TikTok's mindfulness tips are getting better. These 3 worked for me

TikTok has long been full of efficiency-driven wellness influencers offering tips on how to become more grounded, more calm, and more mindful. But over the last two years, a new era of TikTok influencing has risen. One that is less perfectionist — and more practical.

Back in 2024, the last time we investigated the state of mindfulness TikTok tips, what we found was a mix of traditional meditation routines, ASMR sound bath videos, and jargon-filled advice on "optimization." If I had followed the advice of the most watched mindfulness videos back then, my day might have looked something like this: 

• Wake up early. Do guided meditation and/ or yoga. 

• Breakfast. No external stimulation. Soak up the day. 

• Get to work, girlboss.

• Time for a mid-day walk. Remember: No external sounds! Stay present. 

• Work some more. Check in with your body and do some breathwork at your desk. 

• Dinner and after work activities. Allotted time for fun starts now.

• Journal about the day. Junk journaling is allowed, so long as you make it visually pleasing. 

• Before bed: No screens, sleep sounds on. Nighty night. 

This may at least be more achievable than most "biohacking" self-optimization routines that go viral online. But it's still a daunting list. I attempted to follow this routine at the time. According to my notes, this is what I actually managed:

• Wake up at 8 am. Stretch and do a breathing meditation (via free trials on Open or Moments or Breathwrk). 

• Try my best to finish all my tasks at work, fueled by at least two coffees and one sandwich. Read during lunch because it's the only time I have. Oh, the sun is gone now. 

• Cook dinner, something I earnestly love to do. Crash on the couch with my roommate and a movie. 

• Get ready for bed. Feel weird about journaling because I spent all day writing and what do I have to say about it? Another breathing exercise. Sleep.  

The exhausting effort to match up to TikTok's image of perfection left me pessimistic. I do well with a routine, ask any of my friends, but I simply wasn't interested in the apps and activities TikTok said I should try. Even if they were backed by science, they didn't feel like me.

But that was then. In 2026, TikTok's mindfulness culture (like the world itself) has changed dramatically — and this time, more in need of personal calm than ever, I found three mindfulness trends that actually worked.

Brainrot is the enemy: picking apart 75 Smart 

I may not like TikTok telling me what to do, but I do love feeling smarter. So as the app obsesses over curing "dopamine addiction," combating brainrot, and reclaiming attention, I can get behind trends like friction-maxxing — and I'm not opposed to 75 Smart, a riff on Andy Frisella's controversial "75 Hard" fitness regime that originally began as a simple 30-minute daily reading challenge. 

75 Smart seems to have become a TikTok trend as of December 2025. In the most strict 75 Smart routine, users commit to all of this every single day: two "deep focus" learning sessions, 15 minutes of meta-learning (learning about learning), an "intellectual" creation of any kind, nonfiction reading, and a ban on consuming "low value" dopamine content.  

In looser interpretations of 75 Smart — more akin to my interests — users commit to just one intellectual or creative act every day. Others take a middle ground approach, reconfiguring their daily to-do list around low stimulation goals, like silent 15-minute walks, no social media before and after work, and reading everyday. And this lower-stakes interpretation was what actually triggered small changes for me.

For example, I already read before bed every night. But instead of turning to doomscrolling once I put the book down, I began to read long articles I'd been putting off, or opted for a Wikipedia deep dive on a niche subject. Before long I returned to the breathwork apps I tried in 2024 — trying quick, 5-minute routines, often with moving visualizations so I wasn't going cold turkey on the screen altogether. 

Similarly, I couldn't go for one 75 Smart suggestion, entirely silent days. To me, sound is not an enemy. But I did want to feel more grounded after leaving dreamland, so I swapped out my usual mix of news podcasts, music, and the latest tabletop RPG session for Apple Music's "Sollos" playlists. 

This "audio-wellness venture" was launched in 2025, a collaboration with Universal Music Group, Apple Music, and a team of cognitive scientists to transform their music catalogues into audio experiences that promote focus, relaxation, and sleep. "Songs have been enhanced with auditory beats or colored noise to help encourage specific brain responses," Apple notes — such as Gamma waves and white noise for focus, or Delta waves and pink noise for sleep.

They're not all just sound bowls and ambient music, either. I could listen to radio stalwarts like Selena Gomez, Niall Horan, and Ariana Grande. Popular DJs and some of my faves (shoutout to AURORA) feature on the playlists, too. The idea is to take what people are already listening to daily, and make it a little better. For me, it offered a smoother transition into my busy, sound-filled mornings. I found that I didn't lose as much time to the distractions of podcasts, YouTube videos, and TikToks before starting a long work day.

Credit: Mashable Screenshot / Apple Music

Credit: Mashable Screenshot / Apple Music

75 Smart doesn't completely avoid the pitfalls of perfectionism rampant on TikTok, via the same proclivity toward optimization I despised in 2024. Some 75 Smart "corporate girl edition" videos, for example, can be ruthless about "failing" at daily tasks.

So I wasn't going to succeed with a strict 75 Smart routine, but I could boost the things I already did, and add ones that fit in my life seamlessly. 

Stretching like a Chinese auntie

TikTok, according to multiple reports, is at a "very Chinese time in its life." The meme, a spin on the final line of Fight Club, is partly a backlash to the U.S. government's TikTok ban threat, partly widespread interest in Chinese tech and cultural exports. Bolstered by the popularity of the Lunar New Year and Chinese Zodiac discourse, feeds are spilling over with cross-cultural exchange.

Being "spiritually Chinese" — and, yes, it is as reductive as you think it is — has led to multiple wellness trends across the app. TikTok users are hitting up traditional medicinal healing shops; Ginseng 1668 & Herbs Inc. in New York City has become a viral sensation. They're also drinking hot water before bed to get better sleep, and adopting traditional herbal face masks.

And then there's the widespread embracing of our inner Chinese aunties.

During one scroll, I came across the account of yoga practitioner @MindfulnessWithKat, advising her followers how to "stretch like a Chinese auntie." To my surprise, I already did most of Kat's auntie exercises every morning, mainly natural body movements that I know feel good and have done for years to loosen my chronically tight limbs and creaky joints.

Once I followed Kat, my feed filled up with more "auntie" guidance, including tips for more peaceful sleep and videos praising Qi Gong, an ancient movement practice similar to Tai Chi. 

View this post on Instagram

I had long trained my algorithm to avoid fitness and dieting influencers, but this was different. The exercises looked like the way my body was already used to moving. So I locked in, following Kat's frequent uploads for a week, which incorporate the slow pace and tissue stretches of Yin yoga with mindful tension release.

Not a fad, not a joke, just something that works. And I loved every minute of it. 

Let your hands go

My body doesn't easily sit still. I'm always completing a task or doing an errand. If I'm at rest, my hands are twirling through my hair or over a fidget device. Oh, and I don't have a mind's eye. Meditation is hard for me. 

But this year, TikTok showed me that my noisy hands might actually be mindfulness tools in themselves.

Where 2024's trends beelined toward new tech — yoga apps, meditation podcasts on Spotify, the latest wearable — 2026 is all about going back to the days of yore. TikTok users are reviving old crafts in an effort to reclaim our attention spans from screens. They're obsessing over traditional lace work, needlepoint, and intricate beading projects. Fiber artists have become some of the most popular creators online.

Handcrafts are my bread and butter. I love an excuse to build something physical, or to copy art down to the finest detail. I love giving very thoughtful, time-intensive gifts fashioned with sweat and tears. So if the internet tells me I can reclaim my time and mental fortitude with a little crocheting or hand beading? Sign me up. 

After discovering this connection, I rushed to whip out my macrame rope and gathered supplies to needle felt another tiny animal to add to my collection (this time, a lamb finger puppet for my niece's first birthday). I put my phone away. I locked in.

My mind is still when my hands are busy. That internal voice quiets as I hyperfocus on getting the details right. And I am awash in a sense of fulfillment seeing the result of hours of patience held right there in my hands. 

I looked down at the little lamb at the tip of my pointer finger and thought: I could do this forever.

My birthday lamb <3 Credit: Chase DiBenedetto / Mashable

To sum up a week of reevaluation: TikTok's wellness influencers are finally starting to favor curiosity, critical thinking, and reflection over self-optimization. You see it in the promotion of an "anti-hustle" lifestyle, as well as the dumb phones now proliferating among the chronically online. Authenticity, including the failures that come with it, are cool now. 

TikTok, often prone to romanticizing detachment and aloofness, seems to have learned an important lesson over the last two years: Presence is more important than performance.