Smiling Mind: Mental Wellbeing

i LOVE this app. it’s easy to use, has dark mode, you can easily see your progress, and it walks you through step by step. most of the meditation apps i’ve seen require a purchase to gain access to more than one super short meditation, but with this app you can do multiple meditations and select meditations for specific areas you’re trying to be more mindful in. i did want to mention this piece of advice (i know it wasn’t requested so take it if you want, leave it if you don’t) to the app developers: i would suggest you change the color of your app logo! red is often subconsciously processed as an alarming, high-energy color. when i was scrolling through meditation apps i almost didn’t download this one because of the red compared to all the other apps, which i noticed are mostly calming, cool colors like blues and purples. the calming colors just makes the mediation app seem like it would be more reliable. i do love the little smiling brain for a smiling mind thought :) i’d HIGHLY suggest this app to absolutely anyone trying to get into meditation!

I think that overall it does a great job of making mental health tools accessible to all ages and creates a simple and adjustable format for those who have never engaged in mediation or those who regularly mediate. My instinct would be to give this app 4.5 stars because I think there could be more visual pieces not only to make it more inclusive of those with hearing impairments, but to also diversify the ways which people engage with mediations. In my exploring of the app, I did not discover breathing visuals or other short videos explaining how to do certain tasks. It is not a necessary feature but would make the app more inclusive and accessible. I think the app should also expand the pool of the cultural and linguistic options, to better include those who do not speak English. A recent study found that “nearly half (48%) of school-aged children experience sleep disturbance that results in less than the recommended sleep duration, which may negatively impact mental health and behavior”, in the United Sates (Puzia, et al., 2020). Puzia et. al. researched children under the age of 18 using the Calm app to help decrease their sleep troubles. More than 96% of parents, whose children used the Calm app when lying down to go to bed, believed that it was helpful to put their child to sleep. Similar to Calm, Smiling Mind allows for access to mediation tools not just for sleep but in dealing with stress and other life challenges individuals face.

I love, love, love this app. One thing though is that the music doesn’t shut off automatically after a meditation, which is a little annoying for the sleep ones. However, the programs are great, a wonderful mix of options, and the narrator is lovely and just the right amount of guidance for my and my kiddos (9 and 11). The only changes that’d be awesome are if it integrated with health, and the dashboard showed the actual length of each day. All that being said, meditation and mindfulness aren’t panaceas. They’re great for you and they help a lot to reduce day-to-day anxiety and manage stress, but expecting a mediation app to stop panic attacks with no other interventions is kinda like expecting jogging to fix a broken wrist. It’s not that jogging isn’t good for you or that you’re doing something wrong when you keep jogging and your wrist keeps hurting. It’s that it’s probably not the intervention you need to fix your wrist. And if your wrist is broken, or you’re suffering from panic attacks and really debilitating anxiety, you deserve the care that can help those things truly heal. Check out DBT, CBT, or the Work of Byron Katie—all interventions that can help greatly with anxiety and racing minds and integrate really well with mediation.