3 ways meditation training can improve sleep

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Work stress and environmental stress is often linked to quality of sleep. Those who do not get quality sleep every night often fall into a vicious, unhealthy cycle of feeling fatigue and other health problems brought about by lack of optimal rest, which the body needs to keep functioning properly.

One way to get good sleep is to practice mindfulness, which is defined by clinical psychologist and board certified sleep specialist Dr. Michael J. Breus as "a practice of gently focusing one's attention and awareness on the present moment". He wrote in Huffington Post that mindfulness takes the mind and body to a state in which we are aware of any thoughts, feelings, and physical experiences that occur, without giving judgmental acknowledgement of such thoughts and feelings. Instead, being mindful lets thoughts come and go without reservation, and without attaching emotion or opinion on these thoughts. In the state of mindfulness, the mind lives in the present, does not go forward nor backward, and stays in the moment. Here are a few benefits to practicing mindfulness in terms of sleep quality.

1. Mindfulness can help calm hyperactive minds. Greater Good reports that a study conducted in the Netherlands helps calm down the hyperactive mind, enabling a person to relax and sleep better. According to Ute Hülsheger, an associate professor of work and organizational psychology at Maastricht University and the lead author of the study, "With growing pressures at work coupled with smartphone technology, it is really difficult to ‘switch off’ because you continue to receive work-related messages in the evening."

2. Mindfulness can help decrease fatigue and depression. Huffington Post reports that scientists at USC and UCLA analyzed the effects of mindfulness therapy on disrupted sleep in adults. The study showed that those who underwent mindfulness training had lower levels of daytime fatigue and lesser symptoms of depression.

Another study published in the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health compared the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and cognitive-behavioral stress reduction (CBSR) and found that while both may be effective in reducing perceived stress and depression, MBSR may be more effective in increasing mindfulness and energy and reducing pain.

3. Mindfulness can help improve the immune system. The Telegraph reported in 2011 that a study revealed how mindfulness can affect the body. The research suggested that mindfulness meditation improved immune function, reduced blood pressure, and enhanced cognitive function.

MDP Wellness reports that meditation also stimulates immune system brain-function regions and therefore increases electrical activity in the parts of the brain that control positive emotion, awareness, and anxiety, which also happen to be the command center for the immune system.