Why sleep is so important to your wellbeing, and how does meditation help you sleep better?
UPDATE: To explore the benefits meditation can bring to your life from the comfort of home, have a look at our new online meditation classes available to book now.
As much as the theory goes that we should spend a third of our lives sleeping, the truth is that 40% of British people are sleep deprived, getting less than 6 hours of sleep a night. Making it a huge benefit to question ‘how does meditation help you sleep better?’. Sleep does so much more for us than just improving our mood or making us look a little fresher. In order to maintain a healthy lifestyle it is essential to get enough sleep every night to reap the benefits for your overall wellbeing.
4 reasons why getting enough quality sleep is important
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Improve your concentration and memory
Sleep supports a number of different brain functions; including cognition, concentration, productivity & performance, and unfortunately lack of sleep affects each of these functions negatively. Therefore sleep is critical to maximising your brain’s ability to focus and problem solve to its full ability. Sleep is also essential when it comes to your memory: having a good night’s sleep after learning new information allows your brain to retain information through a process called consolidation, as this cements the information into the memory for future recall.
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Improve mood and mental health
We have all been guilty of waking up on the wrong side of the bed, feeling irritable and snappier than usual. Experts have proven that this could be caused by lack of sleep. It has been argued that getting an adequate sleep every night can help to improve your mood & even keep mental health problems like anxiety & depression at bay. There is a very close relationship between mental health and sleep; suffering a lack of sleep over a period of time will have a negative impact on your mental health and vice versa; therefore by taking care of your sleep routine, you can really make a positive change on your own health.
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Protect your immune system
People who get less than 7 hours sleep per night are 3 times more likely to catch a cold compared to those who get 7-9 hours sleep every night. By not sleeping enough, your body’s ability to fight off common infections is reduced; it can also weaken the body’s response to a flu vaccination. This is due to your body not creating enough cytokine – which is a cellular hormone that helps the immune system fight off infections to keep you healthy.
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Regulate your appetite
There is a correlation between sleep an weight; a study found that the less people sleep, the more likely they are to be overweight or obese; it is also likely those who sleep less will prefer to eat higher calorie foods & carbohydrates. There is more and more research being carried out looking at sleep as a regulator of appetite, energy use and weight control. During sleep, the body’s production of Leptin (Appetite suppressor) increases, and the Grehlin (Appetite stimulant) decreases. So if you’re trying to lose that last few lbs make sure you’re catching those extra Z’s.
And here are 3 ways that meditation helps us sleep better:
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Meditation reduces one of the root causes of bad sleep: stress
Meditation helps to focus our mind on the present moment. 47% of Britons say that stress or worry keep them up at night. Meditation helps to stop our minds from dwelling on the day that has just passed or feel anxiety for what the day will bring tomorrow.
2. Meditation boosts melatonin
Melatonin is the hormone in the body that encourages sleep. Melatonin also acts as an antioxidant, an anti-ageing hormone & activates a feeling of wellbeing. Vincent Giampapa, MD, discovered that melatonin levels for regular meditation practitioners were boosted by an average of 98%.
3. Meditation keeps beta brain waves at bay
Meditation keeps beta brain waves at bay. When we are awake, our brain is lead by Beta waves that keeps us present and engaged; however when it comes to going to sleep our brains need more Alpha, Theta & Delta waves as these encourage deeper relaxation and deep sleep. By meditating before sleep, our brains cancel out any Beta waves that may be carrying anxiety or stress into the night and prepare the brain to sleep.
Launching Inhere’s Sleep programme
At Inhere meditation studio we believe that your sleep should never be compromised; so we have launched our own Sleep programme to help you get the sleep you deserve.
The package helps you to create your own sleep ritual that will become part of your daily evening routine to ensure that you get the sleep you deserve. The sleep programme includes:
- 2 weeks of unlimited evening meditations at our central London studio designed for rest and relaxation
- a treatment therapy of your choice between aromatherapy relaxing massage, reiki, acupuncture and yoga therapy for insomnia
- a gift bag including a sleep inducing essential oil, a bamboo eye mask, and a handy guide book of do’s and dont’s for good sleeping habits.
It’s never too late to get into some good habits and enjoy deep and nourishing sleep during the programme and going forward.
