In part 2 of this forward-thinking and grounded conversation, Lindsie sits down with Steve Haberlin to explore how mindfulness and meditation are evolving in the age of AI, virtual reality, and wearable technology. Together, they unpack the difference between mindfulness and meditation, what research says about short practices and the “minimum effective dose,” and why so many people quit meditation apps within the first month. Steve shares fascinating insights into how AI chatbots, hyper-personalized meditation tools, virtual reality environments, and biometric tracking devices may dramatically reduce the learning curve for new meditators. At the same time, they address the real concerns around privacy, safety, over-reliance on technology, and the importance of preserving the human element of traditional practice. If you’ve ever wondered whether meditation apps are enough, how AI might change mental wellness, or how to make mindfulness realistic in a busy life, this episode will expand your perspective while keeping your feet firmly on the ground.
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(0:00 - 0:23) It's no exaggeration that it's radically transforming, whether people realize it, have got that information or not. It's radically changing the landscape of wellness and mindfulness, and it's going to just continue to go in that direction, just like it's doing in every industry, every area of life. Some specific examples are hyper-personalization.
(0:23 - 1:03) They're using AI chatbots now where they can teach meditation, so they can develop a script, they can develop a curriculum, whatever it is, and it seems to be as effective, as far as outcomes, as a human teaching it. I shouldn't say no, but they can collect all the data of the science, of the meditation traditions, the history, the culture, and they can just package this, and then they can deliver it to you. Whereas humans, we just don't have the ability, right? So the big benefits are, you can be anywhere, it could be low or no cost, so there's no geographic boundaries anymore, so there's massive accessibility that's happening.
(1:03 - 1:20) We know the AI can still hallucinate on us and make up stuff. Anything that it can pick up, it'll use that and then be able to adjust your real-time meditation to really dial you in. Realistically, I think it's going to be able to really cut down the learning curve.
(1:20 - 1:40) It's going to shave down the learning curve as far as what works for you and how often, how long you should be able to do it. Hey friends, welcome back to the show. I'm Lindsie, and today we're going to talk about something that comes up in so many of our conversations here, mindfulness and meditation, but with a very 2026 twist.
(1:41 - 2:37) I'm joined by Steve Haberlin, an assistant professor in the College of Community Innovation and Education at the University of Central Florida. His work sits right at the intersection of mindfulness, meditation, and technology, including AI, and he has a new book coming out this spring, Meta Meditation for Mental Health, how neuroscience, virtual reality, and AI are changing practice and how you can benefit. In this episode, we get into the difference between mindfulness and meditation and why people mix them up, what the research actually says about short practices, like a three to five minute reset, the idea of minimum effective dose for meditation and how to make it realistic, why so many people quit apps and what helps people actually stick with it, and the big one, how AI, virtual reality, and wearables may shape the future of mental wellness.
(2:37 - 2:58) Plus the real concerns around privacy, safety, and over-reliance. If you've ever thought, I want to meditate, but I can't do it right, or I don't have time, or even is an app enough? This conversation is going to meet you right where you are. As a reminder, the content shared on PCOS Unfiltered is for informational and educational purposes only.
(2:59 - 3:18) The views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests are not intended to serve as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your diet, exercise, or treatment plan. The information shared is based on personal experience and expert interviews and is not a substitute for professional medical guidance.
(3:19 - 3:56) All right, let's dive in. Here's my conversation with Steve Haberlin. Are there any like apps or any like for anybody that is starting, especially like any apps or maybe YouTube, people on YouTube or something? Yeah, sure. I think guided, any kind of guided meditation is great. If you're first starting out and you want that kind of scaffolding or that support, it's great to, you can have a simple app. There's apps by a lot of renowned, you know, very experienced meditations and teachers and mindfulness teachers like Jon Kabat-Zinn.
(3:56 - 4:12) He's kind of considered the godfather or the, you know, he grandfathered in mindfulness, right, in the United States. You could just find a video where he's leading you through a mindfulness. There's Sharon Salzberg is the expert in loving kindness or you could, you say, I want to learn loving kindness.
(4:12 - 4:27) Well, why not do a guided video, you know, meditation with Sharon Salzberg? It just makes sense. Find the best people and practice with them. The smartphone apps too also now have these guided meditations on them.
(4:27 - 4:52) The popular ones are out there and they will guide you through and they all actually start to track your preferences, your time spent meditating and what kind of music you might like. And now they're using AI to kind of guide those preferences to personalize it more. There was this one, there was this one that I just read about, it's called Ebb for Headspace, now released Ebb, E-B-B, and it's a chatbot.
(4:52 - 5:12) It's an AI chatbot and it's very advanced. And so it goes, it works along with the app where you can interact and talk with it and it will guide you through. And it remembers, kind of like chat GPT, it remembers what you've told it and your information, which some people might not be okay with that for privacy data reasons.
(5:12 - 5:30) But it will guide you through based on, you know, your previous experiences and serve as kind of a meditation coach. So all of that, all of that's becoming available. The interesting thing with the meditation apps though, all of these popular ones, is people don't stick with them.
(5:30 - 6:00) The data shows they last, about 95% of people quit within the first month, which is, right, it's puzzling because they're using, they're gamifying these things. They're using streak, you know, consistency, you know, rewards, and they're using all kinds of gimmicks to try to get you to stick with them. But most people will quit a meditation app, probably because maybe they're not getting enough feedback or they're not part of a community, they're feeling isolated.
(6:00 - 6:13) There's a host of reasons. So that's why you see, like, that's why I brought up this Ebb, because you see this more, I call it precision mindfulness. So it's like hyper-personalized mindfulness meditation instruction.
(6:14 - 6:38) And you see these kind of AI chatbots and avatars now where they're going to take these apps and try to make them more engaging. And they actually did a study. They had someone, something like 4,000 users, and they found that this AI, this Ebb actually increased engagement and people stuck with it longer when they started using this more, you know, souped up version.
(6:38 - 6:45) So that's where it's headed. So apps, yeah, if you can stick with it, that's a great use it. And, you know, I'm not against them.
(6:45 - 6:57) It's just, I don't know. It might be better to connect with a group of people if you could, even virtually, like a support meditation type group. I used to be part of a Zen Buddhist group where we would meet.
(6:57 - 7:18) Even during the pandemic, they met online and they meditate together and then they talk about, you know, different meditation related topics. Something like that would probably, even just a meditation buddy, you know, somebody else that's meditating and then you kind of check in, might help you stick with it. Because the apps right now, it seems kind of hit or miss whether it turns into like a sustained practice.
(7:19 - 7:34) Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that was actually kind of takes me into my next question because you kind of mentioned that maybe a little bit. But, yeah, some of those common barriers, you know, that you're seeing, like you said, you know, 95% of people are quitting, you know, the apps and stuff in the first month.
(7:34 - 8:13) Like, is there something that you've noticed, you know, with your research that kind of can help people actually stick to it longer? Yeah. One recommendation I think is community. So if they build in something where, you know, you start and after the first week you can connect with other users or there's maybe like a virtual workshop where you jump on and then there's other people and there's an instructor and they say, okay, what's been your experience with the guided videos and how that's going? I think a layer of community and just adding humans into the loop would probably help a lot.
(8:15 - 8:35) The example of the AI, I do think the AI personalizing these things probably help. I don't think it's going to completely alleviate the attrition problem, but I do think personalizing it more, which has been the direction, the movement of these major apps will help. Maybe it's not the way to go.
(8:35 - 8:46) If you can go to like a local meditation school, a lot of yoga centers and things will incorporate meditation. You can learn it that way. You could go to some universities now.
(8:47 - 8:58) They'll offer programs for the public or something on how to learn mindfulness meditation. You could take online certification courses for like mindfulness. Maybe that's the entry point that helps you.
(8:59 - 9:24) There was a study at University of Wisconsin, Madison. They found that there was no correlation between apps starting by learning through technology and app and long term practice. What they found, the biggest factor, Lindsie, was that they had an experienced meditation teacher and they had this positive experience or moment.
(9:24 - 9:45) Or they went to like a workshop or retreat where they probably also interacted with other people, had this positive memory or experience, and then that was correlated with long term practice, not learning through an app. I'm not saying that someone can't do it, but it doesn't seem to support that you're going to stick with it for years and years. That was my experience.
(9:46 - 9:50) I learned from 30 years ago. I learned from a person. We had a relationship.
(9:50 - 9:59) It was great. She was super supportive and positive. You go to like a group and they had these potluck dinners and we would meditate and then we'd eat together and talk.
(10:00 - 10:07) I don't know. I can't say empirically. I can't say that's why I stuck with it, but I think that probably did help.
(10:08 - 10:09) Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like it for sure.
(10:11 - 10:25) You mentioned the AI piece. So yeah, let's kind of dive deeper into that. What else are you seeing with AI and how it's changing the landscape of even just wellness in general? And the whole wellness industry.
(10:25 - 10:44) Yeah. It's no exaggeration that it's radically transforming, whether people realize it, have got that information or not. It's radically changing the landscape of wellness and mindfulness and it's going to just continue to go in that direction, just like it's doing in every industry, every area of life.
(10:44 - 10:55) Some specific examples are hyper-personalization. They're using AI chatbots now where they can teach meditation. So they can develop a script.
(10:55 - 11:12) They can develop a curriculum, whatever it is, and it seems to be as effective as far as outcomes as a human teaching it. And a strange thing is people can't even decipher the voice. The voice is so good that people can't even tell.
(11:12 - 11:23) Maybe that's not a human voice. They kind of get that mixed up. So you have this AI meditation teacher that's able to go in and has all of this.
(11:23 - 11:38) So if it's a large language model, they have all of this data. I mean, they know. I shouldn't say no, but they can collect all the data of the science, of the meditation traditions, the history, the culture, and they can just package this.
(11:38 - 12:07) And then they can deliver it to you, where a human, we just don't have the ability, right, to pull in all that wisdom tradition and just deliver it and package it. So it's able to do that. It's able to, as far as this applies to wellness too, it's able to guide people through, interact, have them share their experience and serve as like a counselor, serve as like a mental wellness coach and check in with them and provide guidance and follow up and do all these things.
(12:08 - 12:14) In real time. So the big benefits are you can be anywhere. It could be low or no cost.
(12:15 - 12:22) So there's no geographic boundaries anymore. You don't have to drive to it. You don't even have to jump online with a therapist.
(12:22 - 12:31) If you feel like, you know, maybe a stigma or privacy issues, you can use an AI chatbot. So there's massive accessibility that's happening. That's one of the big things.
(12:31 - 12:42) I don't know if people realize that there's people that just never could access mental health interventions or treatments that can now do it all over the world. Here's the caveat. Here's the big aspect.
(12:44 - 12:58) It's not a perfect system. There's definitely things to be concerned about and watch. They don't always pick up if there is some kind of threat of suicide or real extreme mental health danger or issues.
(12:58 - 13:10) It doesn't always pick those things up. We know the AI can still hallucinate on us and make up stuff. We know that the AI can be optimistic and just kind of please.
(13:10 - 13:22) It wants to please you. And when you put that in a mental health situation where someone really – they need to know the facts, right, not just be kind of enabled. So it can enable maybe some behaviors or some thinking.
(13:23 - 13:38) People have this – there's like a parasocial kind of effect too where you start thinking it's a real person. And you can connect to this thing and isolate yourself maybe from real human beings. So there's a lot of safeguards that need to be put in place.
(13:38 - 13:56) And I think there's a lot of gray areas that researchers haven't mapped out and these developers are still working on. And we even mentioned privacy, right, data being collected. And a lot of these big app companies promise you they're not selling your data and sharing it.
(13:56 - 14:04) That has happened. There has been instances of that and there's been some changes in policy, federal policy. But that could still happen.
(14:05 - 14:19) We're assured, but I don't know. People are still probably hesitant to share maybe their personal feelings or something. So on one hand, you've got this amazing possibility of accessible, real-time, hyper-personalized type wellness and mindfulness type interventions.
(14:20 - 14:27) And then you have all these things, all these possible negatives too, right. And it's like anything. There's potential and there's risk.
(14:28 - 14:42) Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, even looking forward to maybe like the next five years or so, like how, you know, how do you see this progressing and evolving and even just even new things that we're maybe thinking of? Yeah.
(14:44 - 14:53) Yeah. I think what's happening with AI, it's just going to be infused. It's being infused into the existing mechanisms or devices or apps we already have.
(14:53 - 15:15) So you see with Headspace, Calm app has also used AI and incorporated that. So I think you're going to – as far as mindfulness applications, it's going to be infused into the existing ones to hyper-personalize them and to make them maybe more effective or efficient. There's the – we talked about just the VR.
(15:16 - 15:41) So you already have virtual reality, but you have an application like Trip, T-R-I-P-P, two P's, where it has mindfulness and breathwork type techniques. But then they introduced maybe a year or two ago a feature called Kokua, an AI avatar where you can go in and have real-time sessions and it talks with you and it guides you through different techniques based on where you're at. And you can ask it questions.
(15:42 - 16:11) So that's the direction is where AI is being infused into existing applications to just kind of supercharge them, to super-personalize them in real time. I'm not saying to replace a meditation teacher or instructor, but it's doing things that we can't necessarily do or that quickly. And another component is – and I see this coming where it's going to connect to wearables.
(16:12 - 16:37) So it will be able – I don't think this is an exaggeration because you see a little bit in prototypes where it will be able to attract – to keep track of or detect your real-time biometrics. So what I mean is we're talking about brainwave activity. So we already have these – like Muse is a neuro-brainwave meditation device, and they already have an AI application they're working on.
(16:38 - 17:04) It will be able to detect a brainwave, the AI, and then adjust your instruction in real time based on the brainwave. HRV, heart rate variability, maybe changes in the breath, even maybe changes in the skin, in eye movement, anything that it can pick up. It will use that and then be able to adjust your real-time meditation to really dial you in.
(17:05 - 17:20) That note – I mean a person can't do that. People will – they don't like that. They don't like that AI is becoming a meditation teacher per se because they'll say, well, this person imparts the tradition and there's that presence and that human aspect, which is true.
(17:20 - 17:41) I absolutely agree. But a human can't sit there and pick up your biometrics, right? Unless they had some kind of device and they're reading it. In real time, in super fast speed, be able to adjust and give you direction and guidance and then also map out your future meditation sessions based on this previous data.
(17:41 - 17:52) It just can't do that. So I see – I don't know how many years, Lindsay, that's going to be. But that's – I mean there's already things in the works like that that are coming – that they're just not on the market yet.
(17:52 - 18:12) But I don't – I think it's within a few years they're going to be able to really have a super dialed-in meditation type devices that just – boom. They just zero you in based on science, not based on so much subjective experience anymore. Yeah, and I don't know how much you know about this piece.
(18:13 - 18:21) But you mentioned all the biometrics and stuff. I know like I have an Apple Watch and I wear it at night. I know that can be good and bad to that too.
(18:22 - 18:47) But it does like check my temperature at night, my HRV, all that stuff. I'm sure – and I feel like it's just advanced even more. But especially for the women listening, I feel like that's super important with our cycles too and how mindfulness then and meditation can play a role with what we're – with what's going on with our cycle at different times of the month as well.
(18:48 - 19:08) Yeah, it will be able to even – what is it? Aura, the ring? Is that what you would – the aura? It will be able to – I don't know about the watch, but it gets a lot of them. Yeah, it will be able to sync up with the sleep data and then it could even say you wake up in the morning and you're going to meditate. It could be like, okay, based on last night's sleep data, we're going to do this, right, to kind of get you back up to par.
(19:08 - 19:25) I don't think that's – that's not science fiction to me. It's very possible to link up those things and then have AI kind of be the orchestrator or director of what to do with that data as you learn a practice. The other part of it we didn't – I didn't really mention was it could speed up instruction.
(19:25 - 19:41) So someone – we were talking about like what do you start with, what do you resonate with for a mindfulness method. Realistically, I think it's going to be able to really cut down the learning curve. It's going to shave down the learning curve as far as what works for you and how often, how long you should be able to do it.
(19:41 - 19:49) It will be able to also dial those things in. So speed up instruction I think will be another thing we'll see. Yeah, yeah.
(19:50 - 20:00) So you have a book coming out. Yes. So what does your new book, Meta Meditation, cover and teach readers? Yeah.
(20:00 - 20:54) So it's Meta Meditation, how neuroscience, virtual reality and AI are changing practice and how you can benefit. So it doesn't – it doesn't – it does have a chapter on AI and does address AI but it also kind of backtracks to – it's really what we call digital mindfulness or these digital tools and how they've – what we talked about radically changed meditation and mindfulness practice, how they're transforming them and then how do you navigate this fast-moving target? How do you even benefit? So it goes into neuroscience, how neuroscience has really advanced to the point where we know – we can peek under the hood so to speak with the brain. We know exactly what's happening or pretty much we know what's happening with the brain when we meditate, with the body, virtual reality creating these landscapes, these three-dimensional meditation spaces where you're in a bamboo forest or something learning meditation.
(20:54 - 21:24) And also there's apps now where there's meditation teachers that are in virtual reality, famous ones and ones that we've created out to us and they're teaching you meditation in virtual reality. So if you couldn't get to talk about accessibility, you can sit there and learn. There's one, Lindsey, from the Trip app is one with a famous mindfulness pioneer, Jack Kornfield, and he collaborated with them where he made a series of videos and I swear – and I don't get any kickbacks or any of this stuff.
(21:24 - 21:31) I'm not associated. Let me say that. Any of these companies, but I swear I'm sitting there and I felt almost like I was in his class.
(21:31 - 21:46) He has a center, a meditation center, and I was sitting there. There was other people, virtual participants, and him up front teaching mindfulness and loving kindness. And I swear it's like if you kind of lose yourself for a few seconds, you feel like, wow, I'm sitting there in front of Jack Kornfield.
(21:46 - 21:58) I'm learning from this guy and I'm in his center. It's that realistic. So we talk about virtual reality in a chapter and then I talk about AI and how AI is radically changing things.
(21:58 - 22:41) But then I also give practical steps or strategies for traditional meditation, but also infusing in like we talked about apps, infusing in some of these digital mindfulness tools. How do you infuse them in? How do you balance them out if you're already a meditator or if you're new to meditation? How much should you use digital techniques without over relying on them? And I give a protocol where I kind of show how you can take like balanced approach to integrating digital into the traditional. Because when people hear me talking about excited about the possibilities of AI mindfulness and all this, they think, well, I'm looking down on traditional meditation or I'm forgetting about it.
(22:41 - 23:00) No, I think what we have to do is try to retain the ancient techniques that we have just tremendous amount of knowledge and practice that we need to try to like move that forward and meet that with the innovation. We don't want to discard that or throw that away. We want to merge it.
(23:00 - 23:16) We want to blend it and honor it and respect it and value it. But then how do we move that right with this AI innovation and then move everything forward so that we we come out even better on the other side? That would that would be my philosophy. And that's what I tried to get through in the book.
(23:17 - 23:24) Yeah, that's awesome. So when is it going to be released? So it should be May. It's about end of April, May with Rutledge.
(23:25 - 23:28) And you could go on Amazon now. There's presales. There's a presale link now.
(23:29 - 23:39) But yeah, by about by May, it should be out with the publishers Rutledge. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So last question. So you mentioned I'll put these in the show notes as well.
(23:39 - 23:56) So the link then to the presale. But what are some other ways that people can connect with you and find you? Yeah, so LinkedIn, I would say I'm probably most active on LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn because there's a lot of mindfulness people and there's a lot of AI people, too, that are really writing some really interesting things.
(23:56 - 24:03) So LinkedIn, we could put that in. I guess we can put the link in there. LinkedIn will probably be the best place to interact with me right now.
(24:05 - 24:25) And there's an Amazon book page you can look on there for some other information. Cool. Love it. Love this conversation. I mean, like I said, I've done some other episodes around this topic. But I think you bring your own, you know, kind of, I mean, obviously, super knowledgeable, the science piece to it, the AI, the technology piece to it.
(24:25 - 24:59) So love this conversation. And thank you so, so much for joining. Thank you, Lindsie. Honor to be here. OK, I loved this conversation because it was both grounding and forward thinking. Here are a few takeaways I'm personally sitting with. Mindfulness is present moment awareness without judgment. And meditation is the bigger umbrella with different methods for different outcomes. You don't need an hour, even a three to five minute reset can help your nervous system come back online.
(24:59 - 25:06) If you're building a habit, the goal isn't perfect. It's consistent. And linking it to something you already do makes it easier.
(25:07 - 25:21) And the future is coming fast. AI plus virtual reality plus wearables may make meditation more personalized than ever. And it's important to keep the human side, privacy and safety in the conversation.
(25:21 - 25:46) If you want to connect with Steve, he shares that LinkedIn is the best place to find him right now. And he also mentioned that his new book, Metta Meditation for Mental Health, will be releasing this spring with a preorder page available on Amazon. I'll link everything in the show notes. And if this episode helped you, here's the simplest way to support the show. Leave a quick rating and review. It genuinely helps more people find this conversation.
(25:47 - 26:03) And of course, share this episode with a friend who's stressed, overwhelmed or trying to build a mindfulness practice that actually fits real life. All right, friends, I'm sending you so much love and I'll see you on the next episode of PCOS Unfiltered Nourish, Heal, Thrive.