Meditation - As Good As Sleep?

Two ways in which meditation is said  to help people, are making them feel more focused and energetic, but are these benefits measurable?

A study two years ago, led by Prashant Kaul of the University of Kentucky does some way to prove that they are. Following a series of tests, when the researchers tested the alertness of volunteers, they found that meditation proved more effective than naps, exercise or caffeine. The results of the experiments were later presented at a conference of the Society for Neuroscience, which indicates the interest such research is shown.

The researchers, took twelve participants who did not previously meditate,  and taught them a basic practice  in two short sessions.

Then, over a number of weeks, the participants came in and took a test devised to measure abilities like reaction time. These tests involved a series of visual cues on a display screen that the study participants had to respond to by pushing the correct button.

The tests were carried out at mid - to late afternoon, when most people tend to be less alert. The test were done before and after 40 minutes of meditating, napping or exercising, or after taking caffeine. Napping produced poor results, presumably because of “sleep inertia,” that groggy feeling on first waking from a nap.

Caffeine was shown to help, and exercise was unpredictable.

Older studies have discovered that people are ‘awake’ while meditating but that their brains undergo changes similar to patterns found in sleep. Some studies have reported that people who meditate a lot generally sleep less. This created a curiosity to see if meditation could serve the same function as sleep. The results seem to support the idea that it can.

Amazingly when some of the meditators were asked to skip a night’s sleep and then take the test, the researchers found meditation was even more helpful!

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