Insight Timer: Your App to Peace

What does it take to make Time magazine's list of the 50 best apps of the year? Does it take a multi-billion dollar name, or a special dating service? Not always.

If you're looking at Insight Timer, then it takes creating a free app that helps meditation teachers give guided meditation lessons to people who want to achieve a higher level of wellness.

Currently ranked as the most popular meditation app on the marketplace and boasting over 1 million hours of combined user meditation time per month, Insight Timer is designed to be your own one-stop shop to better meditation, a clearer mind, and a more mindful, stress-free lifestyle.

How does Insight Timer work?

Insight Timer can be used a number of different ways, depending on what you want to do. So, much of how you should use Insight Timer will hinge on who you are and what you want to accomplish.

If you are a teacher, you can use Insight Timer to publish your own guided meditations and articles as a way to help spread good karma—and possibly get tipped.

For the average meditator, Insight Timer becomes your go-to tool for all things involving meditation. The app's handy preset scheduling features allow you to schedule when you choose to use guided meditation.

Beginners and those with specific issues will love the massive library of guided meditations, many of which involve topics like forgiveness, stress reduction, or gratitude.

Yogis, on the other hand, will love the ambient music and bell chime timers, which are perfect for transitioning from pose to pose seamlessly. Simply put, no matter what your path to calm is, you'll find at least one or two meditation styles that work with you.

Track your progress and find others to support you.

As any health aficionado can tell you, meditation and stress-free living do require some discipline to keep up and maintain. Insight Timer automatically charts your meditation progress and allows you to see how well you've been doing when it comes to sticking to your goals.

Worried about having to go it alone? Don't be. Insight Timer also has tons of communities where people who have similar meditation goals, styles, and experience levels. Moreover, if your friends use Insight Timer, you can add them to your Friends List and zen out together.

An added perk that's just plain neat is being able to see all the meditators Insight Timer is currently guiding through its map. So, you really never feel alone when you meditate via this app.

Insight Timer's true strength, though, is in timing.

In today's ridiculously rough, fast-paced world, many of us simply do not feel like we have the time to mellow out and meditate. What makes Insight Timer such an incredible app is that it works with your schedule—no matter how tight that schedule may be.

With guided meditation sessions as short as a single minute or as long as 30-plus minutes, Insight Timer makes a point of making meditation as flexible an activity as you need it to be. (It's good to point out that the regular meditation bell timers can be scheduled for much longer periods of time.)

The fact that Insight Timer has so many short-length guided meditation sessions, spoken word sessions, and ambient music selections makes this the perfect app to have on your phone if you tend to be prone to high-stress situations at work. Should you be on the verge of a freakout, just go to the outside and meditate using a minute-long track.

It's the ad-free, payment-free way to get stress-free.

Considering how many features and how many thousands of guided meditation sessions Insight Timer has on its app, it's really hard to believe that it's free. But, seeing is believing. Insight Timer will not cost you a penny and hosts no ads on its service.

Insight Timer deserves all the accolades it's gotten from Time. No other free meditation app comes with as many features, as much support, and as much peacefulness as Insight Timer—and that makes it a must-see for anyone who's feeling frazzled.