Two ways of sitting quietly, and what a small trial noticed

Most of us have heard that meditation is “good for you”, usually delivered with a confidence the research doesn’t always earn. So when a new study landed last week that compared two different styles of sitting quietly, we read it slowly. It’s a small trial, and the authors are candid about its limits. That candour is part of why we liked it.

What the researchers did

A team in Spain and France recruited 147 adults and split them into three groups. One group followed a four-week programme of focused-attention meditation, where you rest your attention on a single anchor, like the breath, and gently return to it when your mind wanders. Another followed a four-week programme of self-inquiry meditation, which is more about turning toward the question of who is doing the noticing. A third group simply waited, with no programme, as a comparison.

Both meditation programmes had the same shape: five hour-long online group sessions across the month, plus about twenty minutes of daily practice on five days a week. Everyone answered questionnaires before and again within a week of the programmes ending. People who were experienced meditators, who had a prior psychiatric diagnosis, or who were taking psychiatric medication were not included.

What they found

Compared with the waiting group, both meditation groups reported lower low-mood scores and a smaller sense of feeling threatened in their sense of self, with moderate effect sizes. They also reported more of what the researchers call decentering, which is a plain idea: being able to see a thought as a thought, rather than as a fact you’re stuck inside. The two meditation styles did not reliably differ from each other on those main measures.

Where the two styles differed was in the exploratory, “how might this work?” part of the analysis. In the focused-attention group, the shift toward decentering appeared to account for the drop in low-mood scores. In the self-inquiry group, none of the processes the team measured explained it, but this group alone reported feeling more connected to humanity and to nature. The authors themselves describe those mechanism findings as needing cautious interpretation, and we’d echo that.

The honest part

This is the section we care about most, because the limits here are real and the authors name them.

The comparison group knew it wasn’t getting a programme, and everything was self-reported, so expectation can shape answers. Participants’ scores started out low, within the everyday range, so this tells us little about anyone who is having a hard time. One instructor, who was also the first author, ran both programmes. Noticeably more people dropped out of the waiting group than the meditation groups. The study wasn’t pre-registered, there was no long-term follow-up, and most participants were women who had volunteered for a meditation study and may have been especially receptive.

We should also say that we’ve read the study through a news write-up rather than the full paper, so if you’re thinking of leaning on any of these details, the paper is the place to check.

So: a promising signal in a small group of curious volunteers, over four weeks. Not a rule, and certainly not a prescription.

Nagi’s take

What stayed with us isn’t a score. It’s the quiet idea underneath both styles: that there’s a small gap between having a feeling and being swept along by it, and that people can get a little more familiar with that gap simply by paying gentle attention.

You don’t need twenty minutes a day or an online group to begin noticing. Plenty of people find the smallest versions are the ones they actually keep: a pause with a cup of tea, a moment by a window, a few unhurried breaths before opening the laptop. None of it needs to be done “right”.

That’s the spirit of the four-tap check-in in Nagi: mood, sleep, energy, done in a few seconds. It isn’t meditation, and it isn’t a treatment of anything. It’s a small, private way of asking “how am I, today?” and writing down the answer. Over a few weeks, some people find it easier to see which days felt heavier and which felt lighter, and what tended to sit alongside them. Nagi can’t promise to change how you feel. It’s a calm space that’s just yours, with no name and no email, and the record stays in your own words.

A grounded close

If a practice like this appeals to you, it’s fine to start small and to stop if it doesn’t suit you. And if you’re finding things heavy at the moment, a quiet minute is not meant to be the whole answer. Please talk to someone you trust, your GP, or a professional who can support you properly.

Be gentle with yourself today. Noticing is a perfectly good place to start.

If you want a private place to start noticing your own patterns, Nagi is on Google Play and the App Store — or in your browser at app.nagiandme.app. The first 15 messages are free. No name, no email. Just you, checking in.

— The Nagi team

Source: Stinus, C., & Berjot, S. (2026). Preventing Depression through Selflessness: Effects and Mechanisms of Attentional vs. Deconstructive Meditation in a Three-Arm Randomized Controlled Trial. Mindfulness. DOI: 10.1007/s12671-026-02817-7. Reported by PsyPost, 17 October 2026. We read the PsyPost report only, not the full paper.

Nagi & Me is a mental health companion app, not a medical device, and nothing here is medical advice. If you’re struggling, please reach out to a professional or someone you trust.