Improve Perceived Stress and Sleep Disturbance During Covid-19 Pandemic with Mindfulness
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Right now it’s very easy to let your brain spin out with the frightening possibilities. Practicing mindfulness helps bring us back to the present, and away from the brink.” – David Anderson
Mindfulness training has been shown to improve health and well-being in healthy individuals. It has also been found to be effective for a large array of medical and psychiatric conditions, either stand-alone or in combination with more traditional therapies. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the mental and physical health of the population. It has created intense stress both for frontline workers but also for people simply isolating at home. Mindfulness is known to decrease the psychological and physical responses to stress. So, mindfulness training may be helpful in coping with the mental and physical challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In today’s Research News article “Effects of Web-Based Group Mindfulness Training on Stress and Sleep Quality in Singapore During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Equivalence Analysis.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7962857/ ) Lim and colleagues recruited participants who received mindfulness training prior to the Covid-19 lockdown or during the lockdown either in person training or over videoconference. The trainings were based upon the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. They were measured before and after training for perceived stress and sleep disturbance and quality of sleep.
They found that after training all three groups had equivalent significant reductions in perceived stress and sleep disturbance. On the other hand, sleep quality and the time to fall asleep were significantly improved in the group that received mindfulness training before the Covid-19 lockdown but not during the lockdown.
Previous research has repeatedly demonstrated that mindfulness training reduces perceived stress and sleep. The present study adds to these findings by demonstrating these effects during the Covid-19 lockdown. But during the lockdown, mindfulness training was effective in reducing sleep disturbance but not effective in improving sleep quality. Mindfulness training either in person or via videoconference was unable to overcome the effects of the lockdown on quality of sleep.
So, improve perceived stress and sleep disturbance during Covid-19 pandemic with mindfulness.
“mindfulness is one tool that can help promote mental wellness throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.” – Julie Dunne
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Lim, J., Leow, Z., Ong, J., Pang, L. S., & Lim, E. (2021). Effects of Web-Based Group Mindfulness Training on Stress and Sleep Quality in Singapore During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Equivalence Analysis. JMIR mental health, 8(3), e21757. https://doi.org/10.2196/21757
Abstract
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted psychological health. Mindfulness training, which helps individuals attend to the present moment with a nonjudgmental attitude, improves sleep and reduces stress during regular times. Mindfulness training may also be relevant to the mitigation of harmful health consequences during acute crises. However, certain restrictions may necessitate the web-based delivery of mindfulness training (ie, rather than in-person group training settings).
Objective
The objective of our study was to examine the effects of mindfulness interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate the effectiveness of web-based interventions.
Methods
Data from an ongoing study were used for this retrospective equivalence analysis. Recruited participants were enrollees from mindfulness courses at a local charity organization that promoted mental wellness. This study had no exclusion criteria. We created three groups; two groups received their training during the COVID-19 pandemic (in-person training group: n=36; videoconferencing group: n=38), and a second control group included participants who were trained before the pandemic (n=86). Our primary outcomes were self-reported stress and sleep quality. Baseline levels and changes in these variables due to mindfulness training were compared among the groups via an analysis of covariance test and two one-tailed t tests.
Results
Baseline perceived stress (P=.50) and sleep quality (P=.22) did not differ significantly among the three groups. Mindfulness training significantly reduced stress in all three groups (P<.001), and this effect was statistically significant when comparing videoconferencing to in-person training (P=.002). Sleep quality improved significantly in the prepandemic training group (P<.001). However, sleep quality did not improve in the groups that received training during the pandemic. Participants reported that they required shorter times to initiate sleep following prepandemic mindfulness training (P<.001), but this was not true for those who received training during the pandemic. Course attendance was high and equivalent across the videoconferencing and comparison groups (P=.02), and participants in the videoconferencing group engaged in marginally more daily practice than the in-person training group.
Conclusions
Web-based mindfulness training via videoconferencing may be a useful intervention for reducing stress during times when traditional, in-person training is not feasible. However, it may not be useful for improving sleep quality.