8 Free Meditation Apps to Help You De-Stress and Unwind

Aura: Meditation & Sleep, CBT

Meditation doesn't need to be an hour-long undertaking. With the help of AI technology, the Aura app provides free users with customized three-minute meditations that can help you find small moments of mindfulness throughout your day. This life-changing app goes beyond simple meditations; it also helps you improve your mood through other mental health practices.

Free users can try gratitude journaling, unguided meditations, mood tracking, goal setting, and mindfulness reminders, which the app says will always remain free. The premium version adds in 7-minute meditations and the ability to download your favorites to listen to when you're offline.

Smiling Mind

Smiling Mind is an evidence-based, not-for-profit mindfulness app with over 300 free meditations and mindfulness programs for adults and children. Its mission is simple: "To provide accessible, life-long tools to support healthy minds" in schools, at home, and in the workplace.

Inside the app, explore research-backed mindfulness programs by category (e.g., at work, for the whole family, for adults) or by themes (attention and concentration, sleep, stress, relationships). Smiling Mind is extremely beginner-friendly, and you can start from scratch, learning about what mindfulness means, how it works, the research behind it, and primer meditation sessions.

Insight Timer

With this meditation app, free truly means free. Insight Timer offers a huge collection of more than 100,000 guided meditations with no required subscription or membership. Several meditation sessions are led by meditation-loving celebs like Gisele Bündchen or Zen masters like Thich Nhat Hanh.

This app also offers features like meditation music and a free meditation timer that allows you to practice unguided, complete with ambient noise and a soft ending bell. (An optional premium membership starts at $5 per month and includes offline listening, meditation courses, and other features.)

Mindfulness Coach

This completely free mindfulness app was created by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD to teach mindfulness to veterans, service members, and the general public.

Mindfulness Coach is a great instructive resource for anyone looking to learn about and embrace mindfulness as a healthy coping strategy and lifelong skill. Follow guided audio meditations, set goals, track your progress, and learn more about the history and benefits of this mental practice.

UCLA Mindful

The UCLA Mindful app was born from UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center, so you know you're getting the best research-based meditation app—for free. UCLA Mindful makes mindfulness easy to try and includes the following features:

• Basic meditations for first-timers
• Helpful videos on how to meditate (think: learning the right posture and understanding the science behind it)
• A simple timer so you can practice on your own
• Guided wellness meditations to help you through personal struggles, from chronic pain to stress management

Healthy Minds Program

The Healthy Minds Program app is the brainchild of the science nonprofit Healthy Minds Innovations (HMI)—affiliated with the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It became donations-based and freely available to all users in 2020.

Through podcast-style lessons and guided meditations, this free app turns neuroscience into everyday tools that train your mind to unlock the four pillars of well-being: awareness, insight, connection, and purpose.

The Mindfulness App

The Mindfulness App offers more than 500 guided meditations in over 10 languages to help you clear your mind. The app also provides sleep stories to help you fall asleep, reminders, and notices, plus it can sync with your Apple Watch.

Though you have the option to try a premium subscription, you can also use it for free. While the free version has several guided meditations, the premium version lets you access its full library of courses and meditations offline.

Mindfulness.com Meditation App

Downloading the Mindfulness.com app gives you access to breathing exercises, mini-meditation sessions, and mindfulness courses to help reduce stress in your daily life. You can even get personalized lessons from a mindfulness coach.

There is a 7-day free trial available for their subscription plan, but the unique thing about this meditation app is that it offers a complimentary year-long subscription for those who cannot afford the plan.