Meditation practices continue to be in vogue around the world. We’ve covered important industry names such as Calm and Headspace before, but recently, a new contributor has been in awe. Waking Up is the latest meditation app that has become so popular that it can compete with Headspace.
These are tough times as people struggle to balance life while battling a deadly pandemic. A meditation app sounds like a good idea to relax and let go. Whatever helps, right? Well, we’re here to help. Meditation can be highly personal and different people react to different things, but we will focus on the overall user experience and what these apps have to offer.
Let’s start.
Platform Availability
Headspace and Waking Up are available as apps on Android and iOS platforms.
user interface
It has a bottom bar navigation with five options, starting with Headspace. Right now, Headspace asks you ‘Start your day with two short workouts. One is for breathing and the other is for dancing. There is a Meditation tab to follow meditation courses, a Sleep tab if you have trouble sleeping and need music or a story, a Movement tab for exercises you can do at home, and a Focus tab for different types of music.
Waking Up prompts you to choose your difficulty level or experience level. You must be a beginner and if you haven’t tried a meditation app before, it will make you feel right at home. The app asks to pick a moment during the setup process but can’t explain what it is or even what it does.
There are four tabs at the bottom. You can listen to research on meditation from the Theory tab, while getting recommendations on the Home tab. The Practice tab is for you to enter meditative mode and the Timer tab is for you to set a time limit.
Headspace has a clear advantage over Waking Up in terms of interface and experience. It has a colorful and intuitive feel to it.
Meditation Sessions
Headspace is a combination of meditation and easy home exercises. The basic course consists of 30 sessions divided into three parts, but only the first 10 lessons (3-10 minutes long) are free, unlike the previous one where all 30 were free.
In addition, the two new teachers present the same content in two new voiceovers. While Andy’s soothing voice is among the best-loved, variety is more than welcome. There are other courses that include some new topics such as admission. All locked behind the paywall, of course. A new feature is group meditation, where you meditate with a ‘global community’ while listening to instructions and meditating at the same time.
Waking Up was founded by Sam Harris and he also wrote a book by the same name. It takes after another meditation app called Calm. It has some teachers, including Leo Babuta, who will share their knowledge and experience in meditation. After the short introduction, you see 28 short lessons, of which only five are free with the voice of Sam Harris.
Waking Up highlights experts who each have something unique to share. It’s a story, an experience, tips and tricks they’ve chosen over the years, and that’s why it’s more versatile that way. Few other courses explore topics like Stoicism that is missing from Headspace.
This is a personal preference and a lot will depend on the topics you want to pursue.
Theory and Practice
The awakening is divided into two parts. The Theory tab is where you can find lessons about what meditation is, why it’s important, its importance in life, and other questions to help make the journey easier. This is for beginners who are unsure of what they are doing or why meditation and mindfulness are important.
The practice tab is where the action is. There are 28 sessions by Sam to start your journey. Like Headspace, these are guided sessions. They will guide you on what to do and why.
The Conversations section is a podcast-like session in which a person speaks to an expert. In the Q&A, Sam Harris answers the most frequently asked questions.
Meditation and Exercise
Like Waking Up, Headspace has guided meditations on many topics and topics. Even on Headspace, each session begins with lesson instructions and information. You have some time to follow the instructions. However, every course starts with an animated video to help you understand what the course is about. An intuitive way to start a lesson.
Then there are exercises with a range of yoga poses and moves that will help reduce stress, improve focus, and more. Two former Olympic athletes teach you this in 5-14 minute videos.
pricing
Headspace and Waking Up have a free model where several lessons are free. Other content is locked behind a paywall. A Headspace subscription starts at $69.99 per year, while Waking Up starts at $79.99 per year.
silence is golden
Both meditation apps have a team of meditation experts who teach most of the content. Headspace has a slightly better UI, exercises and poses you can do at home, and custom music playlists for sleep and focus. Waking Up has recorded sessions with several experts from the field, offers a timer, and features content in talks and other interesting formats such as Questions and Answers.
You’ll find some overlap between the content and topics covered in both apps. So it’s up to you to choose the one you like.
Next: Looking for more meditation apps? Here is a list of 5 meditation apps for both Android and iOS smartphones.
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