Yes, meditation can help you sleep, though the effect in studies is modest. In randomized trials, people with sleep problems who learned mindfulness meditation reported better sleep quality than people given standard sleep hygiene advice, and in a small trial of adults with chronic insomnia it reduced the time they spent awake at night. For chronic insomnia, the recommended first treatment is still cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), and meditation fits best alongside it or as an easy place to start.
Why does a busy mind keep you awake?
Insomnia is partly a problem of being too switched on at bedtime. Sleep researchers call this hyperarousal: people with chronic insomnia show raised levels of arousal in the body and brain, at night and during the day, and habits such as worrying, ruminating and unhelpful sleep routines help keep the problem going[3].
Studies often measure the bedtime part of this with the Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale, which separates cognitive arousal (racing thoughts, replaying the day, planning tomorrow) from somatic arousal (a quick heartbeat, tight muscles, feeling wired)[5][6]. In trials, mindfulness meditation lowered both[5][6]. You practise noticing a thought without following it, and you rest your attention on the breath and the body instead of on the clock.
What have studies of meditation and sleep found?
Several randomized trials have found improvements, mostly in how people rate their own sleep, and most of them were small.
Older adults with poor sleep. In a trial published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers at USC and UCLA randomly assigned 49 adults (average age 66) with moderate sleep problems to one of two six-week group courses, meeting two hours a week[4]. One course taught mindful awareness practices; the other taught sleep hygiene. Both groups started with an average score of 10.2 on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, where anything above 5 counts as disturbed sleep. After six weeks the meditation group averaged 7.4 and the sleep hygiene group 9.1. The meditation group also reported fewer insomnia symptoms, less depression and less fatigue. Results were measured right after the course, so the study says nothing about the long term.
Adults with chronic insomnia. A trial in the journal Sleep assigned 54 adults with chronic insomnia to mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), to a version adapted for insomnia called mindfulness-based therapy for insomnia (MBTI), or to eight weeks of keeping a sleep diary[5]. The meditation groups met weekly and were asked to practise 30 to 45 minutes at home at least six days a week, including body scans and sitting meditation. Compared with diary-keeping, they cut their total time awake at night by about 44 minutes on average (against about 1 minute) and lowered their pre-sleep arousal and insomnia severity scores. At six months, half of the MBTI group met the study's definition of remission. Sleep lab and wrist-tracker readings did not show clear differences between groups, which the authors put down to the small sample, and the diary group had no teacher or class, so attention and expectation may account for some of the benefit.
A meditation app. A trial in PLoS One assigned 263 adults with sleep disturbance either to meditate with the Calm app for at least 10 minutes a day for eight weeks or to a wait-list[6]. The app group reported less daytime fatigue, less daytime sleepiness, and lower cognitive and somatic pre-sleep arousal. Sleep quality was tracked only in the app group, so that result is not a comparison, and several authors serve as advisers to Calm, which the paper discloses.
How does meditation compare with other sleep treatments?
Meditation does better than comparison activities that match it for time and attention, but it has not been shown to beat established sleep treatments. A 2019 meta-analysis by researchers at the US National Institutes of Health pooled 18 randomized trials with 1,654 participants[7]. Against time- and attention-matched controls, mindfulness meditation improved sleep quality with an effect size of 0.33 after treatment and 0.54 at follow-up, which the authors rated as moderate strength evidence. Against evidence-based sleep treatments it showed no clear difference either way, and that evidence was rated low strength. An earlier meta-analysis of six trials with 330 people with insomnia concluded that meditation may mildly improve some sleep measures[8].
| Approach | What it works on | What the evidence shows |
|---|---|---|
| CBT-I | Sleep habits, time in bed, worries about sleep | Recommended first treatment for chronic insomnia; across 20 trials, about 19 minutes faster to fall asleep and 26 minutes less awake at night[1][2] |
| Mindfulness meditation | Racing thoughts and physical tension at bedtime | Better self-rated sleep quality than attention-matched controls; no clear edge over evidence-based sleep treatments[7] |
| Mindfulness-based therapy for insomnia | Meditation plus behavioral sleep techniques | One small trial: half in remission at six months[5] |
| Meditation app, 10 minutes a day | Fatigue and pre-sleep arousal | One trial of 263 adults: less fatigue and arousal than a wait-list[6] |
| Sleep hygiene advice alone | Daily habits and the bedroom | Smaller gains than mindfulness in one trial of older adults[4] |
Can meditation replace CBT-I for insomnia?
No. The American College of Physicians recommends CBT-I as the first treatment for all adults with chronic insomnia disorder, a strong recommendation based on moderate-quality evidence[1]. CBT-I combines several techniques, typically drawn from cognitive therapy, stimulus control, sleep restriction, sleep hygiene and relaxation, and a meta-analysis of 20 trials with 1,162 adults found its benefits seemed to last after treatment ended[2].
The two approaches can work together. The MBTI course in the Sleep trial taught sleep restriction and stimulus control inside a mindfulness course, and it had the highest remission rate at six months[5]. If poor sleep has gone on for weeks or is wearing down your days, it is worth raising with a doctor, partly because insomnia often comes alongside other conditions such as pain and depression[9].
How do you do a body scan in bed?
Lie down, close your eyes and move your attention slowly through your body from the feet up, noticing what you feel without trying to change it. The body scan is one of the core exercises in both programs from the insomnia trial above[5]. It takes 10 to 20 minutes and you can do it with the lights off.
- Settle. Lie in your usual sleep position, put your phone face down out of reach, and close your eyes.
- Slow the breath, then let it go. Take three slow breaths, letting each one out a little longer than it came in. After that, let the breath set its own pace.
- Start at the left foot. Notice whatever is there: warmth, coolness, the weight of the blanket, tingling, or nothing much. You are not trying to relax anything, only to notice.
- Move up slowly. Spend a few breaths each on the ankle, calf, knee and thigh, then do the same for the right leg.
- Carry on through the rest of the body. Hips, belly, chest, back, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, jaw and face. If your jaw or shoulders loosen as you notice them, let them.
- Come back when you drift. When your mind wanders to tomorrow, or to whether you are falling asleep yet, notice where it went and return to the last part of the body you remember. Drifting is expected; returning is the exercise.
- Finish on the breath. If you reach the top of your head and are still awake, rest your attention on the rise and fall of your belly. If you are wide awake and getting frustrated, get up, sit somewhere dim and quiet, and go back to bed when you feel sleepy.
Let sleep be something that may happen along the way rather than the goal. If you would rather have a voice lead you through it, Whitespace is a self-guided meditation app that speaks: you bring the intention, and it writes and voices a meditation for exactly that.
Questions people ask
How long does it take for meditation to improve sleep?
In the trials above, people practised for six to eight weeks before improvements were measured. Those studies did not test whether a single evening makes a difference, so plan on keeping it up for several weeks before judging it.
Is it better to meditate in bed or earlier in the day?
There is little direct evidence comparing the two. The insomnia trials asked for regular daily practice, 30 to 45 minutes most days in one of them, rather than meditation only at bedtime. Choose the time you will actually keep to, and use a short body scan in bed as an extra.
Can a meditation app help with insomnia?
It may help with some symptoms. In one trial, adults with sleep disturbance who used the Calm app for 10 minutes a day for eight weeks reported less fatigue and less pre-sleep arousal than a wait-list group. That is not the same as treating chronic insomnia, for which CBT-I is the recommended first step.
Is meditation better than sleeping pills?
The studies here did not compare meditation with sleeping pills directly. The American College of Physicians guideline recommends CBT-I first, and suggests considering medication through a shared decision with a clinician only when CBT-I alone has not worked.