Feeling worse while learning to meditate with an app: how common it is, and what it may mean

Among stressed adults learning to meditate with an app, roughly one in ten to one in four said they had a difficult or distressing experience they put down to meditation; a few per cent said it affected their day, usually for a day or less. People who were more anxious, low or lonely before they started reported more of these experiences — and in an exploratory check, people who barely meditated reported them about as often.

What they found

The team analysed two trials of the Healthy Minds Program, a meditation app with short guided practices and podcast-style lessons. In study 1 (315 US students, two weeks), 27.9 % reported at least one difficult experience attributed to meditation and 6.7 % reported some impairment in functioning. In study 2 (396 adults from across the US, four weeks, pre-registered), the figures were 10.1 % and 3 %. The gap may partly be due to wording: in study 2 the question was changed to capture only clearly negative experiences, not "challenging" ones.

Higher anxiety, low mood, loneliness, a habit of avoiding unpleasant inner experiences, and seeing more barriers to meditating all predicted more reports. About 90 % of those who had a difficult experience still said they were glad they had learned to meditate.

How much to trust this

Evidence: Moderate evidence — for how common these reports are, in this kind of programme. Two samples, one pre-registered, with consistent predictors.

The weaker part is the cause. Neither trial had a group that did not meditate. The "barely meditated" comparison was exploratory, not pre-registered, and based on just 47 people (31 who did only a five-minute introduction and 16 who only listened to the lessons). Everything was self-reported. The amount of practice was small (on average about 3.8 hours in study 1 and 1.3 hours in study 2), so the results say nothing about retreats or intensive courses. Some people dropped out (10 % and 25 %); if every one of them had had a difficult experience, the rates would be about one in three.

Funding was public (US National Institutes of Health) plus a foundation. One senior author founded and leads a nonprofit listed among the author affiliations; another co-founded a digital company.

What this means for you

Unpleasant moments while learning a calm-down practice are common and usually pass. They are information, not proof you are doing it wrong — or that the practice is dangerous for you. A few adjustments help:

• Keep your eyes open and your attention outward if closing your eyes or focusing on your breath makes things louder. Grounding and 5-4-3-2-1, slowly are built for exactly this.
• Shorten, do not push. Two calm minutes beat twenty tense ones. If a wave of discomfort comes, let it pass without fighting it: Riding the wave.
• Stop if you feel unreal or detached for long periods, if old painful memories keep flooding in, or if your mood drops and stays down for days — and talk to a licensed mental health professional.

What this does NOT mean

• It does not prove meditation never causes harm: the study could not test that properly.
• It does not mean people who feel worse "brought it on themselves" — prior distress is a risk factor, not a fault.
• It does not apply to intensive practice: doses here were small.
• It does not mean that apps are harmless for everyone: study 2, for example, excluded people with a history of psychosis or mania.

Source

Beloborodova P, Smith LM, Riordan KM, et al. Prevalence and Predictors of Self-Reported Adverse Experiences in Digital Meditation Training: 2 Randomized Controlled Trials. JMIR Mental Health, 2026 (online 12 June 2026). DOI: 10.2196/90602 · PMID 42284591 · Open access: PMC13263023.