Meditation apps say “science-backed” and stop there. This is the whole list: 20 techniques, what the research actually supports for each one, and every paper we relied on. Nothing hidden behind a signup.
Three levels. Strong means randomized trials or a meta-analysis support the specific effect we are claiming. Moderate means the evidence is real but thinner: smaller samples, fewer replications, or a systematic review rather than a trial of the exact protocol. Emerging means promising and not yet settled. Where our only source is a book rather than a trial, it cannot be Strong, however established the practice is.
This is our reading of the literature, not a formal systematic review, and we are not a research group. The papers are linked so you can disagree with us.
A scale where nothing ever scores lowest is a fair thing to be suspicious of. The reason is that Emerging techniques did not make it into the app. The grade exists so we have somewhere to put a practice that looks promising, and so far anything landing there has stayed out of the library rather than shipping with an asterisk.
We have also removed one. The physiological sigh was retired once cyclic sighing covered the same mechanism with better evidence behind it. Techniques leave this list as well as joining it.
A Strong grade means the technique holds up in research. It does not mean it will work for you on a Tuesday. Individual response varies enough that we built the whole app around asking you afterwards, rather than assuming the literature settles it.
Most of these studies also test the technique on its own, in a lab, over weeks. Shora sequences two or three of them into a session of a few minutes. That is a reasonable extrapolation and it is still an extrapolation.
Strongest evidence first.
The papers belong to the people who wrote them. If you are building something, writing something, or just deciding whether any of this is real, take the table. A link back is welcome and not required.
Think we graded one wrong? Tell us and we will change it here. Related: how a session gets built, the sessions these are sequenced into, and where the AI actually is.
