Meditation Tracking and Apps

What this page covers

Meditation apps offer guided sessions, reminders, streaks and sometimes scores based on a phone or wearable. This page covers what trials of mindfulness apps found, what tracking can and cannot tell you, and who should take care. It is general information, not treatment. For the practice itself, see the Therapies pages on meditation and mindfulness and meditation for beginners. Evidence labels used: promising but limited, mixed and insufficient evidence.

What the trials show

A 2020 meta-analysis of 34 randomized trials (7,566 people) found significant effects of mindfulness apps on perceived stress (g = 0.46), anxiety (0.28), depression (0.33) and psychological well-being (0.29), but not on distress or general well-being. The authors called the results promising but advised care because of few studies, uncertain risk of bias and variation between studies. [1]

A 2023 update of 45 randomized trials found small effects on depression (g = 0.24) and anxiety (g = 0.28) in favor of apps over control groups. Compared with active therapeutic comparisons, differences were not significant, though few studies were available, and higher-quality studies with longer follow-up were needed. [2]

Labels: promising but limited for short-term stress, anxiety and mood symptoms. These are averages across many different apps; they do not show that any single app works, and "g" values around 0.2 to 0.3 are small.

Staying with an app

Across 70 trials, 24.7% of people assigned to a mindfulness app dropped out, rising to 38.7% in larger studies and some groups. The review said data on engagement were poorly reported and that sustained user engagement was a clear problem. [3] A streak or reminder is a design feature meant to keep you using the app; we found no study showing that streak counts or minutes logged improve outcomes. Proper evidence not found on that point in the reviews above or in searches of PubMed for meditation tracking.

What tracking measures

• Direct: whether you opened a session and for how long (the app's own log).
• Estimated: heart rate and heart rate variability from a wearable, which are calculated from sensor signals. See HRV trends and wearables and health trackers.
• Calculated by a company: "calm," "stress" or "mindfulness" scores. These are proprietary and have no universal clinical meaning. We did not find independent validation evidence to cite for such scores.

A tracked number is not a diagnosis, and a low "calm score" is not evidence that something is wrong.

How to evaluate a meditation app

Ask whether there is a trial of this specific app, what it was compared with, who paid for it and how many people stayed. See how to evaluate a biohack.