Having insomnia, a sleeping disorder, can place one at a disadvantage due to a decrease in their regular functioning because of the lack of sleep. This can become problematic once it starts to impact your everyday life, which it 99.9% of the time does. Meditation can help with this issue. It can help with relaxation and in developing a mindful inner peace, which eventually can make it easier for one to fall asleep.
What is Insomnia?
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), insomnia is a type of sleeping disorder that makes you unable to sleep regularly during the night. Sleep disorders “involve problems with the quality, timing, and amount of sleep” that you get throughout the night, and this has a negative impact on your regular routines and causes stress and irritation throughout the day. Sleep disorders are correlated with mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, in addition to various cognitive disorders. They could magnify the mental health condition, or they could be a result of a disorder.
To any individual, sleep is an essential part of our well-being and our ability to function and be efficient. As soon as our sleep schedule is messed up, various aspects of our lives are impacted. Some impacts include feelings of fatigue and exhaustion, a lack of energy, irritation, and a lack of focus. Your mood, as well as the act of making decisions, could also be impacted.
How Can Meditation Play a Role in Helping Decrease Insomnia?
Meditation alleviates feelings of stress and helps you sleep better. In fact, a study done on individuals with moderate sleep problems proved so. Participants in that study were asked to incorporate meditation into their lives for 6 weeks. As a result, these individuals had less sleep problems and felt less tired throughout the day.
Meditation could also influence our bodies in a number of ways –
- Increase the sleep hormone melatonin
- Increase serotonin, which prompts melatonin
- Decreases our heart rate and blood pressure
- Activate parts of the brain that control sleep – this means that our ability to control our sleep schedule would be stronger