Daily Stress and Heart Rate Variability Among Mindfulness Meditation Practitioners: An mHealth Observational Study

An observational study using smartwatches and smartphone surveys tracked 90 people for three weeks: 19 regular meditators, 32 recreational runners, and 39 controls with no regular exercise or meditation. Although meditators reported lower stress than controls on questionnaires, their overall heart rate variability (HRV) in daily life was not higher. However, during actual meditation sessions, HRV increased by about 4.7 milliseconds, and this effect lasted at least 30 minutes afterward. In contrast, runners showed both lower stress and higher daily HRV than controls. Across all groups, higher momentary stress was linked to a small concurrent drop in HRV. The findings suggest meditation may offer a way to temporarily boost HRV, which could contribute to stress reduction, but more controlled research is needed.

Study at a glance

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Mindfulness meditation has been reported to reduce stress and enhance well-being. However, its effects on heart rate variability (HRV)-a physiological marker of stress-remain underexplored. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to examine how meditation practice is associated with subjective stress, HRV, and their interaction, using mobile health technologies. METHODS: This 3-week observational study included 90 participants-19 meditation practitioners (meditation group), 32 recreational runners as an active control group characterized by lower stress and higher HRV (running group), and 39 individuals without regular meditation or exercise habits (control group). HRV was continuously recorded using Garmin smartwatches. Subjective stress levels and activity states were assessed 3 times daily through a smartphone-based experience sampling method, yielding a total of 4557 responses (mean 50.6, SD 22.8 per participant). From the meditation group, start and end times of 632 daily meditation sessions (mean 33.3, SD 18.3 per participant) were also collected via the app. Standardized questionnaires on stress and related measures were administered at the end of the study period. RESULTS: The questionnaire survey confirmed that stress levels were significantly lower in both the meditation and running groups compared with controls (median Perceived Stress Scale scores: meditation 21, IQR 17-24; running 22, IQR 19-25; control 25, IQR 21-30; Kruskal-Wallis P=.02; adjusted Wilcoxon P=.05 and .04, respectively). Smartwatch-derived HRV (root-mean-square of successive differences [RMSSD]) was elevated in the running group relative to controls (median 47.0, IQR 44.0-54.2 and median 42.0, IQR 34.2-47.8, respectively; P<.001), whereas no significant difference was observed between the meditation and control groups (median 40.8, IQR 35.5-44.4 and median 42.0, IQR 34.2-47.8, respectively). Bayesian analysis of the experience sampling method data indicated that higher subjective stress levels were associated with a concurrent RMSSD reduction of -2.24 (95% credible interval -3.97 to -0.26) milliseconds. Although this pattern was consistent across groups, the steeper decline of -3.94 (95% CI -7.04 to -0.74) milliseconds was observed only in the running group, likely reflecting their elevated baseline HRV. Additionally, Bayesian modeling of 632 logged meditation sessions revealed an acute RMSSD increase of +4.68 (95% CI 2.96 to 6.38) milliseconds during meditation, with effects maintained for at least 30 minutes post practice. CONCLUSIONS: Although HRV among meditation practitioners did not appear elevated in overall daily life, the ability to increase HRV at arbitrary timings, along with the prolonged residual effect, may correlate with stress reduction. This hypothesis requires further exploration with adequate controls. Despite the preliminary nature of this study due to its limited sample size, our findings highlight the potential of mobile health-based methodologies to capture stress and HRV dynamics in real-world settings.