Mindfulness seems like such a simple concept. Being mindful simply means that you are present in your mind and body and in touch with your thoughts and feelings at any given moment. You don't need any special tools. You simply need awareness of your inner self and surroundings.
Jump ahead to these sections:
- Popular Mindfulness Websites for Beginners
- Popular Mindfulness Websites for More Advanced Practitioners
- Popular Mindfulness Websites for High School or College Students
- Popular Mindfulness Websites for Kids
But that's easier said than done. For many people, mindfulness is out of reach. In many cases, people can't achieve mindfulness because they distract themselves with technology. It's easy to distract your bored or anxious mind by scrolling through social media on your phone. We're all so addicted to the instant gratification of external stimuli at our fingertips that we don't take the time to just sit with ourselves.
Technology doesn't have to be a distraction in your life, though. In fact, you can use it to bring you closer to a state of mindfulness. These popular mindfulness websites utilize the benefits of technology to make mindfulness more accessible for people of all ages.
Popular Mindfulness Websites for Beginners
While the concept of mindfulness seems pretty straightforward, it can be a fairly difficult state of mind to achieve. Part of the issue is that new practitioners don’t know how to get started. These websites are an excellent introduction for mindfulness novices:
1. Mindful
As the name indicates, the Mindful website is a great resource for people just beginning to explore mindfulness. The entity behind the website, Mindful Communications, is a public benefit corporation. While they are technically a for-profit corporation, they aim to provide a positive impact by generating social good. The Mindful website does that by offering courses on subjects including:
- Meditation
- Focusing
- Achieving calm
- Incorporating movement into mindfulness
- Sleep
- Compassion
Mindful.org goes far beyond its web presence, too. The team behind the site also offers coaching and corporate training. Additionally, they put out a print magazine to further spread their message.
2. Mindfulness Exercises
Many large corporations have started implementing wellness and mindfulness programs to help their employees cope with stress. Sean Fargo, the mind behind the Mindfulness Exercises website, is also the instructor for Google’s mindfulness program and works as a consultant for corporations including Facebook and Kaiser Permanente.
Fargo’s organizational skills as a leader are evident in this website. The Mindfulness Exercises website offers a free Introduction to Mindfulness course, as well as a free Intermediate course for people who want to continue in their practice. They also offer over 1,800 free mindfulness exercises for practitioners of every level.
3. UCLA Mindful App and Website
The free UCLA Mindful app is an excellent resource for people new to mindfulness and meditation. The app and website are just two ways that the researchers at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center make mindfulness more accessible for everyone. They also host free online events and host a weekly podcast for people who appreciate a multidisciplinary approach.
The UCLA Mindful app allows you to stream or download basic meditations in both English and Spanish. They also offer wellness meditations for people who are dealing with health issues.
Popular Mindfulness Websites for More Advanced Practitioners
Once you master the basics of mindfulness, you may be interested in stepping up your practice. Going deeper into mindfulness practices can help you grapple with big topics, like meditations for grief. These websites are intended for more advanced adherents to mindfulness.
4. Chopra
Author Deepak Chopra is world-renowned as one of the preeminent voices in alternative medicine and New Age communities. He has promoted principles of wellness and mindfulness for decades through his books and lectures. Now, anybody can find his teachings on the eponymous Chopra website and app.
The Chopra website provides foundational information on mindfulness to new practitioners and provides continuing resources for people who want to deepen their practice. The site also offers convenient and comprehensive online masterclasses to help you reach your meditation and mindfulness goals.
5. CALM Mindfulness
The Center for the Advanced Learning of Mindfulness (CALM) is dedicated to establishing mindfulness programs in public, private, and governmental sectors. They blend the traditional philosophical approach to mindfulness originally rooted in Buddhism with the more modern Western scientific perspective on mindfulness to create a balanced curriculum.
While CALM is UK-based, they have a global reach. Their online courses are excellent for mindfulness adherents who want to take their meditation to the next level.
6. Penn Medicine Advanced Mindfulness Courses
Once you’ve established a regular meditation practice and have a solid background in mindfulness, you may be ready for more advanced techniques. The Penn Medicine Advanced Mindfulness Courses are ideal for people excited to fully embrace mindfulness. The program includes multiple structured courses and intensive retreats, as well as individual mentoring and coaching.
Most importantly, this program emphasizes a sense of community. While meditation may seem like a deeply solitary activity, many people have better breakthroughs after meditating in a group.
Popular Mindfulness Websites for High School or College Students
The high school and college years can be very formative for many individuals. It is the era in life when people begin to figure out who they are and how they want to move through the world. High school and college students may start exploring the best spiritual books as they begin forming their own values. They may also find some benefit from these age-appropriate mindfulness websites.
7. Koru Mindfulness Program
The Center for Koru Mindfulness is an invaluable website for college-aged students that was itself born on a college campus. Its main product is the Koru Mindfulness program, developed by psychiatrists Holly Rogers, MD, and Margaret Maytan, MD. The duo spent over a decade developing this program while working at the student counseling center at Duke University.
The evidence-based Koru Mindfulness program has been designed to teach mindfulness and stress management to college students and other young adults. The basic program consists of four weekly 75-minute classes by a teacher certified in the Koru method. Advanced classes and retreats are also available for students who want to continue their practice.
8. Insight Timer
The Insight Timer app and website go far beyond mindfulness. This comprehensive app hosts over 30,000 free audio recordings that deal with various self-help topics. The app contains a series of comprehensive lectures addressing everything from sleep problems to anxiety management to stress relief. They also offer a series of guided meditations and music tracks.
While this app isn’t explicitly oriented towards mindfulness, it does provide great foundational information. And because it’s free, it’s ideally suited for college students on a tight budget.
9. The Mindfulness App
Teens and college students who grew up with smartphones are often more comfortable using apps than visiting traditional websites. Thanks to its simple and streamlined approach, The Mindfulness App is a popular app for students and newcomers to mindfulness and meditation.
The Mindfulness App kicks off with a guided five-day introduction to principles of Mindfulness. From there, users can explore the library with various courses and guided meditation practices that last anywhere from three to thirty minutes. The diverse content allows people to customize their experiences. But the biggest selling point of this free app is its timer function that allows you to track your statistics and monitor your progress.
Popular Mindfulness Websites for Kids
It’s never too early to learn about the principles behind mindfulness. We often use books about gratitude and other similar tools to teach children how to interact with the world around them. These kid-friendly mindfulness websites may help them become more grounded within themselves.
10. Smiling Mind
The Smiling Mind website is based in Australia, but its impact is felt worldwide. The free Smiling Mind meditation app has been developed by a team of educators and psychologists who use evidence-based research to approach mental health education for children.
Smiling Mind’s meditation programs help reduce behavioral problems and emotional outbursts in school-aged children. They also offer helpful resources to parents and adults, including a weekly podcast that features interviews with mental health experts. While some free resources are available on the website, certain content can only be accessed via a paid subscription.
11. Mindful Schools
If you’re an educator who wants to introduce mindfulness to the classroom, the Mindful Schools website is an excellent resource. This nonprofit organization has trained over 60,000 parents, teachers, and school administrators on the best way to incorporate mindfulness in classes from Kindergarten to twelfth grade. It’s also an excellent tool for parents who are homeschooling their kids.
The main feature of the Mindful Schools website is their series of online mindfulness designed for students in the K-5 grade levels. The ten-class series features fun and interactive mindfulness activities that deal with everything from mindful movement to eating habits.
12. Breathe, Think, Do With Sesame
Sesame Street on PBS has been educating generations of children about a wide array of topics for over fifty years. It’s not surprising that they would be at the forefront of wellness for children. Sometimes kids connect best with new concepts when familiar characters present them.
Breathe, Think, Do With Sesame isn’t technically a website - it’s an app. Through the app, kids can learn breathing techniques and exercises to help them deal with big emotions like anxiety, anger, and frustration. It’s great for teaching young children the basic principles behind mindfulness.
Using Technology To Achieve Mindfulness
Modern technology allows us to know what's going on everywhere in the world with just the push of a button. Having access to such a rush of information is incredible, but it can also be overwhelming. It can be enticing to allow ourselves to get distracted by the upheaval in the world by playing idle games or scrolling endlessly through social media. But a momentary distraction won't bring you lasting peace.
Embracing mindfulness may sound a little scary and overwhelming if you're used to distracting yourself from the world around you. But ultimately, mindfulness can give you the tools you need to feel at peace even when chaos surrounds you.