Can Meditation Help You Sleep?

Yes, meditation can help you sleep. Through decades of scientific study, researchers have found this ancient practice can improve sleep and fight insomnia, largely by lowering the physiological arousal that keeps you awake. If you’re having trouble falling or staying asleep, meditation helps your mind enter a relaxed state more easily.

A wearable, like Oura Ring, can offer you guided meditations and track its effects. You may notice a change in resting heart rate or sleep latency.

RELATED: Managing Stress: The Mind-Body Connection

What Is Meditation? 

While there are many different types, meditation is, in short, the practice of being fully present in the moment. 

One common misconception is that in order to meditate properly, you must empty your mind completely and not have any errant thoughts. “Those who are new to meditation often think, ‘Wait, my mind keeps wandering off so I must be doing it wrong,’” says Chris Winter, MD, neurologist, sleep specialist, author of The Rested Child, and host of the podcast Sleep Unplugged. “Actually, that means you’re doing it right—because you’re aware of the moments when you’re drifting off in thought.” 

At its core, meditation is about learning to observe your thoughts with a bit of distance, a more detached perspective and self-awareness, and let them pass. When you notice that your mind has wandered off, simply acknowledge it and bring your attention back to the breath, Winter notes. “Meditation is a skill, and like any skill, the more you practice, the easier it gets—and the better you get at it.” 

RELATED: 5 Simple Breathing Techniques for a Good Night’s Sleep

How Does Meditation Reduce Stress and Improve Sleep?

Stress and sleep are linked by a mechanism sleep researchers call hyperarousal: a sustained state of physiological and mental activation, driven by the sympathetic nervous system and elevated cortisol, that makes it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. Hyperarousal is one of the central mechanisms in chronic insomnia. Meditation helps reduce that arousal by engaging the parasympathetic, rest-and-digest branch of the nervous system, lowering cortisol, slowing heart rate, and increasing heart rate variability. This leads to a shorter sleep latency (the time it takes to fall asleep) and less fragmented sleep.

Like a good nap, meditation recharges and refreshes your mind and body. Physiologically, there are many similarities between sleep and meditation. Both boost vital hormones in your body (e.g. growth hormone and DHEA) and reduce the stress hormone, cortisol. Even your brainwave activity is stimulated in a similar way, increasing the waves associated with sleep and relaxation (alpha, theta, and delta), while reducing the waves associated with cognitive workload (beta).

Mentally, frequent meditation can help you enter a relaxed state more easily. It’s like building a muscle or perfecting a skill–the more you practice engaging your rest-and-digest system while you’re awake, the easier it becomes to generate that same response at night to promote sleep. 

It also enhances your body’s melatonin cycle, the primary sleep-promoting hormone, by slowing down melatonin breakdown in the liver and augmenting its production in a part of the brain called the pineal gland.

More proof: In a year-long study of older adults with moderate sleep disturbances, researchers at UCLA found mindfulness and meditation practices to be effective in remedying short-term sleep issues. Also, mindfulness and meditation were shown to reduce the effects of sleep-related daytime impairment, like being cranky, fatigued, and irritable.  

READ MORE: Tips to Wind Down Before Bed

Oura Offers Guided Meditation & Tracks Its Effects

Oura members can head to the Explore content in their Oura App to choose from guided or unguided meditation sessions that range in length from 5 minutes to 30 minutes. Use these to wind down and doze off to sleep, or just take a moment to breathe and relax during the day. 

You’ll also receive post-session biofeedback from meditation sessions lasting longer than five minutes. This means you can see how your body responds to meditation in real time, including heart rate, HRV, skin temperature, and sleep latency. If you see that a particular session helps you fall asleep faster, you can add it to your bedtime routine. You will also gain insights into how listening to guided audio sessions impacts your data over time.

If you try meditation to help you sleep better, give your body at least a week to adapt to your new routine.

Look for changes to these metrics in your Oura App to evaluate how meditation may be impacting your sleep patterns:

• Increased number of sleep cycles
• Higher REM sleep totals
• Lower resting heart rate
• Reduced sleep latency (how long it takes you to fall asleep) 

LEARN MORE: All About Your Resting Heart Rate

Frequently Asked Questions About Meditation and Sleep

Does meditation actually help you sleep?

Yes, research shows mindfulness meditation can improve sleep quality and ease some sleep problems. Try it as part of a calming wind-down routine, and talk with a healthcare provider if sleep problems persist.

How long does it take for meditation to improve sleep?

Give it at least a week. Meditation works partly as a trained skill, so the more regularly you practise engaging your rest-and-digest response while awake, the more readily your body produces it at night. Individual sessions may help immediately, but the cumulative effect takes consistency.

Can a wearable help me with guided meditation and track its effects?

Yes. Oura provides post-session biofeedback for meditation sessions longer than five minutes, showing how your heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, and sleep latency responded. Over time, you can see how guided sessions affect your data and identify which specific sessions help you fall asleep faster.

Which metrics show that meditation is improving my sleep?

There are four metrics you can look at in the Oura app: a lower resting heart rate, reduced sleep latency, higher REM sleep totals, and an increased number of sleep cycles. Because these vary night to night, look at the trend across a week or more rather than any single night.

What kind of meditation is best for sleep?

There is no single best type; what matters more is consistency. Oura’s Explore content includes guided and unguided sessions from five to 30 minutes, including meditations designed specifically to help you fall asleep. Guided sessions are generally easier to start with if you’re new to the practice.

How does stress affect sleep?

Stress interferes with sleep through hyperarousal, a sustained state of physiological and mental activation, driven by sympathetic nervous system activity and elevated cortisol, that makes it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. It’s one of the central mechanisms in chronic insomnia. Meditation helps by lowering that arousal rather than by inducing sleep directly.

Should I meditate right before bed?

Meditating before bed can help you wind down, and Oura’s sleep meditations are designed for exactly that. But daytime practice matters too—regularly engaging your rest-and-digest system while awake makes it easier to generate the same response at night.