This Is Your Brain: The Guided Tour – Meditation App

Narrator: There’s a lot of things you can do with a smartphone … Check the latest headlines … shop online … post embarrassing pictures to your social media feed,  and many other forms of stress and distraction.

… And now, you can also meditate.  Here’s how…

Voice of Tamara: Begin by taking a comfortable position…. Hold your back nice and tall… 

Narrator: This is the voice of Tamara Levitt, a superstar in the world of meditation apps for your phone.

Tamara: We’ll learn ways to soften our reactivity… and practice techniques like noting … and pausing…

Narrator: Levitt holds the title of “Director of Mindfulness” at a company appropriately named “Calm”.  She is, in a way, the “Taylor Swift of the meditation app world. She has written and performed hundreds of guided meditations for the Calm App, supervising every aspect of the recording and editing process.   

Tamara: …. That’s why it’s so useful in alleviating anxiety. 

Narrator: One of the best known Apps is “Headspace”  — a name reminiscent of the groovy, new age 1960’s.  

Train journey excerpt: There’s something about taking a slow train across the country that is fundamentally satisfying…..  While the train isn’t an express it’s showing no signs of delay.  It’s just chugging slowly and inevitably through the landscape. 

Narrator: Headspace promises to take you on a trip with hundreds of guided meditations, mini-meditations, sleep sounds, and even SOS meditations for emergencies.

Train journey excerpt: You’re free to relax, enjoy the passing scenery without any sense that there is something else that requires your attention.  That To-Do list is just going to have to wait….

Narrator: The last app in our little survey goes by the highly utilitarian name of “Insight Timer”.  More than just a clock, Insight Timer boasts of a catalog of more than 80 thousand different guided mediations – some led by Hollywood celebrities like Goldie Hawn, and this novel take on meditation by British comedian Russell Brand.

This is Russell Brand speaking to you on this app directed at creating serenity assuaging fear, motivating and soothing.  Now, if you are disturbed by the sound of my children in the background – imagine how I feel.  You can press pause or turn this off at any moment.  I wonder who discovered as a parent that you can’t press pause on your children.   I’ve contemplated whether or not there’s a humane and moral way to press “pause” on a child, and as of yet, I’ve not discovered one…. You know what to do, sit comfortable…

Narrator: As Mr. Brand meditates on the elements of good parenting, we’ll bring this brief exploration of the world of meditation apps to a close.  Links to the apps discussed in this segment can be found in the show notes of this episode and on our  website DrPhilStieg.com.