Meditation May Be An Effective Treatment For Insomnia

(OrganicJar) New research has discovered that meditation may be an effective treatment of insomnia. Results indicate that patients saw improvements in sleep quality, sleep latency, total sleep time, total wake time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, and depression improved in patients who used meditation.

According to principal investigator Ramadevi Gourineni, MD, director of the insomnia program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Evanston, Ill., insomnia is believed to be a 24-hour problem of hyperarousal, and elevated measures of arousals are seen throughout the day.

“Results of the study show that teaching deep relaxation techniques during the daytime can help improve sleep at night,” said Gourineni.

The study gathered data from 11 healthy subjects between the ages of 25 and 45 years with chronic primary insomnia. Participants were divided into two intervention groups for two months: Kriya Yoga (a form of meditation that is used to focus internalized attention and has been shown to reduce measures of arousal) and health education. Subjective measures of sleep and depression were collected at baseline and after the two-month period.

Both groups received sleep hygiene education; members of the health education group also received information about health-related topics and how to improve health through exercise, nutrition, weight loss and stress management.

My Thoughts:

I’m a big fan of meditation. It’s been one of the biggest challenges for me to do. I have one of those minds that never turns off, I mean never! I have dozens of journals, pages of ideas…as I’m typing this, my mind is solving several things. But I think that’s what draws me to meditation, its challenging for me.

The technique I use to help turn my ‘mind switch’ to off, is to light a candle and star into the flame. It’s truly a simple technique that has me meditating for hours several times a week.

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Source: sciencedaily.com