The effect of mindfulness meditation on sleep quality: a systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation for sleep disturbed populations. Our study sought to evaluate the effect of mindfulness meditation interventions on sleep quality. To assess for relative efficacy, comparator groups were restricted to specific active controls (such as evidenced‐based sleep treatments) and nonspecific active controls (such as time/attention‐matched interventions to control for placebo effects), which were analyzed separately. From 3303 total records, 18 trials with 1654 participants were included. We determined the strength of evidence using four domains (risk of bias, directness of outcome measures, consistency of results, and precision of results). At posttreatment and follow‐up, there was low strength of evidence that mindfulness meditation interventions had no effect on sleep quality compared with specific active controls (ES 0.03 (95% CI –0.43 to 0.49)) and (ES –0.14 (95% CI –0.62 to 0.34)), respectively. Additionally, there was moderate strength of evidence that mindfulness meditation interventions significantly improved sleep quality compared with nonspecific active controls at postintervention (ES 0.33 (95% CI 0.17–0.48)) and at follow‐up (ES 0.54 (95% CI 0.24–0.84)). These preliminary findings suggest that mindfulness meditation may be effective in treating some aspects of sleep disturbance. Further research is warranted.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Benefits Psychological Well-Being, Sleep Quality, and Athletic Performance in Female Collegiate Rowers

“…These results are consistent with many past findings indicating that mindfulness-based interventions improve subjective sleep quality (Rusch et al, 2019). While some evidence suggests mindfulness training can improve objective sleep parameters in populations with sleep problems such as insomniacs and cancer patients and survivors (Gross et al, 2011;Garland et al, 2014;Lengacher et al, 2015), effects have rarely been observed in non-clinical populations.…”

“…Both mental health symptoms and sleep problems are prevalent in elite athletes, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association as well as the International Olympic Committee have emphasized the need for improved sleep to benefit health and performance in this population (Kroshus et al, 2019;Reardon et al, 2019). Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a cognitive training program that can improve psychological well-being and sleep quality (Kabat-Zinn, 1982;Grossman et al, 2004;Cincotta et al, 2011;Li et al, 2018;Rusch et al, 2019), and thus may indirectly benefit athletic performance.…”

“…MBSR also leads to improvements in sleep. In sleep-disturbed populations, mindfulness-based interventions improve sleep quality compared to placebo interventions (Rusch et al, 2019). In healthy adults, MBSR led to self-reported decreases in pre-sleep cognitive arousal and increases in sleep quality (Cincotta et al, 2011).…”

Heartfulness meditation improves sleep in chronic insomnia

“…It had moderate strength of evidence showing improved sleep quality at post-intervention and follow-up in the former (ES = .33 and .54, respectively). There was low effect on sleep quality at post-intervention and follow-up in the latter (ES = .03 and −.14, respectively) [25]. As this current study lacked a control group, it is recommended to incorporate either specific or nonspecific active controls in future studies.…”

Full awareness or mindfulness in the practice of current clinical psychology and psychiatry: Explanatory contributions

“…DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17352/apt.000010 anxiety or stress [22,23]. However, although meditation has also been demonstrated to improve insomnia [24], it does not seem to signifi cantly and categorically increase the quality of sleep [25].…”