I tried the UCLA Mindful App in 2023: Here’s my review

Lately, I’ve found myself feeling more and more stressed and overwhelmed. It feels like I can barely escape my ever-growing to-do list: social media, TV, the pressures of working two jobs, raising three young children, or simply keeping a household running. So when I heard about the Mindful app from UCLA, I was intrigued that it might help.

The UCLA Mindful App was created by the Mindful Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is designed to encourage you to try meditation and practice mindfulness regularly throughout your day. And because UCLA is a public university and is funded by grants and private donors, the app is mostly free (except for the nine classes). This was really appreciated because my therapist had recommended meditation and mindfulness to me, but I’d never really been able to do it successfully. So I was hopeful that this app might help change things, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to invest a lot of money in learning a practice that I’d tried on my own and it didn’t work.

The good news is that I found this app to be extremely helpful in successfully incorporating mindfulness practices into my daily life and increasing my productivity. Here is my review.

How much does the UCLA Mindful App cost?

The UCLA Mindful app (available for both iOS and Android smartphones, by the way) is a mostly free app that includes a ton of free resources you can access as soon as you download it, including basic meditations of different lengths, wellness meditations, a large catalog of related podcasts, and a set of timers for your meditation practice.

However, we also offer nine online MAP (Mental and Physical) training classes for an additional fee.

• MAP Training for Everyday Life
• Improve your meditation
• Cultivate positive emotions
• Dealing with difficult emotions
• Turning obstacles into allies
• Cultivate self-compassion
• Ethics and Mindfulness
• Opening the door to joy
• Cultivating forgiveness

These classes are eight weeks long each and cost between $165 and $200.

How to use the app

The UCLA Mindful App website has an introduction to meditation and mindfulness under the “Getting Started” tab. There, I found four helpful introductory videos that introduce mindfulness, how to choose a meditation, how to choose the meditation posture that’s best for you, and the science behind it all. These videos are just one of the many free resources the app offers. I learned that meditation is the practice of stopping what you’re doing in order to focus on your body – your posture, your breathing, your thoughts, and your emotions.

We also learned that mindfulness is pure focus on the present situation without distractions. These two practices come together to form mindfulness meditation, which the app explains aims to help individuals calmly focus on each moment. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), mindfulness involves being aware of sensory information and using it to focus on each moment. The UCLA Mindful app claims it can be used to reduce stress and promote relaxation and overall health and well-being.

Basic Meditation

The free audio meditations are divided into “Basic Meditations” and “Wellness Meditations” tabs within the app. Meditations typically begin with a chime to focus your mind on the meditation, followed by a narration. The soothing, hypnotic, slow-paced narration gradually increases your awareness of your body, your breath, and the present moment. At the end of the meditation, the same chime will ring to signal the end.

According to the app, Basic Meditations are meant to be used throughout the day to reduce everyday stress and improve relaxation and focus. Basic Meditation options include Breath Meditation, Breath Sound and Body Meditation, Meditation for Coping with Challenges, Loving-kindness Meditation, Body and Sound Meditation, Body Scan Meditation, and Body Scan Meditation for Sleep. Basic Meditations are available in 16 languages, including American Sign Language. Most of the Basic Meditations are short, many are 3 minutes long, and most are between 3 and 13 minutes long.

Of these, I frequently used the body scan meditation to relax and calm my body throughout the day. This meditation only took about 3 minutes and helped me to instantly relax and refocus. The narrator, with a very calming and soothing voice, walked me through the process of relaxing my body while pointing out where to focus. This process helped me to focus my thoughts in the present and not worry about the pesky to-do list that kept rearing its ugly head.

Another meditation I like is Body Scan for Sleep. It is a 13-minute meditation that focuses on shutting out thoughts, focusing attention on relaxing each part of the body, and eliminating sensory input while slowly scanning and releasing tension in the body. The narrator’s voice is calming and soothing, accompanied by soft, rhythmic sounds. This meditation is similar to the Body Scan meditation, but it is longer and more effective at completely shutting down the body and mind. For years, stress and anxiety have caused insomnia, and a restful night’s sleep has felt elusive and imaginary. This sleep meditation, combined with exercises done during the day, has helped me develop a more peaceful relationship with sleep by allowing me to completely shut down my mind at night.

Wellness Meditation

Wellness meditations, on the other hand, are specifically designed for people who are hospitalized or have health problems. They are meant to be used to address more personal and introspective needs, such as loving yourself, overcoming difficulties, or fighting anxiety. Options include body awareness, sound, breath, Tibetan singing bowls, and longer versions of many basic meditation options. Most of the wellness meditations are longer than the basic meditations, ranging from 8 to 14 minutes. There is also a separate file of audio instructions in the wellness meditation section.

class

In addition to the free meditations, I signed up for the MAP for Everyday Living class, which cost $165 for eight weeks. Each class is two hours long, pre-recorded, and available to watch online every Monday. There was no interaction with the instructor during the recording, but there is an option to “Ask a Mindfulness Instructor” so that the instructor can answer any questions you may have about the course.

In these classes, we discussed the importance and benefits of mindful meditation, as well as different approaches to meditation. For example, there is no one meditation position that works for everyone; rather, it is all about personal preference and comfort. In classes, the instructors talked about how to find, or help someone find, the best position for effective meditation. This was one of the most fundamental practices discussed. The instructors often seemed to be speaking to other clinicians, and upon research, I found that this course could be used toward a clinician’s CE (Continuing Education) requirements.

Although some of the instructions were easy to understand, I found the free resources in the app much more useful.

What I learned

As I became more familiar with the guided meditations, I began to feel more prepared to meditate on my own. The app’s meditation timer allowed me to meditate alone. The timer starts and ends with a ringing bell. This bell helped me transition from the task I was focusing on to meditation effectively. On days when I was stressed or distracted, I chose to meditate while watching a guided meditation video, but more frequently, I enjoyed meditating alone. Before using the app, I would not have been able to do this effectively.

After using the app, I noticed that I was able to use my time more focused and productively. Ironically, stressing out about having so much to do was taking away from my ability to actually get the tasks done. Mindfulness and meditation helped me to be more focused and complete each task efficiently and calmly.

Pros and Cons

While we are very happy with many of the features of the UCLA Mindful app, there are some factors you should consider before signing up.

Final thoughts

To be honest, if I were to relive this experience, I would not have enrolled in the MAP class. Although it was helpful, I did not believe it was worth the time or money. I was looking for tools, not technical explanations. That being said, if I were a mental health professional, I could probably use this course for continuing education credits.

Instead of taking this class, I would have stuck to the many free resources this app offers. The “Getting Started” tab prepared me well to begin with basic meditation. In addition to these features, I enjoyed some of the podcasts while driving, which are just as informative as the courses and completely free. To my surprise, the most useful services for me were the free guided meditations, podcasts, and timers. I will continue to use these instead of MAP classes going forward.

To start this review, I wanted to find a way to reduce some of the daily stress I experience, and instead practice a life skill that can help me consciously prevent stress from seeping into my mind, body, and even sleep. I encourage everyone to give this app a try.