Meditation app promotes healthy minds

To coincide with World Mental Health Day on 10 October, Healthy Minds Innovations (HMI) is encouraging Australians to download the Healthy Minds Program App — a free meditation app that can teach users to be more focused, calm and resilient.

The Healthy Minds Program uses neuroscience, contemplative traditions and skill-based learning methods to help develop skills for a healthy mind, guiding users through four pillars of science-based mind training: awareness, insight, connection and purpose (ACIP).

App users can choose traditional sitting meditations or active on-the-go meditations that can be conducted when walking, on the train or even driving. There are also meditations for dealing with stressors such as COVID-19.

The Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and their non-profit, HMI, are led by neuroscientist Dr Richard Davidson, who has spent years researching the science of wellbeing.

Voice of the app Dr Cortland Dahl joined his team and used his PhD thesis to create the ACIP-based mind-training framework, from which the app is centred.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Syda Productions