Are you interested in learning about mindfulness? What are the benefits of mindful living? How do you cultivate a mindful approach to life?
The ultimate goal of mindfulness is to be present in every waking moment, instead of daydreaming, ruminating about the past, or worrying about the future. However, remaining mindful in a world full of distractions can prove to be difficult—the Mind often has a “mind” of its own—but as with everything, you get better with practice. Plus, there is no shortage of resources available to guide you on this journey.
In this article, we’ve compiled the best resources for learning mindfulness, including books, apps, blogs, and podcasts. It’s not an exhaustive list by any means, but it’s a great place to start.
Why Learn Mindfulness?
Before we dive into our roundup of the best resources for learning mindfulness, let us first explore its benefits. Why should you practice mindfulness? What’s the hype all about? How will mindfulness make you happier?
Being mindful means observing your thoughts and emotions as they arise, without succumbing to your typical knee-jerk reactions. Cultivating mindfulness can boost your happiness in three significant ways.
- Being present helps you better appreciate what you have. Additionally, a deeper awareness of the present makes it more vivid.
- Mindfulness can help you break bad habits that are the source of unhappy feelings such as guilt or resentment.
- Mindfulness can elevate mood by lowering your stress levels, making you less defensive, and engaging you more with the people and events around you.
When it comes to cultivating mindfulness, different approaches work for different people. So, the key is to find what works for you and stick with it. But where do you even start?
Start here! We’ve scoured the web for the best resources for learning mindfulness, including books, blogs, apps, and podcasts to help guide you on this journey.
Best Mindfulness Blogs
Meditation and mindfulness have gone mainstream. So many blogs now cover the topic, touting its benefits, exploring techniques, offering tips, and sharing personal stories.
Here’s our roundup of the best mindfulness blogs to bookmark right now:
Eckhart Tolle is a well-known spiritual teacher and author of bestsellers The Power of Now and A New Earth. On his blog, he teaches the modern seeker how to disidentify from the ego and start living in the Here and Now. According to Eckhart, the state of Presence is the essential next step in our evolution.
Founded by Meli O’Brien, a mindfulness teacher and the co-founder of mindfulness conference The Mindfulness Summit, Mrs. Mindfulness is your complete guide to mindful living. Melli’s blog is a great starting point for beginners to mindfulness—her posts are always short and to the point. She also publishes a weekly newsletter and a blog article “this week’s invitation,” where she gives her readers a mindfulness practice or affirmation for the coming week.
The Mindful Word is on the mission of bringing mindfulness to the everyday through slow movement, permaculture, and contemplative arts. In their Mindfulness section, you’ll find a plethora of actionable tips on how to incorporate mindfulness in various day-to-day contexts.
Founded by Deepak Chopra, a prominent figure in the mindfulness movement, Mind Body Green writes about holistic well-being. In their Mindfulness section, you’ll find articles about mindfulness, meditation, and spiritual growth written by experts and practitioners of astrology, psychology, yoga, and personal development.
The Daily Meditation writes about all things meditation and mindfulness, especially as tools for coping with difficult emotions. Check out their Different Types Of Meditation Techniques [List] for guides on how to practice both traditional and modern meditation techniques.
Zen Habits is a one-person blog run by life coach Leo Babauta. He blogs about mindfulness, minimalism, and finding meaning and happiness in the everyday. He also runs life-changing programs on establishing new habits, finding purpose, and creating impact.
Mindful is a Public Benefit Corporation dedicated to providing its readers with knowledge, tools, and inspiration for living more mindfully. Mindful Mental Health blog publishes educational articles and personal stories on topics such as overcoming anxiety, developing self-compassion, healing from trauma, coping with grief, and more.
Best Mindfulness Podcasts
Listening to mindfulness podcasts is great if you like learning on the go (e.g. during your morning run or while driving to work). Here is our roundup of the best meditation and mindfulness podcasts to follow in 2022:
Tara Brach’s teachings are a blend of Western psychology and Eastern spirituality. In each episode, she guides her audience through a meditation session and discusses ways to imbue our lives with more mindfulness and compassion.
In Practicing Human, Cory Muscara offers his insights and practices for navigating the invisible, internal struggles we are all dealing with (e.g. self-loathing, not feeling good enough, rising from failure). He offers a thought-provoking perspective and practical advice that you can take and implement right away.
This podcast is based on the book Mindfulness in Eight Weeks by mindfulness coach Michael Chaskalson. Every episode details instructions for mindfulness meditation practice for each week of the eight-week plan.
Mindfulness Meditation Podcast
Mindfulness Meditation Podcast features guided meditations with therapist and mindfulness teacher Danny Ford. Each session is based on a theme such as equanimity, embodied attention, and awareness of sounds.
The Science of Happiness is hosted by Dacher Keltner, who teaches Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Although the podcast is not solely focused on mindfulness, it covers a lot of topics that overlap with mindfulness (e.g. slowing down, appreciating the little things, cultivating patience and compassion).
Mindful in Minutes is hosted by meditation and yoga teacher Kelly Smith. In each episode, Kelly offers a short guided meditation session based on a particular topic, affirmation, or technique. This podcast is a great pick if you like specific and actionable advice that you can take and implement right away.
On Mindfulness Mode, Bruce Langford sits down with business experts and entrepreneurs to discuss the benefits and practices of mindfulness and how learning it can help you become the best version of yourself in both personal and professional life.
Best Mindfulness Apps
If you want to start practicing mindfulness but find it difficult to systematically incorporate it into your life, mindfulness apps can be an untapped solution to these struggles. They can help guide you with baby steps and provide some structure to your practice.
Here are Shortform’s picks of the best meditation and mindfulness apps with an overview of their key features.
With over 100 million downloads, Calm is touted as the number one app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation. From guided meditations and music tracks to celebrity-narrated sleep stories, Calm offers a gamut of different features designed to help you relax and unwind from the day-to-day busyness. The latest edition added a gratitude log feature to help you get into the habit of reminding yourself of what you are grateful for.
Headspace is one of the first meditation and mindfulness apps and probably the most popular one. It was founded by Andy Puddicombe, a mindfulness teacher and a former monk. This app is a great choice for beginners—Andy’s guided meditation sessions are well-paced and are designed to progressively build on one another, slowly but surely helping you integrate mindfulness into your everyday life (while cooking, driving, etc.).
Simple Habit is a meditation and mindfulness app for busy people. With Simple Habit, you can forget the excuse of not having enough time to meditate—the app offers guided meditations that are as short as five minutes. You can also choose the topics for your practice: from meditations for falling asleep to post-argument relaxation sessions to help you cool off after a fight.
Ten Percent Happier is a meditation app based on a book by Dan Harris. The app is designed for those who want to reap the benefits of mindfulness and meditation but struggle with sustaining concentration for extended periods of time. A noteworthy feature is their themed packages on how to be 10% nicer in different domains of life (relationships, work, performance, etc.).
Reflectly is a journal app designed to help you cope with negative thoughts and unhelpful emotions through reflection. It does so by prompting users to reflect on their day, why it was good/bad, and how they felt.
The Balance app bills itself as “meditation that adapts to you.” After you register, you’ll be asked to pick the goals you want to work towards (improve mood, reduce stress, sleep better, etc.). The app will then ask you some questions and create a personalized plan for your practice based on your answers.
Aura markets itself as the “Spotify of Mindfulness” designed to help you find your personalized sense of peace with the help of artificial intelligence. When you sign up, you’ll be asked to choose your themes of interest (improving focus, reducing stress, calming anxiety, etc.) based on which the app will curate a list of tracks for you to get started with. As you use the app, the algorithm will learn your preferences and adjust content suggestions accordingly.
Meditopia aims to bring you a solution to every part of your life, offering guided meditations addressing all facets of human experience from anxiety, loneliness, and expectations, to self-esteem and sexuality. In addition to 1000+ guided meditations, there are a few other useful features including personal note-taking to track your progress, in-app challenges to do with friends, daily inspirational quotes, and more.
The premise behind Portal is to bring you the experience of being in the world’s most majestic locations with the help of soundscapes. The app uses immersive technologies, including spatial audio, smart lighting and Retina-quality visuals, to deliver an ambiance that is as close as possible to actually being there as you can get.
With over 130,000 guided meditations in its library (and counting!), Insight Timer is an app for those who aren’t easily overwhelmed by too many options. And the best thing is that it’s all free! If you prefer to streamline your practice, you can subscribe to the paid version to access structured programs that are delivered in a progressive fashion.
Best Mindfulness Books
Reading books on mindfulness can help you better understand the nature of the mind, why it wonders, and how to bring it back home. It’s also a great exposure to a variety of techniques and perspectives on the practice. As mentioned, cultivating a mindful approach to life is all about finding what works for you. To help you find your way towards mindful living, we’ve curated a list of the best mindfulness books from our library.
The Power of Now proposes that the only way to reach true peace and fulfillment is through being completely present in each moment you experience. There is a part of our mind, called the ego, that derails us by ruminating on the past, speculating about the future, clinging to our painful experiences, and insisting that we will be happy and fulfilled if we can just achieve this goal.
Mindfulness in Plain English is an approachable introduction to mindfulness and meditation. These are practical tips and truly written in plain English with little spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Inside are practical tips on how to start meditating and deal with common problems.
The Tao Te Ching, one of the foundational texts of Taoism, breaks down the nature of the Tao, the power of non-action, and the interconnection between the energies of the universe. The Tao encourages harmonious living through objectivity, observation, and balance.
In The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff reveals how the simple-minded character of Winnie the Pooh perfectly emulates the teachings of the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism. While all the other creatures living in Pooh’s world get into all sorts of antics by overthinking or overacting, Pooh simply meanders as he is without question. The Way of Pooh is the Way of Taoism.
Former ABC News anchor Dan Harris believes anyone can benefit from meditation. In 10% Happier, he offers a skeptic’s journey through the world of self-help following his meltdown on live television. Harris explains how meditation allowed him to get control of his anxiety, manage his ego, and become a more compassionate person. This book explores how mindfulness and meditation can improve your life and career—even by just 10%.
In The Art of Happiness, you’ll walk with the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize winner and spiritual leader of Tibet, down the Buddhist path toward happiness. According to him, you have the power to bring more happiness into your life by simply training yourself to be happier. We’ll discuss his four forms of happiness training, which will improve your outlook on life, interpersonal relationships, resilience in the face of suffering, and everyday spirituality.
In Think Like a Monk, former Vedic monk and award-winning content creator Jay Shetty claims that the route to happiness and fulfillment is to think like a monk. According to him, monks are the calmest and happiest people in the world because they live with a sense of purpose that aligns with their true, inner selves.
In The Untethered Soul, spiritual teacher Michael A. Singer, founder of the Temple of the Universe meditation center and a pioneering figure in the world of medical software, teaches you how to use your direct self-knowledge as an intuitive tool for spiritual awakening. Combining powerful principles with practical techniques, he shows you how to free yourself from false identities and live an enlightened life of peace, joy, creativity, and divine love.
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is a parable centered on Julian, a hotshot-lawyer-turned-monk, and his former colleague John. Julian shares with John what he’s learned from studying with a near-mythological group of monks in India who know the secrets to enlightenment. His lessons teach how to live a simple, fulfilling, and happy life.
The Bullet Journal Method is a comprehensive guide to using the Bullet Journal Method—a single-notebook productivity system author Ryder Carroll designed to help himself and others add structure to their lives through comprehensive planning of and reflection on tasks and events. Carroll explains how to extend the method beyond productivity to a practice in mindfulness and intentionality, providing not only step-by-step instructions for how to begin your own Bullet Journal but also information on how to maintain a journaling practice that can arguably improve your overall quality of life.
Final Words
Transitioning from the mind’s default state of wandering or compulsive thinking is one of the most difficult obstacles you will encounter as you begin your journey towards mindful living. But the struggle is well worth it. Practicing mindfulness will clear your mind of psychic irritants by allowing you to become aware of them, observe them objectively without emotion, recognize their destructive impact, and allow them to dissipate without them taking over you. Ultimately, you will become more at peace with yourself and friendlier to others.
If you are ready to embrace mindful living, we’ve got you covered with the best resources for learning mindfulness, including blogs, podcasts, books, and courses listed above! As a side note, we also blog about mindfulness here at Shortform, distilling the teachings of popular mindfulness authors from our library.
We hope these mindfulness resources will help you embrace mindful living and experience life more fully as it unfolds before you—right here, right now.
Did we miss your favorite mindfulness blog, app, book, or podcast? Let us know in the comments!
Amazing recourse for mindful podcast & books recommendation !!
Thanks for sharing this valuable resource on mindfulness. It’s great to learn about the benefits of mindful living and how it can boost happiness. I’m excited to explore this info and start my mindfulness journey. Thanks for sharing. You can learn more about meditation and its positive impacts on a similar blog related to the best mindfulness books of all time.