I Tried the Aura App in 2023, Right here is How It Went

As a nicely being and wellness writer, I’m familiar with the benefits of meditation and the best way the apply can help in the reduction of stress, improve sleep, and improve self-awareness. Nevertheless even with that understanding, I’ve struggled over time to develop my very personal meditation apply. 

After repeatedly trying and failing to incorporate meditation into my every single day life, I had largely given up on the apply. Nevertheless then I discovered the world of meditation apps which is once I found Aura. 

On the market on iOS and Android, Aura is a wellness app designed to help prospects develop mindfulness practices, improve emotional well-being, and assist extra wholesome sleep (one different drawback I’ve confronted for years). After using the app every single day for a month, I am starting to see firsthand how meditation, breathwork, and hypnosis can help me deal with stress and actually really feel further grounded. 

What I First Found About Aura 

Launched in 2017, Aura is a wellness app with an expansive library of expert-created “tracks” designed to boost mood and improve well-being. It makes use of artificial intelligence to assemble data on the way you’re using the app and provides personalised recommendations based mostly totally on this knowledge.

Each observe affords a selected mindfulness apply or experience, like a guided meditation, a lesson on gratitude, or a short story focused on serving to you unwind on the end of the day.

Proper right here’s a check out a variety of the assorted sorts of tracks Aura provides and what they will help with.

• Meditation is a apply that helps apply your ideas to focus your consideration and consciousness on a selected train, thought, object, or bodily sensation. 
• Hypnosis is a state of deep bodily and psychological leisure that will help you obtain readability and actually really feel a approach of calm. 
• Cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) is a therapeutic apply that helps reshape harmful thought patterns. 
• Breathwork refers to a set of respiratory practices designed to help relieve stress and improve leisure.
• Transient tales can help you unwind and fall asleep, enhance your creativity, or encourage you. 
• Motivational tracks from life coaches can help you set targets, improve confidence, and apply gratitude. 

How I Signed Up for Aura

Aura affords a free mannequin of the app that allows prospects to entry one three-minute session a day. I was looking out for better than that, so I opted for the premium subscription (the month-to-month plan), which gave me limitless entry to each factor the app has to provide, from meditation and breathwork to instructing, tales, music, hypnosis, and further. 

After downloading the app, I prepare my profile by answering a variety of transient questions on what I hoped to get out of the app. I was first requested to pick what I was most fascinated by from a set of selections, along with:

After that, I was prompted to pick reason I needed to take care of these specific areas. I would select options equal to “to have a healthful response to emphasise” and “to go looking out further peaceful moments in my day.” Completely different questions pertained to demographic knowledge like my race, age, and gender identification.

How I Started Using Aura

My Aura homepage confirmed me suggestions based mostly totally on my options. I would moreover report my mood every single day by way of a mood tracker on the excessive of the app’s residence show. After recording how I felt that day by deciding on from selections like “Anxious” or “Burdened” to “Good” or “Grateful,” the app actually helpful a meditation based mostly totally on how I felt.

The recommendations had been a terrific place to start, nevertheless I favored that I wasn’t locked into merely the tracks actually helpful to me.

At first look, the staggering amount of selections felt overwhelming, nevertheless I was able to browse tracks by class (meditation, breathwork, tales, and so forth.), which gave me a approach of what was accessible and what I was drawn to. 

From there I was able to save lots of the tracks I was most fascinated by and even combine tracks to make playlists. I chosen sleep meditations, stress-free sleep tales, and breathwork exercise routines to take heed to at night, along with energizing tracks to help me set intentions for the morning. 

Aura’s tracks vary in dimension. You might choose from a variety of transient three- to 10-minute tracks or longer 30- to 60-minute intervals. This was an unlimited draw for me as a meditation beginner. Starting with a five-minute session feels hundreds a lot much less intimidating than trying to meditate for half an hour correct off the bat.

After I first started using Aura, I created a variety of playlists with some transient tracks that appeared attention-grabbing to me, like an introduction to chakras, about which I didn’t know rather a lot and was curious to be taught further. I moreover chosen some meditations focused on gratitude and sleep tales that appeared soothing. 

Inside the mornings, I’d open the app and log how I was feeling throughout the mood tracker on the home show. Then I’d activate the actually helpful meditation based mostly totally on my mood. These morning meditations had been usually pretty transient and a simple method for me to set constructive intentions for the day.

Using Aura to Help Me Sleep

At night I’ve always struggled with sleep. I’ve an nervousness dysfunction, which can usually make falling asleep troublesome, notably after I’m burdened. Given this historic previous, I was skeptical the app would change one thing for me. Nevertheless, to my shock, plenty of Aura’s sleep tales and guided meditations really did help quiet the anxious concepts that normally protect me tossing and turning at night. 

One 17-minute observe particularly, known as “Sleep Meditation With Mantra,” did the trick one night time after a chaotic day.

The entire tracks, notably these focused on sleep, are remarkably soothing. The teachers and coaches communicate slowly in direction of a background of nature sounds that really do make you feel equivalent to you’re elsewhere. Every time I activate a observe, whether or not or not it’s a story, meditation, or soothing nature sounds, I can bodily actually really feel my physique relax.

Not every observe I listened to was successful. Just some of the transient tales weren’t collaborating for me and a variety of the instructing tracks didn’t seem notably related to my life. Nevertheless there are numerous tracks to pick out from and for every observe that didn’t seem up my alley, I was able to find a definite one which works for me. 

Execs and Cons

My month-long experience with Aura was constructive and there are quite a few points I favored in regards to the app. Nevertheless no app is good. Proper right here’s a check out some execs and cons.

Closing Concepts

I’ll admit I was skeptical after I first downloaded Aura, nevertheless the experience was increased than I’d anticipated. With 1000’s of tracks to pick out from, I found there was always one factor new to be taught. And, as a beginner, I was happy to see shorter meditations alongside longer ones. 

The additional I used the app, the upper my recommendations grew to change into, and after a pair weeks, I felt similar to the app knew merely what I wished to unwind after a protracted day. Basic, Aura has helped me experience a variety of the benefits of meditation I hadn’t been able to achieve sooner than. Should you occur to’re new to meditation like I was, Aura is an effective place to start.