Poor Quality Sleep Is A Serious Health Concern. Can Yogic Meditation Help?
Many professionals, particularly those working in healthcare, are exposed to occupational stressors that contribute to decreased sleep quality, which can negatively affect psychological functioning, quality of life and performance at work.
Yoga and meditation are inexpensive and side-effect–free interventions with promising evidence for decreasing stress and improving sleep.
In a recent controlled trial, 64 healthcare professionals were randomized to either an eight week yoga meditation group or a waitlist control group.
A 30 minute yogic meditation class was held weekly, for the eight weeks, with a total length of four hours. Participants were also given the written class protocol and asked to practice at least once more each week.
Objective sleep quality was assessed by polysomnography, the gold standard in sleep measurement. And, subjective sleep quality was assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory and Epworth Sleepiness Scale.
After the 8 weeks the meditation group experienced reduced time to fall asleep and improved subjective sleep quality overall.
Polysomnography demonstrated decreased heart rate and reduced wakefulness after sleep onset (where one wakes up during sleep), which suggest an objective and measurable improvement in sleep quality.
Researchers concluded that yogic meditation may be used as an integrative health tool to improve health-related aspects of the lives of professionals exposed to stress at work.
Guerra PC, Santaella DF, D'Almeida V, Santos-Silva R, Tufik S, Len CA. Yogic meditation improves objective and subjective sleep quality of healthcare professionals. Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2020 Aug;40:101204. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2020.101204. Epub 2020 May 30. PMID: 32891281.
