Joan Borysenko: Meditations for Relaxation & Stress Reduction (App or CD)

Bestselling author and lecturer, Joan Borysenko, offers empowering, guided meditations, taking listeners through a series of breathing and stretching exercises to reduce stress and induce relaxation as part of the iPhone app “Meditations for Relaxation and Stress Reduction,”also available on CD.

The first meditation – Breath of Life, Breath of Love – guides listeners through each part of their body, helping to connect with the life force energy within each cell and balance the body’s energy.

The second meditation – Stretching and Relaxation – is a series of meditative stretches and self-massage instructions to restore the body, mind and spirit.

Listeners can also play random affirmations with the press of a button; view the entire playlist and select affirmations they like; mark off affirmations to create a customized playlist; and look the playlist to repeat.

The CD is available on Amazon for $9.36, the app is available on iTunes for $5.99, and Hay House’s Web site sells it as an audio download for $5.48.

Blissify Me: A New Meditation Game App for iPhone

Blissify Me is a new app for iPhone offering three levels of guided meditations in a game format to help the player elicit a relaxation response, recall positive states of mind, calm down the nervous system, and cultivate strong positive emotions.

“People new to meditation have loved the game twist,” said Christian Bergstrom, creative director of Eternitas Publishing. “By turning the learning process into a game you get an addictive layer to the meditation experience.

The app combines modern technology and ancient wisdom to bring a fun meditation experience, allowing players to earn virtual jewels for meditating and unlock lucky charms as rewards. When a player earns enough jewels, they can unlock the next progressively more advanced meditation. This feature secures a smooth learning process and allows players to learn needed foundation techniques before continuing with more advanced meditations, according to Eternitas Publishing.

“It’s a rare game that leaves the player in a better mood, relaxed and contributes to their health. We’re on a mission to facilitate happy, harmonious and mentally fit people. Happiness is a choice and you can cultivate it with the right activities and decisions,” Bergstrom said.

VIDEO: New Urban Meditation App for People on the Go

Designed for busy city living, buddhify is a new iPhone and Android app that brings the practice of traditional meditation to the modern, urban lifestyle. Whether commuting to work, at the gym or at home, this app offers quick and easy guided meditations to help users focus and improve awareness.

The best part is it allows users to experience a personalized introduction to meditation and offers more than 32 audio tracks. It also has a “two-player” mode to allow friends and partners to meditate together.

The app can be purchased for $2.99. Watch the video below to see how it works!

New Yoga Nidra Meditation App – iRelax

We love apps for relaxation and meditation, and many of us at Elevated Existence have used them to slow down the mind and body at night just before we go to sleep. A new one available for the iPad and iPhone is called iRelax Meditation, which helps the listener enter into the state of yoga nidra or “yogi sleep.”

The app contains five sessions, ranging from a short 20-minute Woodland Journey to a 45-minute deeply relaxing journey called Body Awareness. There is also an Introduction track to help prepare the mind and body for the meditation, and a Return track will gently bring the listener back to their surroundings.

The Breath and Relaxation track will help listeners enter a relaxed state where they are aware of the breath, and can slow the pulse and clear the mind. And while the Body Awareness track is the “heart of Yoga Nidra,” according to the developers, taking the listener on a journey of awareness through the body and its energy points, the Woodland Journey offers a guided meditation to help listeners become aware of all their senses through a relaxing landscape in nature.

The app is available now via iTunes for only $0.99.

New Meditation App Promotes Better Sleep

From the creators of the app, Visulax Golf, a new meditation app called Visulax Sleep Aid 1.1 is now available in the Apple App Store for an introductory special of $.99.

It utilizes visualization and relaxation to help listeners relax, meditate and fall into a natural and deep sleep, according to Pranju Inc., the company behind the app.

“Many guided meditation sleep apps are either hard to hear, have a poorly done voice-over, or an accent that may be difficult to understand. These can all be irritating factors when trying to sleep,” said Rick Nanda, one of the apps creators.

Featuring a 30-minute guided meditation, and relaxing meditation background music, the app also allows users to take notes on how they slept, or even record dreams, which can be sent to their calendar.