1 Giant Mind: Learn Meditation 4+

First of all, if you're interested in learning to meditate or refine your technique, I strongly recommend this app, and it's completely free and has no ads other than the occasional screen asking you if you want to go through their teacher program or listen to their podcast.

I love the 12 step course. It's simple and luxurious and effective.

Besides that, I have three minor issues:

1. The subsequent 30 day challenge, though, and the timer function (which is the same recording), has one problem that is really annoying and should be a simple fix: The music at the end cuts off sharp. I feel like I'm thrust into a suspenseful movie right at the end of a meditation. The 12 step course has a beautiful fade out, I don't know why these don't. So, I just repeat the course steps and don't use the other modes.

2. I've also seen the meditation hot streak reset or not register a session for no reason.

3. Lastly, I really like the sliding bar you rate your mood with before and after each session, but there's no way to access that data later. Where does it go? Seems like a waste not to be able to see a line graph or something of all those mood ratings.

I still recommend the app! I can tell they're coming from such a good place, and I learned how to meditate more effectively for free because of their generosity.

Don’t look any further than this app if you want to learn to meditate effortlessly and have deep meditation. I’ve had decades of experience with meditation and during that time explored and practiced many different techniques, and nothing exceeds this for what it promises. Excellent guidance during each of the 12 steps explaining what may happen during your sessions. There are lots of FAQs to address issues and concerns you may have. Options are available for how long you want to meditate for, and whether you want background music to play or not. Whatever you choose each session gives guidance at the beginning of your sessions to lead you into proper practice as well as guidance into ending meditation. It’s like sitting with an expert who is always there to ensure good practice is established and maintained. 5 stars aren’t enough. I salute whoever came up with this, and am grateful they aren’t looking to exploit people who think they have to pay a lot of money in order to learn an effective technique. Don’t waste money on anything else when you can get the best there is for free.

I’ve been using headspace for over a year and wanted to give this a shot after researching mantra meditation. I would like to preface this with the fact that I’ve only been on this app for 6 days. There are some clear and subtle differences between the meditation promoted in headspace and 1GM:

1) “gently return after noting” vs “effortlessly return”: I find that the latter (1GM) prevents me from experiencing tension while the former (headspace) seems to almost ask me to put an effort to return to my breath even if my mind wants to explore the distracting thought a little more. In 1GM, it’s perfectly okay to let the emotions and thoughts play out. Headspace, although not quite explicit in it, has a more judgmental attitude to these thoughts and emotions. These two phrases are further elaborated upon in the respective apps.

2) “breath” vs “mantra”: sometimes the breath isn’t enough to keep me grounded because of the mental activity in my brain. The mantra helps me center that residual mental activity further as I synchronize the mantra with my breath.