Can Meditation Help Cure Insomnia?

There are many things you can do to try and cure insomnia, from watching your diet and what you drink, exercising, maintaining good sleep patterns and sticking to a routine. As well as both natural and prescription medications that deal with the condition. However a new study suggests there may be another way to cure this, it has no side effects and doesn’t cost a penny – meditation.

What does meditation mean to you? Perhaps it conjures up images of a Buddha type person, sitting under a tree, or perhaps you view it as taking a break from your every day worries and clearing the mind. Meditation is actually a simple yet highly effective task that anyone can participate in once you get the hang of it.

Roughly 9% of all Americans (that’s over 20 million people) practice mediation and that figure is on the increase. If you think about it we all spend time exercising the body, so why not exercise the mind?

So what does this all have to do with helping insomnia sufferers? Well a recent study by Ramadevi Gourineni, the director of an insomnia study programme at Illinois Northwestern memorial hospital, conducted a study into the matter. She took 11 patients – all who suffered from chronic insomnia symptoms. the groups were divided into two and one group was taught the importance of health, diet, stress and environmental issues and how to apply them to deal with their insomnia. The others were taught a ‘Kriya Yoga’ meditation which involves focusing and calming the mind. After the results were compiled, she found that the group who practised meditation had a greater overall increase in their sleeping patterns, including total sleep time and better overall sleep quality.

This indicates that perhaps meditation is beneficial for the reduction of sleep related issues. By clearing out thoughts and worries we can feel more focused and refreshed throughout the day, and ready for sleep at night. And meditation has many other positive aspects including increasing oxygen flow throughout the body, reducing stress, helping the mind focus and boosting serotonin levels, so give it a try – after all you have nothing to lose and hopefully a lot to gain.