Today more than ever before, meditation is being studied in scientific research. It may not surprise you that studies are showing that meditation can help improve the quality of your sleep at night! Researchers now recommend meditation as a way to have better sleep. Let’s break down why and discuss how meditation can improve the quality of your sleep.

Pain reduction

According to recent studies, meditation is being used to help reduce pain. New evidence shows that meditation uses neural pathways that help desensitize the brain to pain by increasing the use of the brain’s pain-reducing opioids. Based on a case-by-case basis, people who meditate experience less pain, and researchers are saying that a reduction in pain helps meditators who suffer chronic pain sleep better.

Reduction of anxiety

Meditation helps to lower the heart rate and calm your breathing, a natural process that helps you relax and, in turn, relieve anxiety and stress. Plenty of us have restless sleep because we worry and stress about our daily lives. The more stress we deal with in a day, the harder it is to decompress in time to sleep well. Meditation helps us to calm our breathing to a peaceful, almost sleep-like pattern and is well known to reduce stress and anxiety. This helps us to more seamlessly move into a sound sleep. In fact, studies even prove that meditating prior to retiring at night lowers not only your heart rate but also the stress hormone cortisol, helping achieve deeper sleep. As an added bonus, studies show that meditation increases natural melatonin production which also helps induce restful sleep.

It may not surprise you that studies are showing that meditation can help improve the quality of your sleep at night! Researchers now recommend meditation as a way to have better sleep.

Enhancement of gamma synchrony

Some studies have shown that meditation helps produce gamma synchrony, which is measured significantly higher during REM sleep compared with levels in waking consciousness. Researchers believe that this gamma synchrony helps to produce much more restful and deep sleep.

Moreover, meditation helps quiet chaotic thoughts. It allows us to focus our thoughts and control our minds—an essential skill to have when you’re trying to sleep. The more you can control your thoughts, the less you’ll stay up thinking about anything and everything.

All in all, researchers are bringing forth more evidence every day that meditation is great for your sleep health. If you’re having trouble sleeping, you might try keeping a journal of your meditation practices during the day and your sleep health each night. By recording these and noticing trends in your daily data, you can begin to understand your own sleep habits and how meditation affects them. If you’re looking for more control over your sleep patterns, consider taking the Lucid Dreaming program at the Monroe Institute, which takes things to the next level and offers another tool for your mind as you sleep. Sweet dreams, everyone!