In a turbulent world without many worthwhile virtual mental health apps, this app is worth it. I’m glad I have it.
Pros:
•Many famous and talented people have been a part of this app—celebrities, narrators, mental health professionals. Stories that involve fictional characters and pop culture are fun.
•The main meditation narrators of the Calm app, Tamara, Jeff, Jay, and Mel, make me feel like I have an on-the-go support system. I love that their individual styles of meditation are different. It makes the app feel less cookie-cutter and regimented and I can feel the personalities of the people behind the narration.
•There’s a wide selection of meditations and stories to choose from.
Cons:
•It can be overwhelming at times to find the right meditation for what I’m feeling because of how big the amount of content is.
•This app is EXPEEENSIVE.
•I’m an audio nerd. Super low and high frequencies are jarring and make it HARDER to relax and sleep. Instruments like bells, chimes, cymbals, and sounds like birdsong and rushing water make high-frequency sounds. Instruments like basses, drums, and sounds like whale-song make low-frequency sounds. For sounds made for sleep it’s important for the audio to be de-essed. Band passes also help.
•The app has recently added “Infinite Ambience”, “Infinite Guitar”, “Infinite Piano”, etc. It might be AI generated. In the spot for where the narrators’ names usually go, it just says “Curated by Calm”. I think I remember how around a year ago, Calm had something along the lines of a “Custom Sleep Story Maker” that used Generative AI, but I’m pretty sure they removed that feature.
•I don’t see some meditation and sleep techniques as equal to other ones. These ones seem a bit tacky and trend-y to me: Binaural beats, Bilateral Stimulation, EMDR, anything with Hz (hertz) in its name…It’s like they’re trying to use technical sound jargon that I think most people don’t understand to make it seem fancier and more effective.
Things I wish the app would add:
•I wish when the app asks “How are you feeling today?”, there’d be more variety and specificity in the emotions you can pick from.
•I wonder if the people behind the app would add something like a “world map of mindfulness”, so if you want to find meditative practices/skills from one specific area of the world, or hone your meditation skills in a cultural way, you could.
•Maybe there could be a category of meditation for physical arts and crafts? Mandala making, origami making, things that encourage creativity…
•Dark mode, light mode, and high-contrast UI would be nice.
Calm is a meditation, sleep, and relaxation app that varies in material, depending on what an individual wants to focus on. In general, Calm's goal is to help calm the mind and help individuals live happier and healthier lives. As a college student, dealing with stress, anxiety, and problems, sleeping is a regular occurrence. Luckily, Calm has incredibly helpful techniques in combating this. The techniques that Calm uses are grounded in real, reviewed psychological research.
This app uses mindfulness techniques such as guided meditation, breathing exercises, and soundscapes to help reduce stress. Mindfulness is “ being aware of one's experience “at the moment” and doing so nonjudgmentally. Calm implements this through its techniques, which are connected to evidence-based approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), both of which are stated to be overall successful in helping those of all ages with anxiety, trauma, and stressor-related disorders and the top recommended techniques in combating anxiety, trauma, and stress-related disorders. Meditation and breathing techniques are two practices I found extremely helpful in managing my anxiety towards deadlines for assignments and my generalized anxiety.
Anxiety is also accompanied by physical symptoms such as muscle tension, restlessness, sleep disturbance, and others. These can be combated through Calm techniques by allowing the body to go out of fight-or-flight mode and calm the nervous system. Sleep disturbance specifically is a common symptom of anxiety, as stated in the DSM-5TR; it can include difficulty falling or staying asleep and restless or unsatisfying sleep. Slowing the breath, especially with extended exhales, allows the body to relax, therefore making anxiety and physical symptoms less prominent. Overall, calm techniques are established in research and are well documented for their benefits for symptoms of anxiety.
I have been using the calm app since it first came out (around 2018). When it was new, almost everything was free. Over time, the amount of free content has decrease exponentially. Now there is absolutely no free content on the app. Don’t even bother downloading unless you want to pay or do a free trial. I paid for a subscription for a year back in 2022, and it was helpful for me. I liked the meditation and sleep stories. I decided to cancel my subscription a year later because it was very expensive and I wasn’t using it enough. Even then, I was still able to do the daily meditations for free. After downloading the app again today, I was very disappointed to see that there is absolutely no free content anymore. I don’t like that you are forced into an all or nothing model, especially considering how expensive it is. I wish there was at least tiered access, or that you could pay for access to just your favorite features. I’ll come back to the calm app if I ever get desperate, but I am upset and disappointed that such a great app has put up such a huge pay wall. Especially an app that is supposed to be made to help people with their mental health.
Weirded Outanonsocmanageron2025-05-06 I've been using calm since 2018 and was a member of the founders facebook group until I deleted my facebook account. The app literally told me to "take the leap" with a push notification while I was standing on the edge of a building. I've written in to support at least once now because it genuinely seems like there's some kind of harassment going on to try and force me to use the app more after I've taken a break due to misophonia and needing digital detoxing. The app doesn't like you taking digital detoxes. Apps that try to control my life or in any way start trying to force their way into my life get deleted, and Calm is on its way to getting deleted with the way their marketing team is handling low use. Please consider not using manipulation tactics that literally tell people to jump off buildings. Thanks.
Not even one single sample? 7 day trial signup required before a new user can do anything. Can be extended to 30 if you get someone else to signup. Far from scam, but that's still a ridiculous clickbait tactic. Shameful. Marketers know perfectlyDW a percentage of people will forget they signed up if they don't use it, end up getting charged and not bother requesting a refund because it's not that much to loose, but to them that adds up to a lot.
Whether this is a good app or not?
I don't know because I refuse to loose money that way. I've been through that too many times with too many companies to give in anymore.
The audio might be great, but the marketing team completely lost me when they decided they won't give any samples. I'll be finding something else.
Would give zero stars.
CalmMicky mouse and the hot dogon2025-05-03 It really helps me calm down after a long long day of school homework and sports. I tend to get very overwhelmed and stressed out and that may be the reason I can’t fall asleep but with calm I can fall asleep in less than 5 minutes. I love how they have different sessions and how they keep a streak of how many sessions you do a day. The one thing I don’t like is that the stories that you can get read to you cost money, meaning that I would have to buy the higher pass which is cost money and it’s not free just to read a story. One last cool feature it has is that it will give you sessions to listen to based on your mood, so you will fill out a litter survey and it will give you the good sessions to listen to. But I would highly recommend.
This app I have been using for ever! It is my #1 recommendation for help to sleep and calm down from life stress etc, I can now choose from a variety of stories meditations and morning workouts! I got this app when I started having deep thoughts and my Alexa stories weren’t working and I would wouldn’t sleep well at night. This app is and always will be #1 because, this app like I said has stories, meditations, exercises, and other things like sleep tracking, mood checking,
user use, and sooooooooo much more hope you respond and never give up on this app
Yours truly, ??? Unknown
Overall good, not a free experience Usability: very easy to use, intuitive, good app with no glitches and bugs
Relaxing/calming experience: very relaxing and helpful for winding down after a long day or quieting a busy mind. Many different options for calming down like soundscapes and meditations.
Would recommend this app to: anyone who has trouble falling asleep, anxiety, relaxing, calming down, or restlessness. Or anyone who enjoys guided meditation or night/morning routine.
Cons: not a free experience!! Without purchase, there are barely any experiences available other than the soundscapes. A bit pricey for an app and extremely limited if you dont purchase premium.
Disappointed the “journeys” section is gonecasablanca1967on2025-04-29 I purchased the app because I loves the Journeys section that had small meditations and exercises for me throughout the day. It was enormously helpful to me during a difficult period. It made it very easy and encouraging to check in briefly, as each suggestion was only 1-3 minutes. I came back to it throughout the day, and learned many new strategies for quickly finding a little peace. When they discontinued the Journeys section I had hoped they would replace it with something similar, but they never did. Without it the app is not the same, and I rarely use it. I will not renew my subscription.
It’s so great!!!AlexandraCarteron2025-05-02 I had such a hard time falling asleep and then Calm came along. My mother recommended it so I tried it out, and now I can’t sleep without it! The Calmling series is amazing, even if it’s for kids, and Tamara Levitt and Anna Acton are one of a kind! You can’t get to the end of the sleep stories, and meditations are so effective!!! There are stories and meditations by celebrities like P!nk, LeBron James, and Bob Ross, and I love that there’s a reflection tab! The new quick journal is amazing for getting rid of stress or anxiety. I could not recommend it enough!!!!!