In this fast-paced world where everything and everyone is always connected online, we need peace of mind more than ever. What better way to achieve this than to sit quietly and meditate for a while every day? There are several meditation practices we’ve covered in the past that can help, but today we’re going to look specifically at Calm and Awakening.
Calm has been around for the past few years and has a loyal user base. Meanwhile, Waking Up has arrived recently and continues to climb the popularity charts. Let’s understand how these two meditation practices differ and which one you should use.
Let’s start.
Platform Availability
Both Calm and Wake up are supported on Android and iOS. None of them have any app for desktop.
user interface
Calm will ask you to choose your purpose for meditating before continuing with the classes. You can select multiple destinations or select none and tap Continue. The app will then ask some basic questions to tailor the content, but you are free to skip this.
For starters, Google or Facebook accounts can help you sign up for Calm quickly. The user interface is divided into 5 tabs at the bottom for easy access. A nice touch is the background wallpaper (some live) with a sound, which you can update by tapping the triangle button at the top.
Waking Up will ask about your experience level rather than goals, which can be useful for those who are new to meditation and don’t know what they want to achieve with these exercises.
Meanwhile, the Wake Up app offers four tabs at the bottom. The app’s interface looks more functional as the lessons are easy to find.
However, Calm takes the lead with sounds, along with customizable live wallpapers and a colorful interface.
Calm Meditation Sessions
Tamara Levitt leads Calm and voices several of the lessons available in the app. Apart from that, Calm invites popular names from different fields such as music (Shawn Mendes) and sports (LeBron James) to give lectures with their unique stories and perspectives. The Sleep tab also carries several stories told by famous personalities on various topics.
Don’t you like stories? How about some instrumental music so as not to get lost in the lyrics? There is no shortage of choice, as you will notice music ranging from guitar to famous Disney tunes. Some people prefer the sounds of nature, but Calm also lists Office ‘Soundscapes’.
A 7-day course with 7 meditation lessons is available free of charge. The first lesson is free to give you an idea of the content type, while you can pay to unlock other lessons.
Theory and Practice in Awakening
Waking Up was founded by Sam Harris, who wrote a bestselling book of the same name. Waking Up, where Calm invites artists and athletes, features experts like Leo Babuta of Zen Habits fame and Laurie Santos, a cognitive scientist and Professor of Psychology at Yale University. This makes more sense as it can help users solve problems and understand the root cause or identify patterns and habits.
Like Calm, it has a free introductory course, but most of the content requires a subscription.
The Theory tab in Wake Up is also divided into three sections. The classes are where you’ll learn the basics of meditation, why it’s important, the importance of gratitude, and more. Conversations are like podcasts where they invite a guest and then talk at length about meditation-related topics. Finally, there is a Q&A section where they answer some common user queries.
The theory tab can be useful for beginners who are unsure of what they are doing or are not making sense of everything. It will teach and answer most of your doubts.
The Practice tab provides access to guided lessons on meditation. You get access to One-Day Meditation and other courses on a variety of niche topics to explore.
pricing
Calm has a 7-day free trial, after which you pay $69.99 per year or $399.99 for life. On the other hand, the Wake Up annual plan starts at $79.99 per year. While the annual plan is highly competitive, Waking Up does not offer a one-time payment option.
Keep Calm and Meditate
Both Calm and Wake up are good for guided meditation and cover a variety of topics for beginners and professionals alike. It depends on what you want to explore, as stoicism is described in Awakening but not discovered in Calm. To feel the flow, we recommend that you download meditation apps, explore the topics and do voiceovers. But these two aren’t the only meditation apps out there. There are many options, and most of them offer a free lesson to try.
Next: Here is an in-depth comparison of Headspace and Insight Timer. Find out what each meditation app has to offer in terms of content and which one you should use.
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