Meditation is an important aspect of daily living for many people in recovery. Personally, I find that practicing it regularly helps me to learn to stay present, stops my mind from wandering too far into the future or continually obsessing over the past. When times are stressful a quick meditation can help me clear my head and get some perspective on what’s going on, and helps me to see a threatening or overwhelming thought or situation for what it actually is.
It can be hard learning to pray or meditate as a newcomer, but it’s something which I have found is easier over time with practice, gets easier as part of a regular routine and easier once you find a situation and way of meditation which works for you.
With that in mind I wanted to collate a quick list of essential reading and resources for people who might be new to meditation as part of recovery.
Reading
- This in depth feature from the New York Times is a great long read with tons of info, handy tips and resources.
- This list of 25 Meditation Resources from Psycomm has some nice quick links, from guided meditations to apps and youtube playlists.
- This article from Healthline is great to help understand the different types of meditation so you can find one which works for you.
Apps
- Insight Timer – A really well designed app with over 70,000 free meditations. An optional paid feature lets you download for offline listening or lets you take premium courses.
- Headspace & Calm – We use both of these apps. Each one has an annual fee to get the most from them. They’re both well designed and easy to use. We found Headspace better for beginners as the app feels more like a series of quick lessons. Calm has a wide range of different meditations and styles and has a cheaper annual fee. We recommend downloading both and using their free trial options to see if one feels right for you.
Spotify Playlists
- ‘Breathe‘ – a great playlist from Spotify for unguided meditation or to have on in the background and help put you in a calm meditative state.
- ‘Meditation Music‘ by Meditation Station – Another great playlist with over 8 hours of meditation music.
- ‘Guided Meditation‘ from Spotify. A long list of various guided meditations. There’s a wide range of styles here to you may need to try a few to find which ones work best for you.
- ‘Magical Mantras‘ by Spotify. Personaly this works for me when I need something that’s in-between guided or unguided styles.
- ‘Guided Meditation for Everybody‘ – A partnership between Spotify and Headspace, featuring a series of quick guided meditations.
YouTube Channels and Playlists
- ‘Guided Meditations‘ by the London Buddhist Centre. This playlist is great and also check out their YouTube Channel for more content around spirituality and mindfulness.
