Improve Sleep with Mindfulness
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Mindfulness meditation appears to be a viable treatment option for adults with chronic insomnia and could provide an alternative to traditional treatments for insomnia.” – Ethan Green
Modern society has become more around-the-clock and more complex producing considerable pressure and stress on the individual. The advent of the internet and smart phones has exacerbated the problem. The resultant stress can impair sleep. Indeed, it is estimated that over half of Americans sleep too little due to stress. As a result, people today sleep 20% less than they did 100 years ago. Not having a good night’s sleep has adverse effects upon the individual’s health, well-being, and happiness. Yet over 70 million Americans suffer from disorders of sleep and about half of these have a chronic disorder. It has been estimated that 30 to 35% of adults have brief symptoms of insomnia, 15 to 20% have a short-term insomnia disorder, and 10% have chronic insomnia
Insomnia is more than just an irritant. Sleep deprivation is associated with decreased alertness and a consequent reduction in performance of even simple tasks, decreased quality of life, increased difficulties with memory and problem solving, increased likelihood of accidental injury including automobile accidents, and increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. It also can lead to anxiety about sleep itself. This is stressful and can produce even more anxiety about being able to sleep. About 4% of Americans revert to sleeping pills. But, these do not always produce high quality sleep and can have problematic side effects. So, there is a need to find better methods to treat insomnia. Contemplative practices have been reported to improve sleep amount and quality and help with insomnia. The importance of insomnia underscores the need to further investigate safe and effective alternatives to drugs.
In today’s Research News article “The Quest for Mindful Sleep: A Critical Synthesis of the Impact of Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Insomnia.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5300077/
Garland and colleagues review the published research literature on the effects of mindfulness-based interventions on sleep. They identified 7 studies, 6 of which used randomized controlled trials. In most of these studies the mindfulness training consisted of either Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) or Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) programs. They concluded that these studies demonstrated that mindfulness training can produce significant improvement in the severity of insomnia and sleep disturbance in healthy individuals, people with chronic disease, and with older adults.
These are encouraging results that suggest that mindfulness training is effective for improving sleep in a variety of sick and health individuals of varying ages. It is not known exactly how mindfulness acts to improve sleep. But, it can be speculated that the ability of mindfulness training to improve the psychological and physiological responses to stress may be involved.
Since high levels of stress are almost universal in modern populations and stress has been shown to contribute to sleep disturbance, it would seem reasonable to believe that reduction of the individual’s response to stress would improve sleep. Hence, mindfulness training may be an important alternative to drugs in the treatment of sleep problems. This improvement of sleep, in turn, can contribute to the individual’s overall health and well-being.
So, improve sleep with mindfulness.
“By taking this mindful attitude, sleep is facilitated by simply being aware of the moment-to-moment experience of relaxing into the bed, without judging or being critical of that experience, so that the mind can gently slip into sleep.” – John Cline
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Sheila N. Garland, Eric S. Zhou, Brian D. Gonzalez, Nicole Rodriguez. The Quest for Mindful Sleep: A Critical Synthesis of the Impact of Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Insomnia. Curr Sleep Med Rep. 2016 Sep; 2(3): 142–151.. doi: 10.1007/s40675-016-0050-3
Abstract
Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) for insomnia and sleep disturbances are receiving increasing clinical and research attention. This paper provides a critical appraisal of this growing area investigating the application of MBIs for people with insomnia and sleep disturbance. First, we discuss the theoretical justification for how mindfulness meditation practice may affect sleep processes. Second, we provide a focused review of literature published between January 1, 2012 and April 1, 2016 examining the impact of MBIs on sleep, broken down by whether insomnia or sleep disturbance was a primary or secondary outcome. Recommendations for future research are discussed.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5300077/