App review: Headspace

For those of us who are a little high-strung - I'm the kind of person who leaves a tai chi class feeling stressed - the mindfulness craze can seem like an exclusive club with impossible membership dues. A year after learning about Headspace, the meditation app started by Buddhist-monk-turned-start-up-Zen-master Andy Puddicombe, I hadn't downloaded it.

So what's the best way for a wannabe meditator to get motivated: an app or a real-life meditation group? To find out, I tried both.

Headspace offers gentle hand-holding through 10-minute meditation sessions. At first, I giggled at Puddicombe's oh-so-soothing tone as I sat on the floor. Then, I felt calmer when his voice told me it was OK to be distracted and why didn't I start counting again.

But two days out of the 10-day free trial, I chose to hit snooze and sleep. Sometimes I ended early when my oatmeal bowl called more loudly than my serenity. Despite its simple interface and pleasing graphics, meditating on a cellphone is distracting. For part of the program, users have their eyes open, and I occasionally saw a stray email.

After a week, I attended a meditation orientation at the Washington Mindfulness Community. The level of intimacy was immediately heightened: just me (I was the only one at orientation) and a stranger in the basement of a house on Washington, D.C. Oddly, I felt completely at ease as he taught me their routine: 25 minutes of silent sitting, then 10 minutes of walking around the room, and repeat.

When I went upstairs to the main meditation room, I was a bit distracted by the ritual. There was bowing and turning. The walking was strange because it was so ... slow. When it came time to sit, I realized I hadn't tried 25 minutes before (in the basement we did only three).

I counted my breaths, felt my nose itch and was annoyed at a man who scratched his head. But it felt different than home. There was incense burning. A giant Buddha statue sat at the end of the room. I had a real floor pillow.

Most important, there were people all around me meditating, calm and confident. After I painlessly completed the 25 minutes, I left feeling like it really happened, I really meditated.

The Mindfulness Community is 30 minutes from my apartment, and I know that I won't attend each week. But when I use Headspace next, I think I'm going to reach that 10-minute mark. And, maybe, I'll invest in a floor pillow.

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STATS

NAME: Headspace

COST: 10-day free trial, $13 per month

OPERATING SYSTEMS: iOS, Android

CREATOR: Headspace Meditation

USER RATINGS: iTunes, 4 1/2 stars out of 5 stars (2,153 ratings); Google Play 4 1/2 out of 5 stars (19,608 ratings)

REVIEW'S BOTTOM LINE: A good intro, if you can skip the snooze button.