Whitespace is a self-guided meditation app that speaks: you bring the intention, and it writes and voices a meditation for exactly that.
"Self-guided" usually means you meditate on your own, with no teacher and often no voice at all: you set a timer, close your eyes and listen for the bell. Whitespace keeps the part that makes self-guided meditation yours, which is that you decide what it is about, and adds the part a timer can't give you, which is someone talking you through it.
What are the kinds of meditation app?
There are three, and they differ in who decides what the meditation is about and whether anyone speaks.
| Kind | Who sets the direction | Is there a voice? | Is it the same for everyone? | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silent timers | You | No, a bell or soundscape | Yes | The timers in Insight Timer and Medito |
| Guided libraries | The teacher who recorded it | Yes, recorded | Yes, everyone hears the same track | Headspace, Calm, and the guided tracks in Insight Timer |
| Spoken self-guided | You | Yes, written and voiced for you | No, new every time | Whitespace |
None of these is the right answer for everyone. A silent timer suits someone who already knows how to meditate and wants nothing in the way. A guided library suits someone who wants a teacher's course, step by step. A spoken self-guided meditation suits someone who knows what's on their mind and wants a meditation about that, not about whatever was recorded.
How does a self-guided meditation work in Whitespace?
You say what's on your mind, and about 30 seconds later Whitespace speaks back a meditation written for exactly that.
- Type or say what you'd like help with, in your own words: "I can't switch off from work", "the first tee gets me", "I'm about to show it to a room full of people".
- Whitespace writes a meditation around it and voices it, in a voice you choose and in over 40 languages.
- You listen. Afterwards it records how you felt before and after, and leaves takeaways you can turn into small real-world steps.
Nothing in it is a recording, so no two meditations are the same. The next one can pick up from what surfaced in the last.
Who is self-guided meditation for?
It is for people who would rather bring their own reason to meditate than borrow someone else's.
- People who found guided scripts generic. If a recording about "letting go of your day" never quite matched your day, a meditation written around your actual words will.
- People who sit in silence but want company in it. A voice can hold your attention on the thing you came to work on.
- People with something specific ahead. A pitch, a match, a hard conversation, a night you need to sleep.
- Places, brands and communities. A hotel, a brand or a community can have its own World in Whitespace, so its guests or members hear meditations made for its places and its people.
Does self-guided meditation work?
Self-administered meditation, done from a recording with no teacher in the room, has measurable short-term effects in controlled trials. In a 2024 study across 37 sites with 2,239 participants, a single 15-minute self-administered mindfulness exercise lowered stress more than listening to a 15-minute story did.[1]
A teacher still helps. A review of 111 randomized trials found that mindfulness programs taught face to face produced larger gains in attention than self-guided ones.[2] Self-guided meditation is the version you can do every day, wherever you are, about whatever is on your mind. These studies tested meditation in general, not Whitespace in particular.
Questions people ask
Is self-guided meditation silent?
It often is: most self-guided meditation apps are timers with a bell. It doesn't have to be. In Whitespace you still decide what the meditation is about, and the app writes and voices it for you.
Is self-guided meditation good for beginners?
A spoken one is. A silent timer can be hard when you've never meditated, because nothing tells you what to do with your attention. A voice that talks you through a meditation about your own situation gives a beginner something to hold on to.
How long should a self-guided meditation be?
Two minutes is enough to start, and many people settle on five to fifteen. In Whitespace you can ask for a two-minute reset or something longer, and two-minute resets are free.
How is Whitespace different from Headspace or Calm?
Headspace and Calm give you recorded meditations from a fixed library, the same ones everyone else hears. Whitespace writes each meditation around what you bring to it, and no two are the same.
Is Whitespace free?
Parts of it, forever: two-minute resets and today's minute need no card. Everything else is Whitespace Elevate, $14.99 a month or $69.99 for your first year and $99.99 a year after that, starting with a free trial.
What languages does Whitespace speak?
Over 40, fully voiced, not subtitles over English. It works on iPhone, Android and the web.