The Only Mindfulness App I've Ever Actually Stuck With
Let me paint the picture. Junior year of chemical engineering. It's 2am. I have an exam in six hours, I haven't slept properly in three days, and my body is running on energy drinks and the specific kind of stress that starts to feel normal when you've been living in it long enough.
That was most of college for me. I full heartedly knew that I was putting serious wear and tear on myself. I wasn't naive about it. At the same time, I also wasn't willing to dial back the effort, because those four years mattered to me, and I was going to get everything I could out of them. The amount of grit I was willing to out into it had no limits. (Not to mention I was 0.01 GPA points away from losing my scholarship...) So the question became: how do I stay sane inside of something that is, by design, a little unsustainable?
I tried a lot of things. Journals I filled three pages of before abandoning. Meditation apps that made me feel like I was doing it wrong. Breathing exercises I'd attempt for four minutes and then get distracted. None of it clicked in the way I needed it to, AKA effortlessly. Because when you're that depleted, the bar for what you'll actually do is very low. It has to be easy or it won't happen.
Then I found Aura. And it was the first thing that actually worked.
What it is, in plain terms
Aura is a mindfulness and mental wellness app, but that description undersells it. It's essentially a library of guided meditations, sleep hypnosis tracks, affirmation series, life coaching content, and soundscapes, built around a personalization algorithm that learns what you respond to and surfaces more of it. You tell it what you're working on (sleep, anxiety, focus, manifestation, mood, etc.) and it builds a feed around that.
What made it different for me is that it required nothing from me upfront. I didn't have to know how to meditate. I didn't have to sit in silence and try to clear my mind (a difficult task for a busy brain and a spectacular way to feel like you're failing at relaxing). I just pressed play. Someone else did the work of guiding me through it. I just showed up and followed along.
What I actually used it for
The guided meditations were where I started. Not because I had any particular interest in meditation at the time, but because I was desperate for something that would help me decompress between study sessions without just doom scrolling until I passed out. What I found was that short sessions, even five or ten minutes, materially shifted something. I started learning different techniques just by doing them, not by reading about them. That's the way I learn best anyway.
The sleep hypnosis content was next, and this became ceremonial for me during exam weeks. I'd put one on as I was falling asleep and consistently slept better on those nights than on nights I didn't. Whether that's the hypnosis, the structure of having something to focus on as I fell asleep, or just giving my mind permission to stop for the night— I don't care. It worked.
The affirmation series were the thing I didn't expect to get into and then got very incredibly into. There's something about hearing goals and intentions spoken aloud, in a guided framework, that lands differently than writing them in a journal. I started using these specifically around academic goals and then later around bigger life ones. I still do.
Why it's one of the only subscriptions I actually keep
I'm pretty ruthless about subscriptions. If I'm not using something regularly, it goes. Aura has survived every audit alongside Apple Music and Duolingo, which tells you everything about how much I actually use it.
The sessions range from five minutes to over an hour, which means there is genuinely no version of "I don't have time for this" that holds up. On the worst days, five minutes is still an option. And five minutes of something that actually works is worth more than an hour of something that doesn't.
The bigger point, though
I genuinely believe that how mentally and spiritually balanced I am on any given day has a direct effect on how focused and productive I am. This isn't a soft-thought belief. I've lived enough versions of both states to know the difference in my output when I'm centered versus when I'm not. The ChemE degree, field engineering on a construction schedule years, a career in sales— none of that required me to stop being a person with an inner life. I just had to find the tools that worked within the constraints of my actual life.
Aura was one of those tools. It still is.
This isn't a paid partnership. I have no affiliation with Aura. I'm recommending it, because it's one of a short list of things I tried that genuinely delivered what it promised. For anyone who has ever felt like mindfulness wasn't for them because they couldn't get out of their own head long enough to make it work, this is the version of it that doesn't require you to already be good at it.
That was the whole appeal for me. I'm not sure I'm good at it even now. But now I'm consistent with it, and that's the part that actually matters.
How do you stay functional as a busy woman? Come find me on TikTok and Instagram for more content on how I manage the balancing act.
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