Research paper · RP52

The Mindfulness App Plateau

Mindfulness apps sell an eight-week story. This paper asks what is left of that story at three and six months. A PRISMA-2020 systematic review of randomised and controlled trials (2012–2026) found too few comparable wait-list trials sharing the same outcome at the same horizon to justify a pooled Hedges g; the durability number is therefore a decay ratio, not a single pooled effect. In the three wait-list trials that measured both post-programme stress or distress and a three-to-four-month follow-up, decay ratios were 0.62, 0.84 and 0.94 (unweighted mean 0.80; sample-size-weighted mean 0.76). About three-quarters to four-fifths of the immediate effect was still visible. The largest employee trial (n = 1,458) moved from d = 0.85 at eight weeks to d = 0.71 at four months from randomisation. A four-week wellbeing app in school employees retained 62 per cent of its distress effect three months after the programme ended (d = 0.33). Two app-only trials in public-sector and general-population adults found no change in perceived stress at three or six months. Six-month app-only evidence is too thin and too mixed to pool. Continued use during the programme tracks larger gains; use collapses for most people once the structured weeks end. Certainty of evidence is low for three-to-four-month stress and very low for six-month stress and for wellbeing. No eligible mindfulness-app randomised trial with a three-to-six-month follow-up has been run in Indian working adults. For an Indian workplace programme the practical reading is blunt: an eight-week download is a seed, not a harvest. Daily reps after week eight are the root system.