It’s hard to anticipate stressful times in life before they happen. Sometimes you have an inkling before the storm hits; other times, the storm beats against your door before you have any chance to react.

The latter happened to me a few months ago, with personal and professional situations looming over me at every turn. While I have never been clinically diagnosed with anxiety, I knew I had only experienced stress like this a couple of times in my life. My anxiety was getting the best of me and, for a period of time, had turned me into someone even I wouldn’t want to hang out with.

Meditation has been touted as an effective way to manage stress, so I turned to the Headspace meditation app in an attempt to get control of my own mind. Headspace is one of the most popular mobile meditation apps available today, and, although I was skeptical about meditation in general, I decided to give it a shot. Adding meditation to my daily routine was difficult at first. But after I familiarized myself with the practice and found my own meditation groove, Headspace has since become an invaluable tool that I use each day.