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 “These simple yet challenging meditation practices provide the
opportunity for people to expand their nonjudgmental awareness of
sensory experiences arising in each moment,” said David Black, the
study’s lead author from the University of Southern California, Los
Angeles.
“Our findings arise from a structured mindfulness course with a
skilled mindfulness instructor,” he said. “As compared to attempting
mindfulness practice for the first time on your own, you are likely
to gain the most benefit from a standardized course with an
experience teacher.”
Previous studies found sleep benefits from movement-based meditation
programs, such as tai chi, but none have looked at the possible
benefits of non-movement meditation, the researchers write in JAMA
Internal Medicine February 16.
A recent meta-analysis found that only mindfulness meditation,
compared to other types of meditation, provided consistent benefits
for stress-related conditions, Black told Reuters Health by email.
For the study, researchers included 49 people who were at least 55
years old with at least moderately disturbed sleep. After a phone
interview and an in-person visit, they were randomly divided into
two groups.
One group visited the study center for six weekly two-hour sessions
of a course in Mindfulness Awareness Practices for daily living.
Those included meditation, eating, walking, movement and friendly or
loving-kindness practices.
A certified teacher, who led the exercises, handed out other
resources. The teacher also told participants to meditate for five
minutes daily, gradually increasing to 20 minutes daily.
The other group attended six weeks of a sleep hygiene and education
course, where they learned about sleep problems, stress biology and
stress reduction, self-monitoring of sleep behavior, relaxation
methods for improving sleep, and weekly behavioral sleep hygiene
strategies.
When the researchers measured sleep quality before the six-week
programs, the average sleep quality questionnaire score was 10. A
score of five or more indicates moderately disturbed sleep.
When the 49 participants completed the questionnaires again after
the study, those in the meditation group had improved by an average
of 2.8 points, compared to 1.1 points in the sleep hygiene group.
Daytime impairments, including symptoms of insomnia, fatigue and
depression, improved more for people in the meditation group than
those in the sleep hygiene group, too. Anxiety symptoms improved
equally in both groups.
This study is commendable because sleep disturbances are very common
among older adults, according to Adam Spira of the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
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“It turns out that some of the most widely used treatments are
actually potentially harmful,” said Spira, who wrote an editorial
accompanying the study.
Psychoactive sedative medications like benzodiazepine have been
linked to poor health outcomes for older people, including cognitive
decline, falls and general “fogginess,” he said.
“There’s a whole branch of effective interventions, cognitive
behavioral interventions, that are very effective across age groups
at treating insomnia,” but many physicians are not aware of
providers in their area who may administer these services, Spira
said.
Mindfulness meditation is not the same as cognitive behavioral
therapy, but based on this study it does seem to improve sleep, he
said, adding that it’s not clear how the method works.
Relaxing and decreasing physiological arousal may make it easier to
fall asleep, or improving mood and reducing fatigue may help,
enabling more exercise during the day which has been shown to
improve sleep, he said.
Mindfulness meditation is particularly promising because it could be
disseminated widely through the community, and would even be
available to people with physical impairments for whom
movement-based practices may not be an option, he said.
“This is definitely something worth investigating further,” Spira
said. “I’m a little bit reluctant to make recommendations at this
point, but if people have an interest in mindfulness meditation it’s
probably fine to try.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1CEAjoQ
and http://bit.ly/1EkJsp0
JAMA Intern Med 2015.
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reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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