Meditation as a Financial Strategy

Meditation is one of my favorite financial strategies. It may sound weird, but if you think about it, how can you make sound money decisions if you are jittery, stressed out, and distracted? When I started my meditation practice about 14 years ago I used an egg timer to let me know when I’d reached my 18 minutes of meditating. Now there are lots of cool apps to get you started and move your practice along.

Here are my 4 favorite meditation apps:

Insight Timer –

I’ve used this one for years. It allows me to set calming tones to begin and end my meditation. They also have thousands of guided meditations of all different lengths. I’ve been enjoying a guided yoga nidra meditation for sleep. I’ve actually never heard the entire thing as I’m out before it finishes! You can track your sessions; as of writing this I’ve been using the app for 9 years and have tracked 2606 days with at least one session on this app. There’s a cool community with this app, too. You can see how many people are meditating at the same time as you. There are different versions, many of them are free. insighttimer.com

Calm –

People swear by this one. Seems to be a great way to get started in a meditation practice. I’ve referred several people to this app and they’ve jumped in and started meditating on a regular basis where prior to using Calm it was a struggle. They have a variety of meditations and programs with varying lengths. Perfect if you only have a short time to meditate. You can try it for free and if you like what you hear, get a subscription and unlock more of the meditations. It’s about $59.99 per year – Not bad for a year of peace and serenity. calm.com

Breathe2relax –

This is a new app for me and it’s really cool. It allows you to sync your breath to a visual meter on the app. I watch the image move up to breathe in and watch it go down on the exhale. You can change the length of the inhales and exhales. I’ve found this an easy tool when I’m sitting waiting and want to be calm instead of crazy looking at Facebook. Download the free app.

Heartrate + Coherence –

This app lets you track your breath and measure your heartrate variability. You use your camera as the heartrate monitor – cool, huh? You’ll like this if you find it’s helpful to really have something to focus on when you meditate. You’re focusing on breath and heartrate. $3.99 http://www.heartrateplus.com/