⚡ Get All Content for 20% Off ⚡

10 Apps and Gadgets to Help You Find Zen Looking to maximize your mindfulness? These tech-based tools may help.

By Catherine Clifford

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Melo Minds

For a lot of people, technology can feel like the root of all stress. A constant torrent of emails, social media notifications, text messages and chats can be overwhelming and unforgiving. At the same time, gadgets, apps and even that pesky smartphone can be used as tools for improving your capacity for mindfulness.

Mindfulness, or the practice of staying attentive to the present moment, has been shown to scientifically change the neuro pathways in our brains making it possible for humans to focus better and regulate emotional responses. It's powerful, but it's not easy.

That's why human beings use tools to train their brain to be more mindful. Yoga, for example, is an age-old physical meditation practice that serves as a gateway to mindful thinking. In theory, by thinking about the physical postures of yoga, the race track in your brain slows down from the spazzy 25-tabs-open-at-a-time way we tend to live each harried, stressful minute of each day to thinking only about the physical body.

If yoga isn't your jam, there are some pretty tech-savvy entrepreneurs who are using science and your smartphone to teach the basics of mindfulness. Ironic as it may sound, these companies say that you can use technology to bliss out. And we don't mean binge-watching the latest drama on Netflix.

Related: While You Obsess About Your Business, Don't Forget About Your Body

1. Headspace

With over 3 million users worldwide, Headspace bills itself as a "gym membership for the mind." Users are guided through daily meditations with the app. Sessions, which start at 10 minutes each, are available for beginners and more experienced meditation practitioners alike.

The Headspace app was the brainchild (pardon the pun) of Andy Puddicombe, a once-upon-a-time sports science student who picked up and traveled to Asia to become a Buddhist monk. He traveled to Nepal, India, Burma, Thailand, Australia and Russia studying meditation before returning to the United Kingdom, where he attended circus school and learned to be an expert juggler. Puddicombe partnered with advertising executive Rich Pierson to launch Headspace in 2010. What started as a mindfulness-skills events company in the U.K. transitioned to an app company with headquarters in Venice Beach, Calif., in April 2013.

Price: $12.95 a month, or $7.99 per month if you agree to a yearly commitment

Related: Reality Check: You Need to Care About More Than Your Business

2. Spire

Meditation often starts with an effort to focus your thoughts on your breathing, which helps you relax and brings your anxieties to the background. Spire is meant to help you do that throughout your day. The activity tracker with component smartphone app measures the pace of your breath and alerts you when you are tense and would do well to stop and take a few deep breaths.

Price: $149.95

Related: Feeling Overwhelmed? Here's How These Entrepreneurs Stay Productive.

3. Meditation Made Simple

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons is best known for co-founding the music label Def Jam and the apparel fashion brand Phat Farm. And while it might seem a bit out of step with the rest of his career, he has also launched a free meditation app called Meditation Made Simple in follow-up to his book, Success Through Stillness: Meditation Made Simple (Penguin 2014).

"Yoga and meditation have had such a positive impact on my life and I wanted to share my learnings with the masses – for anyone to practice from your grandmother to your 5-year old nephew and niece," said Simmons in a statement about the app's release. "I can promise that with regular practice, you will see improvements in your lifestyle, body and mind toward positivity."

Price: Free

Related: Russell Simmons: 3 Simple Ways Meditation Will Make You a Better Entrepreneur

4. Thync

This piece of wearable technology affixes to your forehead and neck and delivers pulsating waves of energy to trigger feelings of energy or calm within minutes. The various frequencies of vibes trigger different neural receptors in the brain, according to the Thync team. Thync was founded in 2011 by a team of brainiacs (the puns! they are so tempting!) in the fields of neurobiology, neuroscience and consumer electronics from the likes of MIT, Harvard, and Stanford Universities.

Price: $299

Related: The Happiest People Know Their 'Flow State.' What's Yours?

5. Buddhify

Buddhify offers guided meditations for specific times of day. Made by Rohan Gunatillake of Mindfulness Everywhere in the U.K., the app has meditations for when you are waking up, eating, traveling, dealing with pain or illness, trying to fall asleep and a dozen or so other situations.

Gunatillake has also just finished raising money on Kickstarter for Cards For Mindfulness. The deck of cards include mindfulness inspiring phrases, like, "Where is my mind now?" on one side with exercises relating to that phrase on the back of the card.

Price: iOS $4.99, Android $2.99

Related: Forget Practical Choices. To Live Your Best Life, Make Happy Choices.

6. Muse

This headband measures your brain's activity in real time during meditation and collects data on each session. Muse tracks five different kinds of brain waves, ranging from those associated with sleep to those associated with intense thinking or consolidation of information. The app then plots that session data for you in charts letting you know whether you were active, calm or neutral during the meditation session. The goal is that by making it easy to map and monitor your progress you will be better able to improve and more motivated to continue a regular practice.

Price: $299

Related: The Best Entrepreneurs Get Out of Their Heads and Open Their Ears

7. Checky

Being mindful means being present -- it means paying attention to one thing at a time and staying focused on that one activity. That's incredibly hard to do, especially in our smarphone-obsessed culture, which is where Checky comes in. The app, from the same team that created the meditation app Calm, tells you how many times you check your phone each day and, thanks to geolocation tracking, where you are when you check your phone. The goal is to increase awareness and help you go longer stretches without breaking away from the present moment into your phone. Fair warning: You are probably going to be appalled at your total phone-check count at the end of each day.

Price: Free

Related: Lessons From Burning Man on How to Unlock Creativity and Think Big

8. SmartMat

While it's no replacement for the full yoga-class experience, SmartMat is a great way to up-level your solo practice. The responsive, pressure-sensitive yoga mat and companion app guides you through a yoga practice and tells you when you are, for example, not distributing your body weight accurately to achieve maximum benefit of the pose. The SmartMat can also tell when the placement of your limbs is off kilter and instruct you on how to adjust. It's available for pre-order now and is expected to ship at the end of 2015.

Price: Pre-order for $297; regular retail price of $447

Related: Meditation Isn't Just For Hippies: Here is How it Can Help Entrepreneurs

9. Lumosity

Just like any other muscle, your brain is a needs to be used and worked out to strengthen and improve. That's where Lumosity comes in. The "brain game" software and app, developed in collaboration with neuroscientists, provides daily exercises to strengthen and improve core capabilities of your brain, including memory, attention, speed, flexibility, problem solving and ignoring distractions.

Price: Free for a few basic games; $11.99 for a month, $59.99 for a year

Related: Stress, Anxiety, Loneliness: How This Entrepreneur Lost Himself and Bounced Back Stronger

10. Melomind

Melomind is a headset and app that aims to help people manage stress by monitoring their brain waves and delivering music that will relax them. The success of each relaxation session, which can last anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes, is recorded in the app for a user to review. The idea is that with access to a performance review of your ability to relax, users will be able to better rid themselves of stress.

"Learning how to relax is not more complicated than learning how to practice sport or music. This process is based on neuroplasticity, and what is important is to have the correct and efficient "feedback'. That's personal empowerment," said Thibaud Dumas, co-founder of myBrain Technologies, the Parisian company that makes the Melomind device, in a statement.

The wearable debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January and is set to be available for early adopters at the end of 2015.

Price: Preorder for $299, regular retail price of $399

Related: The Mind-Body Practices of 5 Mega-Successful Entrepreneurs

Catherine Clifford

Senior Entrepreneurship Writer at CNBC

Catherine Clifford is senior entrepreneurship writer at CNBC. She was formerly a senior writer at Entrepreneur.com, the small business reporter at CNNMoney and an assistant in the New York bureau for CNN. Clifford attended Columbia University where she earned a bachelor's degree. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow her on Twitter at @CatClifford.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Side Hustle

The Remote Side Hustle a 43-Year-Old Musician Works on for 1 Hour a Day Earns Nearly $3,000 a Month: 'All From the Comfort of Home'

Sam Ziegler wanted to supplement his income as a professional drummer — then his tech skills and desire to help people came together.

Business News

Costco CFO Reveals Uncertain Fate of $1.50 Hot Dog and Soda Combo

CFO Richard Galanti reveals that the price will stay the same — but only "for a while."

Business News

The Most Unexpectedly Popular Side Hustle of the Decade Has Low Startup Costs and High Markups

A new report shows that vending machines are a popular investment — and the industry is set to grow up to $3 billion by 2031.

Marketing

Ever Wonder Why Certain Websites Rank Higher Than Yours? This SEO Expert Reveals The Secret to Dominating Search Results

It's often the smart use of SEO, now supercharged with AI, particularly in keyword optimization.

Business News

AI Is Impacting Jobs. Here Are the Gigs Affected the Most, According to an Analysis of 5 Million Upwork Postings

The researcher said in the report that freelance jobs were analyzed first because that market will likely see AI's immediate impact.

Leadership

Former Interrogator Shares 5 Behaviors Liars Exhibit and How to Handle Them

Five deceptive behaviors to look for and how to respond to those behaviors when you encounter them.