{"id":369375,"date":"2026-01-14T13:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/369375\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T13:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:21:11","slug":"is-gamification-in-wellness-just-a-gimmick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/369375\/","title":{"rendered":"Is gamification in wellness just a gimmick?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Outsourcing your motivation to a gamified app can make it harder to stick to your wellness goals long-term.Getty Images<\/p>\n

You could spend the entire day playing games in the name of your health. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s the star you earn in the morning when you keep up your meditation streak on the Calm app, followed by an achievement badge when your afternoon workout helps you complete the latest in-app challenge and a reminder that you\u2019re only 50 per cent to your hydration goal for the day. Before you wind down for the day, you might run up and down the stairs a few times to close the activity rings on your Apple watch. <\/p>\n

The gamification of wellness \u2013 essentially, using games and rewards to incentivize people toward ostensibly healthier behaviours \u2013 is everywhere in our tech obsessed world. What\u2019s less clear is whether it actually contributes to our long-term wellbeing, or if these apps are just another clever way tech companies are keeping us glued to our phones. <\/p>\n

A 2024 systemic review and meta-analysis published in eClinicalMedicine<\/a> found using gamified apps led to a \u201ctrivial\u201d increase in steps, as well as small but important reductions in body mass index and weight. Still, the researchers acknowledge that, as this is an emerging field, there aren\u2019t yet many long-term studies on these interventions. <\/p>\n

That said, the concept isn\u2019t new. Gamifying wellness is just a twenty-first century twist on something humans have done for a long time, says Catherine Sabiston, director of the Mental Health and Physical Activity Research Centre at the University of Toronto. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s driven by a long history of reward systems. Gamification is ultimately a reward system for behaviour, and at the end of the day what we know about reward systems is that it\u2019s extrinsic motivation,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not building the type of motivation that we need to continue to engage in the behaviours.\u201d<\/p>\n

This kind of gamification does have some value: \u201c[It gets] people started, for those people who are maybe on the fence in deciding whether they\u2019re going to engage in mindfulness of exercise,\u201d she notes. \u201cIt does create a sense of \u2018I can do this.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

However, gamification can fall short because users are typically not setting goals or metrics for themselves, something Sabiston says is a key part of actually creating a sustainable, long-term behaviour change. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re being driven by something that you\u2019re not necessarily choosing for fun or enjoyment, those intrinsic reasons,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s also a very cyclical situation, where one break of a streak or one day that you don\u2019t do the behaviour, you give up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gamification can also encourage a kind of box-ticking that can turn healthy behaviours into a chore, rather than something you\u2019re consciously choosing because they make your life better. Pacing in your living room to hit your step count on your Fitbit, for example, rather than going for a walk with a friend, which boosts your spirits along with your heart rate.<\/p>\n

This gamification may also have a dark side for some people, adds Dr. Lindsay Duncan, who is the co-director of the McGill Theories and Interventions in Exercise and Health Psychology Lab (TIE), where she has studied the use of games in everything from preventing youth smoking to encouraging exercise. <\/p>\n

Duncan has found that gamified wellness apps can actually trigger harmful behaviour, including obsessing over the data they collect, which can sometimes translate into disordered action, including working out too much or restricting calories. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have enough evidence to say that [for] people who have an established harmful relationship to physical activity, these apps are worse than they are helpful,\u201d she says. \u201cOne of the things we try to do if we\u2019re helping people re-establish a healthy relationship with exercise is to take their mind off the numbers and tracking, and help them think about just enjoying movement for what it is.\u201d The relentless monitoring that often comes with gamification, especially in exercise, is \u201ccounter-intuitive\u201d to that work.<\/p>\n

Duncan is not entirely against gamified wellness apps; she says success rests on the gamified element actually reinforcing a real life skill or habit, like helping you monitor how much exercise you\u2019re getting or helping you plan out your activity in a week. Some apps, she adds, can also help people stay connected to their friends through competitions or leaderboards, or even just seeing where folks went on their morning runs. <\/p>\n

Cassey Natura, a B.C.-based content creator and founder of the self-care and self-improvement SimplyHerWellness, has similarly mixed views about how effective gamification can be in this context. She notes that using these apps can encourage consistency, and says folks with ADHD can find them particularly helpful, especially in the meditation space. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey help break things down and make routines feel more manageable,\u201d she says. \u201cWith meditation apps in particular, having guided sessions you can access anytime makes it easier to build the habit. Sometimes, people just need that little extra motivation or structure to get started.\u201d <\/p>\n

But, she does see a few red flags with this ubiquitous tech, including the way they can turn wellness into just another digital task.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spend so much time on screens already, so I\u2019ve found that doing wellness practices off-screen \u2013 like journaling, yoga classes, therapy, hot\/cold therapy \u2013 actually helps me feel more grounded and present,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

And of course, there\u2019s a built-in hyper focus on performance that Natura sees as a red flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat kind of pressure can be discouraging. I think it\u2019s important to remember that rest is also part of wellness, and it\u2019s okay to fall off sometimes \u2013 that\u2019s normal,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Outsourcing your motivation to a gamified app can make it harder to stick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[25872,6647,141125,102,141127,14367,48598,56,54,55,7268,141126],"class_list":{"0":"post-369375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-adveditorial","9":"tag-fitness","10":"tag-gamification","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-apps","13":"tag-noastack","14":"tag-ordid3815653568te","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-wellness","19":"tag-wellness-apps"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}