Do different meditation practices produce measurable psychological, cognitive or physiological benefits beyond those achieved by listening to music?
In a preregistered randomised trial involving 1,211 adults, four weeks of loving-kindness, mantra, body-scan or non-dual meditation were compared with a classical music control. None of the preregistered primary outcomes showed significant improvements over control after correction for multiple comparisons, and no meditation approach demonstrated clear overall superiority. Exploratory findings included differences in sleep quality and self-compassion, while mantra meditation produced faster working-memory responses than body-scan meditation. Substantial participant dropout (only 43% completed endpoint assessments) limits the interpretation of the findings.
Abstract
Background:
This preregistered randomized controlled trial evaluated whether app-delivered meditation improved psychological, cognitive, and physiological outcomes relative to an active control, whether four meditation techniques differed in their effects, and whether individual differences moderated response.
Methods
A total of 1,211 adults were randomized to four weeks of app-guided loving-kindness, mantra, body scan, or nondual meditation, or to a classical-music active control. Self-report (well-being, mood, self-transcendence, nondual awareness, interoception, compassion), cognitive (Stroop, N-back), and physiological (electroencephalography (EEG), heart rate variability (HRV), heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEP)) outcomes were assessed before and after the intervention and analyzed with linear mixed models and false-discovery-rate correction.
Results
No preregistered meditation-versus-control outcome survived FDR correction, and Bayes factors additionally favored the null for the temporal EEG measures. None of the four preregistered technique-specific hypotheses was supported. Two self-report outcomes showed arm differences surviving correction on non-predicted contrasts (self-compassion isolation and sleep quality, both q = 0.050), and mantra participants showed faster working-memory reaction time than body scan participants. The four techniques did not differ from one another. In exploratory moderation analyses, trait neuroticism moderated the meditation effect on working-memory reaction time, with higher-neuroticism participants showing greater benefit in cognitive speed than controls.
Conclusions
Four weeks of app-based meditation was not superior to an active music control across psychological, cognitive, and physiological measures, and no preregistered technique-specific hypothesis was supported. The neuroticism finding is hypothesis-generating and warrants replication. Endpoint data were available for 43% of randomized participants and missingness was non-random, which limits inference.
Wahbeh, H., Taddeo, S., Brinsmead, E. et al. Digital meditation at scale: a randomized citizen science trial comparing four meditation practices. BMC Psychol (2026). Read Paper
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