When you’re stressed out to the max and you need to find a way to manage your stress before your stress manages you, consider meditation. Meditation allows you to connect with yourself on a deeper level, allowing you to tap into the power within. It also helps you to focus and quiet your mind. Now it’s not always easy to start a meditation practice; when I started, it was really difficult for me to concentrate, my mind was always racing, and I was thinking about things like my to do list. So, to help, I did a couple of things:
1st I started off slowly, instead of trying to meditate for 30 minutes, I did 5 and then 10 and so on.
2nd I used guided meditation as an easier way of beginning my meditation practice.
5 Minute Escapes is one of the many apps that I’ve used in my guided meditation sessions. The rest of this post will be a review of the app, but first let’s talk about guided meditation.
What’s Guided Meditation?
Guided meditation is a form of meditation where you can visualize images, places or events based on the prompts you’re given. It’ s an easy way for those (like me) who have a difficult time just meditating in silence.
You focus on the images that the narrator is describing and while doing that, your focus is taken off the stressors that you’re experiencing. Guided meditation is a great tool to have in your self-care toolbox as its great for stress management. It’s all about making time.
5 Minute Escapes App Review
5 Minutes Escapes has a nice simple interface. When you open up the app, your greeted by a wide variety of potential escapes. From a tropical island, all the way to a dawn safari. They are neatly listed on the left hand side of the app.
You can either touch the picture of your chosen escape or the three buttons on the right hand side in order to open that particular escape.
If you upgrade to the full version on the app, you have access to three different versions of all of the escapes – short, medium & long in addition to being able to listen just to the music and other ambient sounds related to the escape.
The escapes all have a simple, appealing interface with an image that relates to the location of the escape. For instance, the desert night sky escape has a charming image of two camels walking past two pyramids in the desert under the moon and the stars.
While safari dawn has two giraffes enjoying a lovely sunrise.
Each escape opens with a pleasing, gentle female voice asking you to find a comfortable place to either sit or lay down while the music begins. As promised by the title, the short escapes are all approximately 5 minutes long, while the longer escapes last for approximately 10 minutes. This makes it easy to fit in a quick escape whenever life gets hectic – on a break at work, on your commute (especially if you use public transportation) or just anytime when you’ve had it.
The free version of the app includes the unlocked short version of the Tropical Island, Japanese Garden and the private yacht escapes; in addition to the option of listening to the sounds only of the tropical island escape. If you’re interested in listening to more escapes, you can opt to unlock the full versions of two escapes at a time for $3.99 or all sessions of all of the escapes for a one time fee of $7.99 which entitles you to access any future escape sessions.
All in all I give this app a YAY! With 4 1/2 out of five stars.
It does what it says it will do – give you a quick moment to escape from the everyday world. You can find 5 minute Escapes in the Apple store and on Google Play and is by Olson Applications Ltd.
5 Minute Escapes
Pros
Simple & easy to use.
Narration is pleasant and soothing.
The scenarios are realistic and easy to visualize.
Cons
Background ambient sounds sometimes extremely loud compared to the narration.
App not updated very often with new escapes.
Let me know in the comments section if you’ve used this app and if so, what do you think of it?