Yes, presence is a gift.

If you don't yet have the app on your iPhone, iPad or Android device yet, download it for free from Apple's App Store or the Google Play store and create a free account. We don't have this available for computers so if that's what you want to work on, check out our Help Center article Happier on a Computer.

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Happier is an award winning app created to help you be a stronger, happier you — day in and day out, in good times and during the rough times. We have a library of resources in the app and elsewhere that have been curated to help you explore questions like:

• What the heck does it mean to be mindful?
• How do I meditate?
• What will meditation do for me? Can’t I just, “be mindful?”
• Will you help me practice meditation in a way that fits with my life and still helps me feel better?
• This is really interesting and helpful for me, how do I go deeper and find out more?

We got started in the general wellness business back in 2014, then started to collaborate with Dan Harris who wrote the book, Happier. Now we have an app full of curated meditations, lessons, and content that continues to evolve based on our community’s needs, an amazing podcast with deep conversations about the way meditation and mindfulness show up in life for others, a weekly newsletter, and a website that’s chock full of resources.

Happier has two levels of access, free and subscribed.

• An app subscription gives you access to everything in the app! Our subscription is available at $99.99USD/year.
• The app is free to download and with a free account you get two Courses, The Basics and The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness plus over 500 guided meditations.

This is a great question and there are two parts to the answer.

Meditation

The main type of meditation taught in the app is based in a practice called Vipassana which, it’s believed, is the kind of meditation taught by the Buddha. So we want to acknowledge the roots of what we’re doing and our gratitude to all the teachers who came before and kept this knowledge vibrant and evolving.

Several modern teachers, including Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, went and studied with teachers in Asia and and returned to start a tradition here that’s called Insight Meditation.

No matter what we name it, this kind of meditation involves paying close attention to an anchor or focus point. It’s often the breath but it can be all kinds of sensations and the app includes variations like:

• Breathing
• Sound Meditation
• Open Awareness Meditation
• Body Scan
• Walking Meditation

Meditation can also help us train our minds to have new patterns like:

• Loving-Kindness
• Concentration

Mindfulness

We practice meditation, paying attention, so we can be more mindful because being mindful can help us build internal strength to deal with life. If you’re wondering what the difference is between meditation and mindfulness, check out this article, Mindfulness vs Meditation.

When we talk about mindfulness at Happier we mean being aware of what’s going on in and around us right now — and trying not to judge it. Once you get used to paying close attention while you’re formally meditating, it gets easier to play close attention to things throughout your day.

The app will help you incorporate mindfulness into lots of spots in your day! From putting on your pants to drinking your coffee, from talking to a friend or co-worker, driving, eating or falling sleep, the app has guided meditations and content to support you. Then you get to play with it and see where else you can be mindful!

In addition to the long line of teachers who’ve brought mindfulness meditation through the 2,000+ years from the Buddha to today, Thank You!, Happier is indebted to folks like Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein and Jon Kabat-Zinn who were some of the champions of Insight Meditation in the west. We mostly teach this kind of meditation at Happier although there are other influences that compliment Insight Meditation and are also included in the app.

On staff we have a group of highly trained meditation teachers and practitioners who really walk the walk! This team manages our pedagogy and finds other trained and experienced meditation teachers, mostly with 10 years of teaching experience or more, to record content for you.

Among the teachers who record meditations for you to use in the app, you’ll find diverse voices and perspectives — because mindful meditation is available to everyone.

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Definitely! Beginning meditators are welcomed at Happier. We’ve created courses and meditations to meet you wherever you are in your journey with mindfulness meditation — from never ever to long time meditators.

If you’re just getting started, try courses like The Basics I and II, Common Questions and Essential Advice. You can also explore single guided meditations that help you bring mindfulness into your daily routine like On The Way To Work.

As soon as you start, you’re a meditator! And when you’re ready to go deeper, there’s plenty to practice. The app’s build to help you along your journey and you can email support@meditatehappier.com with questions.

When you practice mindfulness meditation, you practice getting to know your own mind and its habits so you can approach all of life’s emotions with strength — even the messy and the imperfect! There are lots of resources in the app that help you specifically practice handling stress, anxiety plus lots of other life challenges, from difficult people to pain, from anger to aging.

In a quick search of the app for stress or anxiety you’ll find 3 courses, over 80 guided meditations and over 200 podcast episodes and Talks. Here’s just a small sample:

Courses

• Taming Anxiety This course will increase your ability to cope with challenging situations. You’ll learn tools for examining and overcoming your own particular anxiety feedback loop, while building the skills of mindfulness, compassion, and bravery along the way.
• Phrases for Stress Sometimes just remembering a few meaningful words can help you set yourself up for success. In this course, you’ll learn simple phrases that will help you cut through unhelpful mental chatter and reduce stress.
• Stress Better You can’t change the fact that life is stressful, but you can change how you respond to it. We’ve brought together some of the world’s top stress-reduction experts to offer you practical tools to bounce back from stress with more clarity, perspective, and energy to move you toward your goals.

Guided Meditations

• Self-Kindness for Stress Being kind to ourselves in hard times bolsters our resilience, so we can learn from setbacks rather than getting stuck in rumination.
• Stress in the Body Explore the places where you hold stress in the body, and use guided techniques to cultivate more ease and relaxation.
• Stepping Back from Stress Taking a bigger perspective and staying grounded in the body helps us experience life’s inevitable stress without being taken over by it.
• Reduce Anxiety, Build Resilience Build your capacity to prevent overwhelm by feeling the anxious sensations in your body while staying anchored in what feels ok right now
• Soothe Stressful Thoughts Relieve your anxiety by exploring the relationship between stress and thinking while learning to break unhealthy habit loops.

Podcasts | Talks

• The Science of Anxiety -- and Coping with It | Rick Hanson Your brain is evolutionarily wired for anxiety. But it’s also wired to transcend and cope with it.
• Two Ways of Meditating with Anxiety Calm is good. But cultivating lasting wisdom, peace, and happiness is better.
  

How can I download the Happier app? Download the Happier App.

You can use the Happier app on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch and Android mobile devices.

Download the free Happier app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play store.

Happier isn’t available through a web browser or on desktop computers. Please check out our Help Center article Happier on a Computer for more information on the content you can access through the web.