from meditation – even a few minutes a day can make a big difference in well-being.
We explain what meditation is and how it improves your health and mood.
We also share 4 excellent (and free) apps that make it easy and convenient to start meditating.
In these apps, there are many types of meditations to choose from and different lengths of time – even as little as 1 minute.
You’ll easily find something that suits your mood and fits into your busy day.
What is meditation and what are the benefits?
Meditation doesn’t require any equipment, is free, and is easy to do.
All you need is a quiet spot where you can sit and try to focus your attention in a way that helps your body and mind relax.
Guided meditations make this easy because you just follow the calming voice prompts.
Don’t worry if your thoughts wander while you’re meditating, that happens to everyone. The only thing that’s important is just to do it, there’s no right or wrong way.
Meditation has dozens of impressive benefits, including:
- Helping to regulate emotions
- Reducing the physical effects of stress
- Boosting immune system
- Improving sleep
- Reducing depression
- Lowering blood pressure
- And more
4 apps that make meditation quick and simple for caregivers
1. Insight Timer
Insight Timer is one of the most popular free meditation apps available. It has nearly 200,000 free guided meditations from thousands of teachers.
It’s easy to find meditations based on topic or by the length of time, like 0 – 5 min, 6-10 min, etc. The topics cover stress, sleep, self-compassion, nature, and more.
If you like quiet meditation, the timer lets you meditate to intermittent bells or calming ambient noise.
Insight Timer also has a community aspect. The home screen shows how many people are meditating right now.
You can also get inspired by other people’s public meditation activity. After you finish a meditation, you’ll learn exactly how many people were meditating at the same time.
Based on your privacy settings, you can choose to display information about your meditation sessions or keep everything private.
You can also invite friends to join or join an Insight Group for discussion or meditation challenges. (Free, Get app for iPhone and Android)
2. Smiling Mind
Smiling Mind is an Australian not-for-profit organization that’s making mindfulness meditation simple and accessible to everyone.
All of their meditations are free and there are dozens of options with different focuses and varying lengths of time.
Some meditations are just one minute long – something you can fit into even the most hectic day. (Free; Get app for iPhone or Android)
3. The Plum Village App
This free app offers guided meditations, deep relaxations, and other practices offered by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic community. (Free; Get app for iPhone or Android)
4. Medito
This free-forever meditation app is “made for people, not for profit.” There are no ads, no spam, and no need to sign up or pay.
The app includes courses to help you get started with meditation, including a 30-day challenge. It also includes a sleep section with sounds, stories & meditations to help you drift off to a peaceful slumber. There are hundreds of sessions to choose from, including breathing exercises, walking meditations, mantra meditations and sessions to help you deal with stress, anxiety, pain and low-mood. (Free; Get app for iPhone or Android)
Recommended for you:
- 8 Ways to Relieve Caregiver Anxiety and Improve Well-Being
- Caring for the Caregiver: 6 Ways to Get Help and Improve Your Health
- 4 Sources of Affordable Counseling Services to Reduce Caregiver Stress
By DailyCaring Editorial Team
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