The Science

Can meditation lower your stress? Your own data beats the headlines

Mindfulness programs reliably reduce stress in trials, by a moderate amount. Here is how to check whether that holds for your days.

By The Solvance TeamEditorial2 min read

The short version

  • For healthy adults, mindfulness-based stress reduction lowers reported stress by a moderate amount, with a wide spread between studies.
  • Effects are more modest when meditation is compared with other active approaches.
  • Stress is the one measure where a higher score is worse, so tell your tracker which way is better.
  • In Solvance, a Stress slider marked − lets Insights compare your days with and without a session.

"Meditation reduces stress" is the claim behind most meditation apps. It's broadly supported, but the size of the effect varies a lot by person, practice and life circumstances. The useful question isn't whether it works on average, but whether it works for you, and when.

What the research shows

Khoury and colleagues pooled the trials of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in healthy adults. The program was moderately effective at reducing stress, anxiety, low mood and distress, and improved quality of life, though results varied a lot from study to study.

The broader JAMA Internal Medicine review by Goyal and colleagues adds a note of caution: meditation programs improved anxiety by a small to moderate amount, and the evidence for stress and well-being specifically was weaker. Against other active approaches, such as exercise, meditation did about as well, not better.

Run the experiment in Solvance

  1. New accounts already have a Stress slider, with a − sign (higher is harder), so Insights reads a lower score as the better day. If yours doesn't, add one in Settings → Tags & sliders and set its sign to −.
  2. Each evening, rate the day's stress in the Daily Log. On rough days you can also tick the Stressed Day tag.
  3. After two or three weeks, open Insights → Meditation & your day. Your Daily Log sliders over time compares stress on meditation days and rest days. How your sessions carry into your day shows whether calm sessions go with calmer days.

The days that matter most

A useful variation: commit to a short session on your most stressful days, the ones you'd usually skip. Those are the days a practice is supposed to help, and the comparison will tell you whether it does. See why to meditate on the days you least want to.

Every comparison is labelled Early sign, Taking shape or Clear pattern. What the labels mean. And if stress or anxiety is overwhelming, talk to a doctor or a mental health professional.

Put it into practice

Check whether meditation lowers your stress. A new account gets 14 days of Advance, with every Insights comparison, and no card.

Start free · 14 days of the full plan, no credit card

Sources & further reading

  1. Khoury B, et al. Mindfulness-based stress reduction for healthy individuals: a meta-analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 2015.
  2. Goyal M, et al. Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine, 2014.
  3. Solvance help: Does meditation lower my stress?

This article is for education and general wellbeing, not medical advice. If you're dealing with a health condition, talk with a qualified professional before changing your care. Techniques and trademarks named here belong to their creators; Solvance isn't affiliated with or endorsed by the authors or organizations mentioned.

Keep reading

The Science6 min read

Why writing after you meditate helps: the expressive-writing research

Forty years of research on putting experience into words: what it found, how big the effects are, and how to borrow the useful part in two minutes.

The Science5 min read

How much meditation is enough? What the trials actually used

The eight-week programs behind most of the research asked for a lot of practice. Here's what people actually did and what it means for your own session.