Can Mindfulness-Based Therapy Improve Sleep Quality?

The alternative approach to treat insomnia individually looked towards mindfulness-based treatment. Practicing mindfulness is becoming increasingly popular to reduce stress, treat mental health problems, and improve general well-being.

Sleep problems are common in the general population with many people reporting insufficient or unsatisfying sleep. Sleep quality tends to worsen with age and poor sleep and is a modifiable risk factor for multiple disorders, including cardiovascular disease and cognitive impairment.

Insomnia — Overview
Difficulty in initiating and maintaining sleep is known as insomnia. It is a symptom that occurs due to other disorders and can cause daytime sleepiness.

‘Practicing mindfulness in insomnia condition can reduce the symptoms and improve the sleep quality.’

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Currently, insomnia is treated with either medications or psychological interventions but patients do not get relief from their insomnia symptoms after undergoing this treatment.

The Centre for Sleep and Cognition at the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, together with the Singapore General Hospital's Department of Psychology, looked towards mindfulness-based treatment as an alternative approach to treat insomnia.

Mindfulness is the awareness of moment-to-moment thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, and the practice of accepting these experiences without judging or reacting to them.

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The randomized controlled study compared a Mindfulness-Based Therapy for Insomnia (MBTI) with an active Sleep Hygiene, Education, and Exercise Program (SHEEP) in 127 participants, aged between 50-80 with eight weekly sessions of two hours duration each.

The MBTI course included mindful eating, sitting meditation, mindful movement and body, followed by a group discussion of their experiences during the past week. In addition to this, participants were taught good sleep habits and behavioral strategies to improve their sleep.

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Whereas the SHEEP course provided participants with information about sleep biology, sleep promoting exercises, self-monitoring of sleep behavior and taught changes to make in their habits and environment that could improve sleep quality.

The results of the study published in Psychological Medicine show that MBTI to be more effective in reducing insomnia symptoms than SHEEP. It also improved objective sleep measurements recorded using wrist-worn activity monitors, and recording electrical brain activity while sleeping.

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Explaining the study's findings, Assistant Professor Julian Lim said, "The demonstration of the Mindfulness-Based Therapy as a viable treatment for insomnia presents possible valid alternatives for people who have failed or have no access to standard frontline therapies. Such treatment can be delivered in groups within and outside of a medical setting, providing members of the public with sleep issues easier and more efficient access to seek help”.

MBTI uses behavioral strategies to address the sleep habits directly and also equipped people with more flexible strategies to deal with the dysfunctional or arousing thoughts during sleep.

Source-Medindia