7 Ways to Get Started in Meditation (That Do and Don’t Use Gamification)

Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou

Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.

Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.

His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.

TEDxLausanne · Gamification to Improve Our World17 min

Using Gamification to Get People Into Meditation and Mindfulness

The meditation app market crossed $2.2 billion in 2025, and apps like Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer all use streaks, badges, and progress tracking to keep users coming back. But does gamification actually help people meditate, or does it turn a contemplative practice into another dopamine-chasing habit?

That tension sits at the heart of this question.

Making space for a meditation practice is as difficult as it is to make a space for anything in our lives.

If something isn’t valued, it isn’t prioritized. There’s a LOT of word-of-mouth and marketing dollars behind spreading meditation practice.

There’s one interesting part about meditation that makes it similar to relationships and careers: there are no instant results.

In the case of meditation and mindfulness, rewards (if you get any at all) aren’t reaped until one goes further along in the practice.

The argument, then, could be to use gamification and human-focused design to build a habit of meditation and mindfulness so as to progress further along.

If one doesn’t build the habit, then one can’t experience the benefits (see #5 for an alternative approach to meditation practice).

There are many types of meditation practice, and this article will not go into each. It will simply be a brief commentary on some apps and resources I’ve found as I begin to explore.

I will lightly mention the Game Techniques and the 8 Core Drives of Octalysis.

7. How to Meditate (on YouTube)

There are many ways to get started, but YouTube might be one of the easiest.

The above video gives a Head Start with clear explanations from an at-the-time 300-day 1-hour meditation “streak.”

In presenting benefits, the video describes

• productivity
• creativity
• calm
• …and even enlightenment

In acknowledging there are many reasons one might arrive at a first meditation practice, the presenter himself shows recognition of our Core Drives, from Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling through to Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment.

6. Spotify Guided Meditations

If you already use Spotify, heading over to their guided meditation channel may be a useful way to incorporate guided meditations into your daily routine.

I like the idea of guided meditations for their Head Start quality. This plays to my desire to try new things quickly (an impatience I might stem from doing more meditation practice).

It also serves as a Mentor, though less aware of who you are exactly as the listener than a meditation teacher might be.

With time, I would like to improve to the point where I do my own meditation. I’m leaning towards the “simple” Vipassana meditation practice.

5. Alan Watts (the Art of Meditation)

Alan Watts was a popularizer of eastern philosophy in the 1960s and 70s.

The above video itself is not a guided meditation, but rather a primer on what meditation is for Alan Watts.

While many modern meditation apps relay the numerous benefits of a meditation practice and mindfulness routine, Alan Watts suggests these goals are contrary to the experience of meditation itself.

Instead, like music or dance or even writing, meditation is done for its own sake.

Meditation is how we come to feel our basic inseparability between ourselves and the entire universe.

In a sense, Alan is appealing to an epic meaning and calling, with that epic meaning existing only in the doing of the activity itself.

Meditation is grooving with the eternal now, a state of peace where we can understand that the point of life, the place where it’s at, is simply here and now.

4. Headspace

Andy Puddicombe is the voice for Headspace and he gave this TED talk about his experiences.

In his early twenties, midway through a university degree in Sports Science, Andy made the unexpected decision to travel to the Himalayas to study meditation instead.

It was the beginning of a ten-year journey which took him around the world, culminating with ordination as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Northern India.

His transition back to lay life in 2004 was no less extraordinary. Training briefly at Moscow State Circus, he returned to London where he completed a degree in Circus Arts with the Conservatoire of Dance and Drama, whilst drawing up the early plans for what was later to become Headspace.

There are a lot of stories like Andy’s.

People learn the ancient wisdom around meditation and aim to apply it in our busy, addiction-laden world.

Headspace has been downloaded over 70 million times and recorded 168 million meditation sessions in 2025 alone. Its 10-minute-a-day guided sessions use Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment streaks and milestones to keep meditators coming back, while its playful animations create an inviting Head Start for newcomers.

3. Sam Harris and the Waking Up App

Sam spent time with a meditation teacher and several years of his life studying the practice. He now runs the Waking Up app, named a 2025 NYT Wirecutter Pick for meditation apps.

You can also see a 9-minute guided mindfulness meditation on YouTube here.

What sets Waking Up apart from most meditation apps is its deliberate restraint with gamification. There are no streak counters, no badges, no leaderboards. Sam’s approach leans on Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling and Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity instead, inviting users to explore consciousness itself rather than chase external markers of progress.

Sam reminds us that how we think influences our experience:

Although the insights we can have in meditation tell us nothing about the origins of the universe, they do confirm some well-established truths about the human mind: Our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world.

He also reminds us of pitfalls in the idea of one’s approach to meditation. Your initial intentions matter:

The ultimate wisdom of enlightenment, whatever it is, cannot be a matter of having fleeting experiences. The goal of meditation is to uncover a form of well-being that is inherent to the nature of our minds. It must, therefore, be available in the context of ordinary sights, sounds, sensations, and even thoughts. Peak experiences are fine, but real freedom must be coincident with normal waking life.

2. Audible Guided Meditations

Audible offers a growing library of guided meditation content included with your subscription.

In my practice of digital minimalism, I started following meditation channels on Audible as a Moat to protect against needless browsing. When the urge hits to scroll through social media feeds, having a meditation session queued up creates a barrier, a Game Technique that redirects the impulse toward something constructive.

It’s a way to call myself out and stay accountable in the moment of straying from focus (or indulging in too much addictive scrolling).

Instead of scrolling for new story experiences, why not let my mind rest (or work out) with a guided meditation?

1. No gamification needed

Sometimes you don’t need gamification…

We’ve been running and meditating for thousands of years. Just do.

Here’s a conversation on Reddit to give you permission not to use a gamified experience. Sometimes permission from a stranger is all you need:

I’ve been using a meditation app for over a year now…I am starting to question the practice of tracking my meditations, specifically the track record feature of apps like Headspace and Calm that record how often and how long you meditate.

I often find myself checking my stats immediately after completing a meditation and I find myself drawn to meditate using a specific app in order to keep the stats growing. This seems contrary to everything that I am trying to cultivate through my practice.

Has anyone else experienced this? How do you reconcile it?

This is a textbook example of what happens when Black Hat gamification (Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance, “I can’t break my streak!”) hijacks the original motivation. The stats become the goal instead of the practice.

What followed were two perspectives:

1. Don’t worry about it. But you will probably progress to a place where you no longer need an app to maintain your habit.
2. I credit gamification with helping me break my 15-minute sit limit, so if gamification works, then it works!

Both are valid. The key insight from the Octalysis Framework is this: White Hat gamification (Core Drives 1-3) makes you feel good but creates no urgency, while Black Hat gamification (Core Drives 6-8) creates urgency but can leave you feeling hollow. The best meditation apps use White Hat motivation in the Discovery and Onboarding phases to get you started, then gradually fade the gamification as the intrinsic rewards of the practice take over.

Where are you in your meditation or mindfulness practice?

Do you or have you ever used reminders or apps for meditation or mindfulness?

How did they work for you? Do you still use them? Or was it a case of they got you started, but now you’ve carried on for its own sake?

Let me know all in the comments if you have a moment to share :)

Related Reading

• The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
• What is Gamification?
• When to Use White Hat Gamification Design
• When to Use Black Hat Gamification Design
• Lifestyle Gamification: How to Become Successful Without Looking Impressive
• Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling
• Books by Yu-kai Chou

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