Time of Day Preferences and Daily Temporal Consistency for Predicting the Sustained Use of a Commercial Meditation App: Longitudinal Observational Study.
Vincent Berardi, Rylan Fowers, Gavriella Rubin, Chad Stecher
Journal of Medical Internet Research April 10, 2023 DOI: 10.2196/42482 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational longitudinal study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 14,879 |
| Population | Users of a commercial meditation app who created an account |
| Duration | First 180 days after account creation; short-term engagement measured in months six and seven |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Advice App usage Behavioral habits Circadian rhythm Habit formation Health app Healthy life style Longitudinal Meditation app Mental health Mental well being Mindfulness meditation Mobile health Morning Observational Physical activity Temporal analysis Wellbeing |
| Key findings | Morning meditation was associated with better maintenance of app-based meditation practice, with a greater proportion of morning sessions predicting more sessions in months six and seven (B=2.76) and longer use (B=50.6), while late-night meditation predicted the opposite. Greater temporal consistency in morning sessions was associated with better short-term engagement (B=-1.64) but worse long-term use (B=55.8), suggesting flexibility in timing may support persistence. |
Abstract
The intensive data typically collected by mobile health (mHealth) apps allows factors associated with persistent use to be investigated, which is an important objective given users' well-known struggles with sustaining healthy behavior. Data from a commercial meditation app (n=14,879; 899,071 total app uses) were analyzed to assess the validity of commonly given habit formation advice to meditate at the same time every day, preferably in the morning. First, the change in probability of meditating in 4 nonoverlapping time windows (morning, midday, evening, and late night) on a given day over the first 180 days after creating a meditation app account was calculated via generalized additive mixed models. Second, users' time of day preferences were calculated as the percentage of all meditation sessions that occurred within each of the 4 time windows. Additionally, the temporal consistency of daily meditation behavior was calculated as the entropy of the timing of app usage sessions. Linear regression was used to examine the effect of time of day preference and temporal consistency on two outcomes: (1) short-term engagement, defined as the number of meditation sessions completed within the sixth and seventh month of a user's account, and (2) long-term use, defined as the days until a user's last observed meditation session. Large reductions in the probability of meditation at any time of day were seen over the first 180 days after creating an account, but this effect was smallest for morning meditation sessions (63.4% reduction vs reductions ranging from 67.8% to 74.5% for other times). A greater proportion of meditation in the morning was also significantly associated with better short-term engagement (regression coefficient B=2.76, P<.001) and long-term use (B=50.6, P<.001). The opposite was true for late-night meditation sessions (short-term: B=-2.06, P<.001; long-term: B=-51.7, P=.001). Significant relationships were not found for midday sessions (any outcome) or for evening sessions when examining long-term use. Additionally, temporal consistency in the performance of morning meditation sessions was associated with better short-term engagement (B=-1.64, P<.001) but worse long-term use (B=55.8, P<.001). Similar-sized temporal consistency effects were found for all other time windows. Meditating in the morning was associated with higher rates of maintaining a meditation practice with the app. This is consistent with findings from other studies that have hypothesized that the strength of existing morning routines and circadian rhythms may make the morning an ideal time to build new habits. In the long term, less temporal consistency in meditation sessions was associated with more persistent app use, suggesting there are benefits from maintaining flexibility in behavior performance. These findings improve our understanding of how to promote enduring healthy lifestyles and can inform the design of mHealth strategies for maintaining behavior changes.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness Undergraduate students | 2006 | Observational cohort | |
| Effectiveness of a meditation-based stress reduction program in the treatment of anxiety disorders Patients with generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder with or without agoraphobia | 1992 | Observational cohort | n = 22 |
| Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness Participants with extensive Insight meditation experience and matched controls | 2005 | Observational cohort | n = 20 |
| Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity Experienced meditators and matched meditation-naive controls | 2011 | Observational cohort | |
| Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice Long-term Buddhist practitioners and controls | 2004 | Observational cohort |
Citations in the library
Cited by 5
- Developing and evaluating a Portuguese-language meditation App for medical students: motivation, adherence, and emotional effects. Frontiers in Psychology 2025
- Identifying Common Patterns in the Time of Day of Mindfulness Meditation Associated with Long-Term Maintenance. Behavioral Sciences March 18, 2025
- What predicts meditation app engagement? an evaluation of user characteristics and motivation. Psychology and Health April 7, 2026
- Sitting and Active Meditation Practice: Utilization and Associations with Outcomes in Naturalistic and Clinical Trial Data. Mindfulness March 9, 2026
- Enhancing Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in a Virtual Reality: A Prospective Interventional Study. Scientific Reports September 9, 2025
Cites 7
- A mindfulness meditation mobile app improves depression and anxiety in adults with sleep disturbance: Analysis from a randomized controlled trial General Hospital Psychiatry September 11, 2021
- A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation as Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Veterans. Journal of Traumatic Stress February 1, 2022
- The efficacy of mindfulness meditation apps in enhancing users' well-being and mental health related outcomes: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Affective Disorders October 7, 2020
- The Effect of Mindfulness Interventions for Parents on Parenting Stress and Youth Psychological Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Frontiers in Psychology June 6, 2019
- Exploration of psychological mechanisms of the reduced stress response in long-term meditation practitioners. Psychoneuroendocrinology February 26, 2019
and 2 more in the library