Effectiveness of a short Yoga Nidra meditation on stress, sleep, and well-being in a large and diverse sample
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Effectiveness of a short Yoga Nidra meditation on stress, sleep, and well-being in a large and diverse sample Esther N. Moszeik 1
&
Timo von Oertzen 1 & Karl-Heinz Renner 1
# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Previous studies have shown that meditation-based interventions can have a significant impact on stress and well-being in various populations. To further extend these findings, an 11-min Yoga Nidra meditation that may especially be integrated in a busy daily schedule by people who can only afford short time for breaks was adapted and analyzed in an experimental online study design. The effects of this short meditation on stress, sleep, well-being and mindfulness were examined for the first time. The meditation was provided as audio file and carried out during a period of 30 days by the participants of the meditation group. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used to analyze the data with Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) in order to cope with missing data. As expected, the meditation group (N = 341) showed lower stress, higher well-being and improved sleep quality after the intervention (very small to small effect sizes) compared with a waitlist control group (N = 430). It turned out that the meditation had a stronger impact on the reduction of negative affect than on the increase of positive affect and also a stronger effect on affective components of well-being. Mindfulness, as a core element of the meditation, increased during the study within the meditation group. All effects remained stable at follow-up six weeks later. Overall, a large, heterogeneous sample showed that already a very short dose of meditation can positively influence stress, sleep, and well-being. Future research should consider biological markers as well as active control groups. Keywords Yoga Nidra . Meditation . Mindfulness . Stress management . Sleep quality . Well-being
“No time to live?” is the name of a bibliography by Müller (2012) in which he takes the value of time and moment philosophically and in relation to our current performance requirements. Awareness of the present moment is also a nucleus of mindfulness and meditation. The present study examined a short form of Yoga Nidra meditation that was designed to relax without big time investments or prior meditation experience. Yoga Nidra is traditionally carried out while lying down and consists of a systematic sequence of perception exercises, e.g., focusing on the breath or certain parts of the body. It has been increasingly examined in recent years regarding the effects on stress (e.g., Borchardt et al. 2012;
* Esther N. Moszeik [email protected] Timo von Oertzen [email protected] Karl-Heinz Renner [email protected] 1
Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg, Germany
Dwivedi and Singh 2016), sleep (e.g., Amita et al. 2009) and well-being (e.g., Bhogaonker 2012; Rani et al. 2011). Extant research seems promising but randomized controlled trials and larger samples are rare (e.g., Deuskar 2011; Rani et al. 2013). In addition, a standard Yo
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