I Tried Notion Timer App in 2023, Right here is How It Went

I’m in a tense season of my life—and I’m constructive I’m not alone. I’m inside the midst of studying for my board licensing examination, engaged on a giant personal writing enterprise, and navigating an basic constriction of my time, resulting in some pretty substantial stress. I also have a accountable pleasure that I’m ashamed of: I’m a doom-scroller, notably sooner than mattress. Pretty than avoiding blue light, turning off the television, and cracking a information, I open my cellphone and scroll by means of Pinterest, quite a few info retailers, Reddit—regardless of I can get my fingers on. Whereas I prescribe mindfulness and sleep hygiene options galore to my treatment consumers, I sometimes fail to adjust to my very personal advice.

Tired of feeling burdened and exhausted, I was eager to see if a month of using the Notion Timer app would possibly help me out. It’s a meditation app obtainable for iOS and Android that targets sleep and stress whereas promoting full relaxation. I’ve tried a great deal of meditation apps beforehand, plenty of which I’ve found pretty generic, so I was curious to see what set Notion Timer apart. Above all, I hoped to hunt out one factor that may help me develop extra wholesome habits shortly. Conserving in ideas that mindfulness meditation can decrease stress and enhance sleep, I eagerly jumped into the app.

I’m completely satisfied to say, by the highest of my month using Notion Timer, I’ve constructed a mindfulness apply and my sleep hygiene has significantly improved. The app exceeded all my expectations. Proper right here’s why.

Getting Started With Notion Timer

Notion Timer is focused on providing free meditation sources for sleep, stress, and nervousness. It supplies breathwork and mindfulness exercise routines, bedtime tales, guided visualizations, soothing music tracks, multi-day applications on wellness-related issues (assume alongside the strains of manifestation, tarot, and connecting alongside together with your spirit guides), talks with wellness specialists, and even podcast episodes. Its title is derived from its easiest function—to operate a timer for meditation the place you’ll set the time, ambient background sound, interval timer bell sound, and ending timer bell sound. 

Sooner than signing up with the app, I was already familiar with Notion Timer. In actuality, my former medical supervisor swore by its interior family systems-informed guided meditations and actually useful them to her psychotherapy consumers as sources. Inside family strategies is a compassionate treatment modality that adheres to the idea that every human is made up of varied components that deal with utterly totally different roles. A couple of of those roles could be maladaptive (as in, not a healthful response to a state of affairs or draw back), nonetheless that doesn’t indicate they’re “harmful.” In its place, the aim is to return into basic alignment with all components of the self. Realizing that Notion Timer was inclusive of progress modalities solely piqued my curiosity further.

As of January 2025, the Notion Timer app is completely free. Its homepage describes the app as “The world’s largest library of free guided meditations with 150,000 tracks from psychologists, spiritual leaders and mindfulness teachers.”

Setting up a Mindfulness Apply With Notion Timer

As rapidly as I opened the Notion Timer app, I was confirmed a constructive quote by the thinker Seneca that study, “Whereas we anticipate all occasions, life passes.” 

Below the quote had been 5 utterly totally different emoticon faces I’d select, ranging from a darkish blue frowny face to a deep inexperienced smiley face, and above the faces was the question, “How are you feeling?” 

I didn’t discover this initially, however it certainly turned out this is usually a kind of a mood tracker, allowing me to hint how my moods had been each time I reached for the app. Since this wasn’t clear to me at first, I sometimes disregarded it (there was a tiny button on the bottom that study “skip”). After I did cost my moods, I was then launched with an internet web page that study, “Why do you are feeling ___?” and the clear could be stuffed in with the mood I chosen.

For example, if I was having a nasty day and clicked the darkish blue frowny face, I was launched with the question, “Why do you are feeling horrible?” Below the question had been quite a few buttons I’d click on on, along with family, meals, spirituality, journey, funds, and further.

It wasn’t until just some days of exploring the various pages of the app that I seen I’d see my progress by heading over to my account internet web page. There was an selection on this internet web page that talked about, “Mood Confirm-in.” As quickly as I clicked on the “Mood Confirm-in” selection, there was a graph that displayed the moods I had tracked. The graph merely listed out the emoticon face chosen on each day, connecting them with a line as an illustration the trajectory of my moods all via the week.

On the landing internet web page of the app, there are quite a few selections to pick out from—a meditation timer, sleep exercise routines, applications, exercise routines concentrating on workplace stress, after which one which merely says “Breathe.” This was sophisticated—after I clicked it, I was solely confirmed breathwork selections. I had assumed I would be confirmed frequent mindfulness selections, as breathwork felt a bit too intense for me. This led me to fumble throughout the app whereas searching for beginner-friendly mindfulness and meditation choices.

After making an attempt spherical for a minute or two, I headed to the search function of the app, which was conveniently positioned inside the navigation bar on the bottom of the show display. As rapidly as I clicked it, I was taken to an internet web page that had a search bar on the prime of the show display and beneath that talked about, “Uncover.” Beneath “uncover” had been eight lessons to pick out from: Beginner, Meditation, Breathwork, Sleep, Music, Yoga, Keep Events, and Applications.

Below these lessons had been quite a few issues I’d choose from, along with stress and nervousness, magnificence and rising outdated, boundaries, and productiveness. This experience was solely made smoother by the app’s wonderful top quality—the audio was crisp and I didn’t experience a single glitch. Lastly, I used to have the ability to dig into my new meditation apply.

I went ahead and ventured into the stress and nervousness portion of the app. There was a lovely array of selections—guided meditations, soothing acoustic Irish music, and even yoga. Exercises ranged in dimension from one minute to over an hour. The longer exercise routines had been often restricted to soothing music tracks. The overwhelming majority of exercise routines hovered between 10 to half-hour. All via my month of testing out exercise routines, I opted for ones that had been shorter than quarter-hour. The one exception to that’s after I carried out stress-free music inside the background whereas I made lunch or obtained ready for my day.

Led by Angele Shut, PhD, a psychologist and licensed mindfulness meditation coach, I beloved how wise it was. On this meditation, Dr. Shut guided me to connect with a part of myself that’s maybe unkind, important, and even cruel. From there, she invited me to connect with that half and categorical compassion. This was extremely efficient and even cathartic. Afterward, I was relaxed and all via the week, I seen myself drawing on the experience and turning within the course of myself with further compassion.

The content material materials of the communicate was unbelievable, well-researched, and easy to digest. Nonetheless, the format of listening to a chat wasn’t the easiest for me.

It was primarily a mini-podcast, so it felt like I was consuming further content material materials. Whereas there isn’t one thing fallacious with that, I have to zone out and breathe, pretty than sit and assume, when confused. Inside the final 4 minutes of the communicate, Dr. Shut does lead listeners by means of a mindfulness practice, nonetheless I personally would have hottest to solely get into the practice.

Tackling My Sleep Hygiene

When it was time for mattress, I ventured from the homepage to the sleep half app. I’d choose from sleep music, soundscapes, bedtime tales, sleep meditations, and sleep exercise routines for youths. I actually like that you’ll be able to do as many actions inside the app as you need and must you actually really feel akin to you’d need a curated selection of tracks to pick out from, the app has themed playlists obtainable.

There have been moreover applications obtainable. The applications ranged from 5 days to a full month and consisted of educational audio you listened to as quickly as a day. Among the many course issues included establishing a higher sleep routine, strategies to start out lucid dreaming, yoga nidra, and even mindfulness strategies for youths. Each each day session was fast, ranging from as quick as 5 minutes to about half-hour, counting on the topic at hand.

Whereas some course lessons are experiential and would include mindfulness and sleep-enhancing exercise routines (assume respiration strategies and guided visualizations), I was somewhat extra drawn to the various sounds and bedtime tales.

On my first night time time using the app, I opted for a bedtime story. Proper right here is the place I might need been struck with some decision fatigue on account of amount of obtainable bedtime tales. Nonetheless, I shortly settled on a 20-minute-long retelling of Rapunzel, reaching for some childhood nostalgia. I pressed play, set it to “sleep mode” (which stops the monitor after it ends and locks it so that you simply don’t run down your cellphone battery), and laid my head on my pillow. 

It began with soothing ambient tones that carried out inside the background in the middle of the monitor. I immediately felt my eyelids get heavier and was shocked at how shortly my physique responded to solely the sound of the tones. Then, the narrator began speaking. I found her cadence annoying—every phrase was gradual and drawn out to the aim the place it was distracting from the content material materials. No matter my annoyance, I was turning into an rising variety of relaxed and figured one factor needs to be working. It couldn’t have been higher than 10 minutes sooner than I fell asleep. Night one was off to an incredible start.

My husband isn’t a fan of bedtime tales, nonetheless he does benefit from soothing sounds to fall asleep to. This led me to determine on calming wave sounds—there was masses to pick out from, so I clicked the first one I observed and was swiftly lulled to sleep. One different time, I chosen soothing ambient tones. As soon as extra, I was falling asleep inside 10 minutes or a lot much less.

Even with the annoying Rapunzel narration, I was always falling asleep shortly. The app was doing exactly what I’d hoped—it broke my nasty cellphone conduct and helped me get some sleep. Even my husband was hooked. 

Execs and Cons

Whereas I beloved my experience with Notion Timer, your mileage might differ. Think about these professionals and cons when determining if this app is a match for you. 

Closing Concepts

Notion Timer’s mindfulness selections could be often overwhelming—there are a whole bunch to pick out from and for the novice meditator, it would actually really feel intimidating to determine. Apparently enough, I didn’t actually really feel this way when making an attempt out its sleep exercise routines. I attribute this to sleep exercise routines being often further approachable. In any case, who doesn’t want to hear a bedtime story or take heed to some ambient sounds?

That being talked about, it didn’t flip me proper right into a each day meditator after a month. Nonetheless, my objective in using the app wasn’t to spend the rest of my life meditating every single day. I merely wanted to destress as wished and Notion Timer helped me do that. Furthermore, in a practice of always needing to do further, presumably one of the best win is to point out to the help you need when you need it instead of feeling like you will have so as to add in a single different wellness apply every day. Plus, must you wrestle to remember to utilize the app, there’s an option to set reminders, which I found great helpful.

I am impressed by the app’s price, particularly the large library I get to entry, all freed from cost. I moreover love that the Notion Timer app is of unbelievable top quality—it not at all glitched, the audio was always crisp, and it was thoughtfully curated. As for my stress ranges? I’m crusing by means of my analysis days with far a lot much less nervousness about passing my licensing examination and I’m always getting wonderful sleep. I’d say Notion Timer did exactly what I hoped it’ll.