App: Healthy Minds
The Healthy Minds app is one of the best mental health apps out there and it’s free! It doesn’t have ads or a paywall you hit the moment you start finding it useful. If you want to learn the essentials of mindfulness and can carve out 5-10 minutes a day listening to expert explanations and guided mindfulness practices, this app is a great choice.
Mindfulness is a central part of psychotherapy today. While some clinicians overtly refer to mindfulness in their practice, others deploy its concepts in their work, even if they are doing something very structured like Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD. Whether you know it or not, the tenets of mindfulness permeate modern mental health treatment. This app is great because it makes the ideas and practices of mindfulness readily available to anyone ready to learn and benefit from them.
A few things about the app are worth noting.
First, it is a product of decades of groundbreaking research in affective neuroscience famously pioneered by Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Healthy Minds (Check out his famous TEDTalk here). This is the guy who famously scanned the brains of master meditators (Buddhist monks) to see how meditating impacts the brain, and discovered among other things that it changes the very structure of our brain. His research and the work of the Center for Healthy Minds led to the launching of Healthy Minds Innovations, Inc., which has been exploring ways to use technology to “make wellbeing a part of everyday life.”
Second, the app is free. No paywalls, no premium level you can pay to access, no ads that try to get you to play some mindless video game. You may be thinking that if something seems free, then you are the product. Maybe there’s something to that here. For example, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the background this app is collecting data that allows the Center for Healthy Minds to do continued research on mindfulness, but if it’s doing that I neither notice nor care.
Here’s how it is structured. The app provides bite-sized lessons (5-7 minute audio clips) that explain components of mindfulness. These are followed with mindfulness exercises or meditations that guide you in practicing these skills. The exercises vary in length based on what you feel up for (5-30 minutes long), in type (sitting or active), and in speaker. They often have 4 different speakers to choose from with clear consideration given to cultural representation.
Health Minds is extensive. You aren’t going to run out of content after 3 or 4 weeks. I’ve been averaging about 5 lessons or exercises per week. At this rate I will work my way through their learning path by September 2026. When I’m done, I plan to start over, revisiting lessons and exercises I’ve bookmarked along the way.
The app is structured around 5 modules that create a learning path: laying the foundations of mindfulness, developing awareness, increasing connection, fostering insight, and connecting with your values and purpose in life. As a clinician who uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), this framework is a great addition to treatment. I love that I can offer this to my clients to practice between sessions, knowing that the content is high quality and aligned with our work in various ways.
As a person who finds himself constantly battling forces of distraction and the pull of frenetic busyness, this app has offered me daily guidance in practicing the skills of being present, aware, and purposeful. I highly recommend it.
Important Links:
with links to download on apple and android devices
