Meditation and Sleep

By Alison Heyerdahl

As a mother, you’ve no doubt crawled into bed exhausted, expecting that when your head hit the pillow, you’d be out for the count.  Oftentimes though, you lie awake thinking about a problem or that long to-do list that robs you of those essential sleep hours.  Sleep disturbances, such as difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep affect millions of people worldwide. 

The daytime sleepiness and grogginess that ensues after a bad night’s sleep can leave you feeling depleted and unproductive, and it may even harm your health.  Researchers have become increasingly drawn to the potential of mindfulness meditation as a treatment for various sleep issues.   Furthermore, meditation is an easy-to-implement and affordable intervention for those who cannot access other types of sleep therapy or medications. 

Can meditation improve sleep?

Research points to that fact that various types of meditation can help improve insomnia.  Mindfulness meditation, which is the moment-to-moment focus on experiences, thoughts, and emotions in one’s immediate environment improves sleep quality.  One study published by JAMA Internal Medicine included a cohort of 49 adults who experienced insomnia.  The participants were divided into two groups – one who completed a six-week mindfulness-based awareness program in which they were taught meditation exercises, and the other who completed a sleep education class that taught them ways to improve their sleep habits.  At the end of the six weeks, the mindfulness-based awareness group presented with significantly less insomnia, less depressive symptoms, and fatigue compared to the sleep education group.

How do meditation and mindfulness affect sleep?

Mindfulness and meditation help to quieten the mind and produce a sense of relaxation.  All too often people get to bed and then grow anxious about not being able to fall asleep.  They then worry about being tired the next day if they don’t sleep.  This unnecessary worry about falling asleep worsens the sleep cycle. 

Mindfulness and meditation help the sleep process by making us more aware of our thought processes, thereby reducing the anxiety around falling asleep.  Mindfulness also brings about a relaxed state of mind that is conducive to falling asleep. 

Physiologically, meditation slows breathing and the heart rate, and it lowers cortisol, the stress hormone.  Meditation also produces longer-lasting changes in brain structure, which has the effect of improving sleep and producing fewer nighttime awakenings. 

How do you meditate for improved sleep?

Mindfulness meditation is a technique that should be practiced daily.  It involves focusing on your breathing and bringing your focus to the present moment without letting yourself be swept away by thoughts about the past or future.  It can be practiced for around 20 minutes a day.  Many people get overwhelmed by the prospect of having to commit to such a long practice from the start, and so it’s more important in the beginning to meditate for any length of time on a regular basis and build up to 20 minutes. The goal of meditation practice is to be able to more easily induce a state of relaxation.  In this way, it’s easier to evoke the relaxation response at night when you’re having trouble falling asleep. 

Dr. Shelby Harris, Ph.D., a clinical sleep psychologist in New York, suggests that if after practicing mindfulness meditation for a period still does not produce sleep, get out of bed and practice it elsewhere.  Lying in bed awake for longer than 20 minutes can create a negative bed/sleep association.  She says that the point of the meditation isn’t to fall asleep in the middle of a practice, but afterward when you return to bed. 

Other ways to calm a worried mind include:

• Focusing on positive distractions: Focusing on how you can’t get to sleep will only reinforce your sleeplessness.  Distracting yourself with positive thoughts and imagery often transfers into dream content and produces relaxation, resulting in sleep. 

• Practice gratitude: Focusing on what you feel grateful for, rather than what may be going wrong in your life evokes positive emotions and reduces the anxiety around falling asleep.

• Download your worrisome thoughts: Stop the thought tornado of never-ending lists of to-dos by writing all the things you’re trying to remember before you hit the hay.  With these thoughts safely recorded, you can put your mind at ease and deal with them upon waking.

Lastly, avoiding caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine close to bedtime can greatly reduce night time wake-ups.  All of these substances tend to disrupt sleep cycles because liver enzymes metabolize them during the night.

Conclusion

Sleeplessness and insomnia can create enormous stress and anxiety.  Worrying about how you will cope the next day on minimal sleep creates a vicious cycle.  Practicing meditation for just 20 minutes a day has been proven to change the structure of the brain to promote relaxation, and help with sleep issues, including insomnia.  Other techniques to reduce sleeplessness include focusing on positive distractions, practicing gratitude, and downloading your worrisome thoughts. 

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