As the Fall 2020 semester is finding its way to an end, a lot is going on for many of us. Whether it be finals or schoolwork in general, the election, the global pandemic, or responsibilities piling up in clubs, there’s a lot on our minds these days. I personally have been extremely overwhelmed, so I was seeking out a way to find some peace in my life. That’s when I came across Headspace, a great app for meditation and reflection, free for BU students. I decided to try Headspace for a week and see how it works.
At first, I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t have enough time to set aside to sit down and relax. However, Headspace offers a variety of different meditations, some as short as 3 minutes. To be totally transparent, I mostly stuck to these 3-minute meditation sessions. That being said, they still are incredibly effective in helping me to feel some calm in my busy day.
Going into this, I knew I wanted to try to vary the types of meditation I did. Headspace offers “meditate,” “sleep,” “move,” and “focus” as their 4 main categories. They all are incredibly helpful, and I really like being able to switch it up from time to time.
On my first day, I started with a classic “meditate” meditation. Mid-afternoon, I set aside some time to listen and breathe. This was a short, mid-day meditation that really helped me calm down, put things in perspective, and feel a little better throughout the rest of my day. Plus, who doesn’t love some breathing exercises?
The next day, I decided to branch out and try the “sleep” meditations. These were by far my favorite. As I mentioned before, one of my biggest concerns going into this was that I wouldn’t be able to find the time. However, with the meditations being right before bed, it was a lot easier to set aside the time. I ended up sleeping much better the following night. Overall, I highly recommend sleep meditations to people like me who are busy and tend to think about things late at night.
Finally, I checked out meditations from the focus and move categories. These two were likely my least favorite simply because when I am trying to focus or exercise, I struggle to put aside the time to think and relax.
The focus meditation was my favorite of the two because it put me into the right headspace to do an assignment I had been putting off. It did help me stay on track a little better than I normally would, but that being said, I would’ve likely just used the time to work on the assignment in the future.
The move meditation was my least favorite. Oddly enough, I found it a little too calming. When I’m working out, I prefer pump-up music as opposed to calm and supportive words. That being said, this meditation was really motivational and nice, and I could definitely see it being helpful on days where you’re not really feeling it.
Overall, after a week with the Headspace app, I feel much calmer and recommend the app. The best piece of advice I can give is to really play around with the app and find the things that work best for you and help you be in the best place you can be.
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