Meditation, Sleep, and Performance

Abstract

Meditation describes a large variety of traditions that are extremely variable, but all include the conscious focus or awareness of attention. By maintaining their attention, meditators experience both acute and long-term changes in physiology, anatomy, and cognitive performance. The literature shows that the type of performance benefits may depend on the specific type of mental training. During meditation practice there is a documented increase in neuronal coordination and slowing of neuronal firing across many regions in the brain, a similar process to nonREM sleep physiology. Due to these commonalities, meditation may reduce the homeostatic pressures of sleep need and positively impact sleep architecture. Poor sleep and sleep loss are known to negatively affect performance, but meditation may be able to overcome these fatigue-induced detriments. Another factor that negatively affects performance is excessive stress, which is known to be impacted by meditation and sleep. The bidirectional relationship of meditation and sleep is apparent, but the mechanism is still unknown showing a need for more systematic investigations into the relationship between meditation, sleep, and improved performance. Meditation shares neurophysiological similarities with sleep, and these processes may have similar effects on improving attentional and cognitive performance. Also, performance detriments due to sleep loss may be able to be overcome by meditation.