Hana Yamamoto

Who is Hana Yamamoto?

Hana leads the meditation, mindfulness and behavior-change desk. She designed the 45+ day, 4-reviewer protocol that sits behind our meditation reviews, and she pays particular attention to whether an app’s content reflects an actual evidence-based protocol (MBSR, MBCT, ACT) or just calming voices over piano. She bylines every meditation review and every hydration review on the site, and is the peer reviewer on any review whose adherence story leans on streak mechanics, nudges or habit-stacking design.

Hana spent four years co-running a behavior-change research lab focused on health-app retention, and her habits-and-streaks lens informs how we weight ease of use, personalization and ethical design across the entire methodology. She is also the reason we score hydration apps on gentle nudging rather than aggressive notifications — both protocols have evidence, only one is humane.

She runs a weekly silent sit at a small Kyoto temple, and she does not own a meditation streak.