{"id":111299,"date":"2025-08-26T13:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/111299\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T13:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:07:07","slug":"do-meditation-apps-really-work-scientists-reveal-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/111299\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Meditation Apps Really Work? Scientists Reveal the Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"Young<\/a>With millions turning to meditation apps, science is beginning to uncover their potential to reduce stress and improve mental health while also exposing new challenges in keeping people engaged. Credit: Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Meditation apps have been shown to lower blood pressure, lessen repetitive negative thoughts, and even influence gene expression linked to inflammation.<\/p>\n

Do you use a meditation app on your phone, computer, or wearable device? If so, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n

Today, there are thousands of meditation apps available around the world, with the top 10 alone surpassing 300 million downloads. Early studies suggest that even short-term use of these digital tools can provide benefits, including reduced depression, anxiety, and stress, as well as improvements in insomnia.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeditation apps, such as Calm and Headspace, have been enormously popular in the commercial market,\u201d said J. David Creswell, a health psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University and lead author of a review paper on meditation apps, published in the journal American Psychologist. \u201cWhat they\u2019re doing now is not only engaging millions of users every day, but they\u2019re also creating new scientific opportunities and challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

One significant benefit provided by meditation apps to users is access.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can imagine a farmer in rural Nebraska not having many available opportunities to go to traditional group-based meditation programs, and now they have an app in their pocket which is available 24\/7,\u201d said Creswell, who is the William S. Dietrich II Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience.<\/p>\n

Meditation apps also provide scientists with opportunities to scale up their research.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically, I might bring 300 irritable bowel syndrome patients into my lab and study the impacts of meditation on pain management,\u201d said Creswell. \u201cBut now I\u2019m thinking, how do we harness the capacity of meditation apps and wearable health sensors to study 30,000 irritable bowel syndrome patients across the world?\u201d<\/p>\n

When paired with devices that track heart rate and sleep patterns, such as Fitbit and Apple Watch, meditation apps now have the ability to integrate biometric data into meditation practices in ways not previously possible.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most significant point is that meditation apps are transforming how these practices reach the public. Research on usage trends shows that meditation apps make up 96 percent of all users in the mental health app market.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeditation apps dominate the mental health app market,\u201d said Creswell. \u201cAnd this paper is really the first to lay out the new normal and challenge researchers and tech developers to think in new ways about the disruptive nature of these apps and their reach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meditation apps challenge users to train their minds, in small initial training doses<\/p>\n

Much like traditional in-person meditation programs, meditation apps are designed to meet users at their current level. Early lessons often emphasize breathing or mindfulness, usually delivered in short sessions whose effectiveness is still under discussion.<\/p>\n

Research indicates that engaging with meditation app exercises for just 10 to 21 minutes, three times per week, is sufficient to produce measurable benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, that looks really different from the daily meditation practice you might get within an in-person group-based meditation program, which might be 30 to 45 minutes a day,\u201d said Creswell.<\/p>\n

The flexible, pick-and-choose style of app-based meditation may be especially appealing to people with busy schedules or limited resources for formal coaching. Many users also value the convenience of having guided meditation available on demand, without the need to attend at specific times or locations.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe you\u2019re waiting in line at Starbucks, and you\u2019ve got three minutes to do a brief check-in mindfulness training practice,\u201d said Creswell.<\/p>\n

Finally, as meditation apps continue to evolve, Creswell believes integration of AI, such as meditation-guiding chatbots, will only become more common, and this will offer the option of even more personalization. This could mark an important development for meditation adoption at large, as offerings go from one-size-fits-all group classes to training sessions tailored to the individual.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople use meditation for different things, and there\u2019s a big difference between someone looking to optimize their free-throw shooting performance and someone trying to alleviate chronic pain,\u201d said Creswell, who has trained Olympic athletes in the past<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The elephant in the room<\/p>\n

Of course, with new technology comes new challenges, and for meditation apps, continued engagement remains a huge problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe engagement problem is not specific to meditation apps,\u201d said Creswell. \u201cBut the numbers are really sobering. Ninety-five percent of participants who download a meditation app aren\u2019t using it after 30 days.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the meditation app industry is going to succeed, it will need to find ways to keep its users engaged, as apps like Duolingo have. But overall, Creswell said the market demand is clearly there.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are suffering right now. There are just unbelievably high levels of stress and loneliness in the world, and these tools have tremendous potential to help,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there is ever going to be a complete replacement for a good, in-person meditation group or teacher,\u201d said Creswell. \u201cBut I think meditation apps are a great first step for anyone who wants to dip their toes in and start training up their mindfulness skills. The initial studies show that these meditation apps help with symptom relief and even reduce stress biomarkers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reference: \u201cThe meditation app revolution\u201d by J. David Creswell and S. B. Goldberg, 8 August 2025, American Psychologist.
DOI: 10.1037\/amp0001576<\/a><\/p>\n

Funding: NIH\/National Institutes of Health<\/p>\n

Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With millions turning to meditation apps, science is beginning to uncover their potential to reduce stress and improve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[72875,26809,259,165,1337,5447,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-111299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-carnegie-mellon-university","9":"tag-meditation","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-mobile","12":"tag-neuroscience","13":"tag-stress","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}