426- Meditation APP Insight Timer

All credits go to the app creators. This is merely a post about my experiences with this ap in particular, and meditation in general. 

I wasn't paid. This isn't publicity, only personal experiments and learning. 

Last June, my psychotherapist gave me, for the first time, the advice to meditate daily, as a tool to combat my cptsd, to calm myself and to reduce some of the symptoms. Back then, he had said to use Petit Bambou, which I subsequently tried and reviewed. 


In September, he said to use Insight Timer, for its un-guided meditation function, and both then and in February's session, I told him that I wasn't quite yet ready to do un-guided, and that I'd resume my guided meditations, as I hadn't been as regular as necessary.

To be clear, a guided meditation is one with a human voice, speaking, guiding your breathe, telling you what to do, whereas un-guided is a timer you set for yourself, and no one guides. 

Today, I discuss this app, it's features, and its price for premium functions.

Insight Timer is an app for Android and iOs. On PC, you can install it on an emulator, such as Nox or Bluestacks. It is free, but has a pay, premium version for additional content. 
You can also access it on their website.  There are share buttons, more or less accessible, depending where you are. The website and on-phone app should let you share anywhere, but on emulators on the PC may limit - this is my case when I need to use on NOX, where I can share to Facebook, but not to twitter, which is available on the phone via the share and : menu/other, where I can select twitter, but on NOX, it only wants to send to bluetooth. 

Here are the screenshots, taken with the menu, from left, to right, and then, my comments. 

" Today"

"Meditation"

"Timer"

"Courses"

"Profile"

"Today" is the first on the left. it shows a small a map of the world, with dots representing people who meditate at that given moment, anywhere in the world. Thus, you can see how many are using it at the same time as you. 

It also gives you access to pay the premium function, and comparing between them. Regular price is 64,99 € a year, way over my budget. This is what it gives you, and the app's various speakers. 

"Meditation" is by far the module I use the most. Each of its own icons sends to the meditations in their categories, offering multi-access, either from the "A beginners"  where you can scroll through each category, or via "sleep", or "stress", or "meditation".  

In the meditations, there are 9 families such as "learn to meditate", "coping with anxiety" etc. There are 12 meditations per family, organized into 3 sets of topics. Each meditation lasts anywhere between 2 and 60 minutes, depending on which you choose. 

As each of these icons is self evident, I'll move on to the next screen. "Timer" where you set your own time, and if you want bells to warn you at start, interval, and/or end. 

This is the un-guided function. Clicking the X closes that menu and allows to return to the home page. 

The "Courses" are set in series, and all accessibly only for premium users. 

The "Profile"  displays stats, activity, the list of meditations/courses you already did, friends if you add anyone, messages you receive, and the settings icon lets you control your language, night mode and such options. I erased my name from displaying in my screenshot. 

Sadly, Insight Timer doesn't show you a calendar of the days you used it, contrary to Petit Bambou ; as you saw, there are 108 free meditations you can access, in those 9 families mentioned above. Beware, some of these meditations as well as the courses contain pseudoscientific elements, and thus have no scientific background. If you're unsure or don't know much about these topics, I suggest you stick to petit bambou (which has only science-based content), until you learn about them and can filter out, based on your needs. 

Navigation works out ok, but since the icons are white on white background, you have to know they're there. 

More about my meditation, past and present entry can explain why I discuss the importance of science based versions over pseudoscience.