Meditation is a simple way to reap big benefits. But where do you begin? And how do you know exactly what to do?

Good news — there’s an app for that!

We chose these meditation apps as the year’s best because of their quality, reliability, and great reviews. Download one to start learning deep breathing techniques, following guided meditations, and enjoying the many benefits of mindfulness.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 4.5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Meditation beginners and gurus alike will find lots of options with The Mindfulness App. A 5-day guided practice and introduction to mindfulness helps you get started, and timed guided or silent meditations from 3–30 minutes will suit your busy lifestyle. The app also offers personalized meditation options, reminders to keep you mindful throughout the day, and statistics to track in your meditation journal.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 3.5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Find calmness, wellness, and balance in your life with this app’s guided meditation and mindfulness techniques for daytime use. Before bed, try any of its new meditations for sleep including music, nature soundscapes, or storytelling sleepcasts. The app builds personalized plans based on a little input from you, so you can learn the essentials of meditation and build from there.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 4.5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

This award-winning app has calming exercises, breathing techniques to help you relax, and even a Calm Kids section with meditations for kids between 3 and 17. The Sleep Stories section features a great mix of voice talent — you may recognize actors Matthew McConaughey or Jerome Flynn — to lull you to sleep. For a mindful experience you can access right from your Apple Watch, there are new breathing exercises, a mindful walking meditation, and calming exercises.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 4 stars

Price: $4.99 for iPhone, $2.99 for Android

With more than 200 meditations, the buddhify app teaches you how to reduce anxiety and stress, promote sleep, and manage difficult emotions. Practice mindfulness exercises with categories suitable for whatever you’re doing — traveling, at work, waking up, eating, even when you’re online. Sessions range from 3–40 minutes, making this a great option for beginners or experienced practitioners.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 4 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Sattva draws from Vedic principles of meditation and features meditations, chants, and mantras delivered by Sanskrit scholars. Simple, authentic, and deep meditations begin at 6 minutes in length, and users can set goals to slowly extend their practice. You can also track your progress with the meditation journal and browse thought collections and playlists designed to inspire your sessions.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Previously known as Stop, Breathe & Think, the meditation recommendations on this app are based on your emotions. Use the app to help identify how you’re feeling, then tame your anxiety, reduce stress, breathe deeply, or sleep better with the short, guided meditations, yoga videos, and acupressure videos. You can also track your mood and overall progress, and check in with yourself daily.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

More meditation is practiced on Insight Timer than anywhere else, and the app has 10 or more free guided meditations added every day. Browse thousands of meditations to begin building a simple daily habit, jump into discussion groups and community features, and use the music tracks and ambient sounds to calm your mind and promote sleep.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 4 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Learn how to de-stress and sleep better in just 5 minutes a day with a personal mindfulness coach. Breethe’s guided meditation series’, inspirational talks, and master classes from mindfulness coach Lynne Goldberg will help you better navigate life’s challenges and enjoy improved peace of mind. The app’s sleep music playlists, nature sounds, and bedtime readings teach you how to enjoy more restful sleep.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

INSCAPE is an all-purpose meditation app for a variety of scenarios where you may just want to stop and breathe. Feeling anxious? Stressed? Can’t sleep? Angry? Had a bad commute? This app has meditation features that can help you address the range of emotions that may have you feeling like you just need a minute or two out of the day to get back in control of your mood and center yourself.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Getting into the habit of daily meditation doesn’t have to feel like a big ask. This app offers a huge range of 5-minute exercises to help you get into consistent meditation no matter why you want to. Featured on Shark Tank in 2017, this app has a growing database of meditations for any time of day, any personal situation, and any goal.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

We all have different needs when it comes to meditation. Meditation Studio has a wide selection of meditation practices for different goals: try meditation for health, kindness, happiness, curiosity, or just generally feeling more calm. You can also create your own meditation plan if you want a little bit of everything.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Sam Harris is a New York Times best-selling author and public intellectual who’s written about many topics related to the mind, body, and spirituality. Now, he’s taking on meditation with a huge collection of science-backed meditation courses and other resources that can help you master mindfulness, including integration into your health apps and additional educational tools about philosophy, selfhood, and free will.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Just need a quick meditation fix? This app has several quick exercises to help you calm down, get to sleep, or feel at peace. The app also tracks how long each session lasts, how many breaths you’ve taken, how many sessions you’ve done, and much more.

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Whether you need a 5-minute breather or a long, 45-minute meditation session to unwind from the day, this app has options for you. You can also download different courses for sleep, reducing anxiety, relieving stress, and more so that you can have access to your favorite courses no matter where or what your meditation needs are.

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Prana Breath is an advanced training app that’s easy to use but gives you plenty of options to increase your meditation practice over time by number of minutes or by the goal you want to achieve, such as improving your memory or reducing how often you get sick. The app also features meditation routines for quitting smoking and tackling emotional eating.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

This app is for everyone. Whether you have children as young as 5 or are well into your golden years, this app features many guided meditation courses from 3–50 minutes long in multiple languages, such as English, Spanish, and German, and has courses based on the science of positive psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and mindfulness.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

If you’re an experimenter, you probably want to take the same approach with your meditation practice and try different breathing intervals, session lengths, cycles of breathing, and so on. This app lets you take control of all aspects of a single meditation so you can adjust exactly how long each session is and how much of each breathing technique you want in your session.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Meditative breathing isn’t the same as regular old breathing. It can take some practice before you feel in control of your breaths during meditation and feel the results. This app is designed to help you learn how to breathe “properly” so that you get the full benefits from meditative breathing, including being able to hold your breath for up to 30 seconds and inhaling or exhaling for even short periods of time.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

Too busy to meditate? Then you need to try this app. It offers meditation courses that last as few as 5 minutes to help reduce stress, anxiety, tension, and much more. It’s one of the few apps that’s also designed to help teens and young adults learn about how stress and pressure can affect their physical and emotional health, providing tools that teens (and anyone!) can use throughout their lives to continue living a life of mindfulness.

iPhone rating: 5 stars

Android rating: 5 stars

Price: Free with optional in-app purchases

You may be surprised sometimes by what triggers your stress, anxiety, or feelings of pressure on yourself. This app lets you enter your current mood and gives you specific meditation tips that can help you center yourself no matter what’s giving you trouble in life. It also features tips and courses that can help you release yourself from cycles of negativity and develop a positive mindset that will make it easier for you to handle life’s unexpected sources of stress and anxiety.

If you want to nominate an app for this list, email us at nominations@healthline.com.