Can a short mindfulness app course reduce stress and irritability?

1 peer-reviewed source, DOI-verifiedUpdated Oct 1, 2026How we verify

Mindfulness apps are everywhere, but do short app-based programs work? This randomized trial compared a brief mindfulness course with a carefully matched “placebo” control.

The study at a glance
Study type	Randomized controlled trial
Who took part	Healthy adults new to meditation
What was compared	An introductory mindfulness program vs. a psychoeducational audiobook about mindfulness, both delivered in the same app
Published	Mindfulness, 2018
Free to read	Full text on PubMed Central
Licence	Open access, Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)

What the researchers did

Both programs were matched on many features and presented as wellbeing programs. Mood, irritability and two kinds of stress were measured before and after.

What they found

Both programs reduced stress linked to personal vulnerability.
Only the mindfulness program improved irritability, mood and stress from external pressure, with medium effects (d ≈ 0.45).

What this doesn’t prove

All four authors were affiliated with Headspace, the company that makes the app used in the study.
It measured short-term effects in healthy adults.
The sample size isn’t stated in the abstract, so we don’t report one.

How to use this

Brief, regular practice is what was tested. Try a few minutes of mindful slow breathing daily with our Breathing Regulator.

RCT

Novice meditators using a brief app-based mindfulness program improved in irritability, affect and stress from external pressure compared with an educational audiobook control (d ≈ 0.45).

Economides M, et al. (2018). Improvements in Stress, Affect, and Irritability Following Brief Use of a Mindfulness-based Smartphone App: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Mindfulness. DOI PubMed Free full text Open access · CC BY ✓ Verified via Crossref · Oct 26, 2026

Summary written by EasyBreezyMind in our own words. Original article: Economides M, et al. (2018). Improvements in Stress, Affect, and Irritability Following Brief Use of a Mindfulness-based Smartphone App: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Mindfulness. doi:10.1007/s12671-018-0905-4. © The authors. Published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This summary is educational and is not endorsed by the authors.