The rat race is real, and like many of you, I too struggle with keeping my yoga and meditation together when the world is making constant demands. And while I have a flow and practice that I can break into on a moments notice, its always good to have guidance. Technology has allowed us to get that guidance on demand – any time we need it! Visit your app store and check out some of these to help augment your practice.
Simply Being
This is sharp looking app with the ability to set calendar training days, customize your programs, and a pose database with pictures and videos. The poses can be filtered by level of difficulty and it even has a muscle diagram so that you can see specific muscle groups worked by each pose. There is a premium expansion you can get that includes music, extra routines, breathing exercises and the ability to add your own poses. I found the basic app to be quite useful and defiantly a quality tool.
Yoga HD
This is a mediation app and is great for knocking out a mediation at the office or in a hotel room. This app allows you to set times of 5 to 20 minutes,select background music or nature sounds. It is a no-nonsense mediation tool, stripped down for timing and audio focus.
Spiritual Me
This app is interesting as it starts with an emotional likert scale and allows you to track you mood over time. It then guides you on some mindfulness exercise followed by a timed mediation. The app uses gaming methods to allow yo to unlock new routines and color themes. The guided exercises are not controllable so you are pretty much at the mercy of the app – which might be a good thing if you are a novice.
Yoga.com
The Yoga.com app is amazing. It too has a calendar, pose library and separate programs. You can actually edit the programs provided and play videos to see each pose while. You can select a program, hit play and follow along. This app also has “theme” programs, such as hypertension control, so you can target your practice for specific ailments or problem areas.
Stacy Mizrahi is an IT consultant, speaker, instructional designer and advocate of meditation.