# Meditation and Reduced Sleep Need

Summary: __Meditation may decrease sleep need, and large amounts of meditation may decrease sleep need drastically. Correlation between total sleep duration & time spent meditating is -0.32 including my meditation retreat data, -0.016 excluding the meditation retreat.__

> While it may be true that, when doing intensive practice, the need
for sleep may go down to perhaps four to six hour or less at a time,
try to get at least some sleep every night.

*—Daniel Ingram, “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha”, p. 179*

> Meditation in dreams and lucid dreaming is common in this territory
[of the Arising and Passing away]. The need for sleep may be greatly
reduced. […] The big difference between the A&P and Equanimity is that this
stage is generally ruled by quick cycles, quickly changing frequencies
of vibrations, odd physical movements, strange breathing patterns, heady
raptures, a decreased need for sleep, strong bliss, and a general sense
of riding on a spiritual roller coaster with no brakes.

*—Daniel Ingram, “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha”, p. 275*

> Need for sleep tends to increase in the Three Characteristics, mostly
due to how tiring pain can be. Sleep need can drop dramatically in the
stage of the A&P, suddenly peak in dissolution, drop a bit again in Fear
as our energy returns, and increase during the Dark Night, mostly due
to how mentally fatiguing that stage can be.

> ![](https://niplav.site/img/increasing/ingram_sleep_chart.png)

*—Daniel Ingram, “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha”, p. 379*

Note: as far as I know, this chart is not based on any data collected,
but on the personal experience of Ingram and his acquaintances.

> The interesting thing is that all four of these people within a year
or so of having started this practice claimed to have done it, and by
“it” I mean eliminated all emotions entirely, replacing them with a
perpetually wonderful perception of the freshness of the sensate world,
a lack of time pressure, a reduced need for sleep, and some other benefits
and odd side effects.

*—Daniel Ingram, “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha”, p. 462*

> The sleep models generally relate to either sleeping less or being
awake in some way while asleep. Sleeping less is common during retreats,
particularly in some stages such as the A&P. I also know some people who,
because of spiritual attainments, have reduced their need for sleep,
and this has happened to me at points, but it hasn't been sustained in
my case.

*—Daniel Ingram, “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha”, p. 470*

#### Patra & Telles 2009

[Patra & Telles
2009](https://niplav.site/doc/meditation/science/positive_impact_of_cyclic_meditation_on_subsequent_sleep_patra_telles_2009.pdf "Positive impact of cyclic meditation on subsequent sleep (Sanjib Patra/Shirley Telles, 2009)")
test the effects of 22½ minutes of "cyclic meditation"
(a type of yoga, together with lying in [supine
position](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supine_position)) on sleep in a
sample of n=30 men, and find no effect on sleep duration as recorded by
a [polysomnograph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysomnograph)
(352.77±41.35 minutes for yoga and 353.03±35.90
minutes for supine rest), but more time spent in
[REM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REM_Sleep) and [slow-wave
sleep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow-Wave_Sleep). Participants in
the intervention group *rated* their sleep as being longer.

I think this study doesn't tell us very much: They use the
term meditation, but are really making their participants do
[asanas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asana), and I'd guess that
participants fall asleep while liying in supine position.

#### Kaul et al. 2010

[Kaul et al.
2010](https://niplav.site/doc/meditation/science/meditation_acutely_improves_psychomotor_vigilance_and_may_decrease_sleep_need_kaul_et_al_2010.pdf "Meditation acutely improves psychomotor vigilance, and may decrease sleep need (Bruce F. O'Hara/Craig R. Sargent/Jason Passafiume/Prashand Kaul, 2010)")
find that long-term meditators sleep ~2.5h less at 2.3h meditation/day,
which suggests that one can reap the benefits of meditation while also
increasing the time spent lucid, if one values time in meditation half
as much as other waking time.

#### Analysing my Data

After ~1 year of meditation and sleep tracking, I decided to check my
own data for patterns. Full code [here](https://niplav.site/code/increasing/meditation.py).

I load the sleep & meditation data from the same timespan:

    sleep=pd.DataFrame(sleep_values)
    first_sleep=sleep['date'].min()
    last_sleep=sleep['date'].max()

    meditations=get_meditations()
    meditations.sort_values(by=['meditation_start'], inplace=True)
    meditations=meditations.loc[meditations['meditation_start']>(first_sleep-pd.Timedelta('7d'))]
    sleep.sort_values(by=['start_time'], inplace=True)

I then generate the list of days for which to check the subsequent sleep
and the preceding meditation:

    checkpoints=pd.DataFrame()
    checkpoints['checkpoint']=pd.date_range(start=first_sleep, end=last_sleep, freq='1d')+pd.Timedelta('18h')

For each day at 18:00, I compute the amount of time slept in the next
24 hours:

    aggregated=pd.merge_asof(sleep, checkpoints, left_on='start_time', right_on='checkpoint', direction='backward')
    aggregated=aggregated[relevant_sleep_cols+['checkpoint']].groupby('checkpoint').sum()
    aggregated.reset_index(inplace=True)

And add the time meditated:

    aggregated=pd.merge(aggregated, meditations, how='cross')
    aggregated=aggregated.loc[
        (aggregated['checkpoint']-aggregated['meditation_end']<pd.Timedelta('4d')) &
        (aggregated['checkpoint']-aggregated['meditation_end']>pd.Timedelta('0d'))]

    aggregated=aggregated.groupby('checkpoint').agg({'meditation_duration': 'sum'} | {col: 'min' for col in relevant_sleep_cols})

Finally, let's create a dataset without the meditation retreat data:

    no_outliers=aggregated.loc[aggregated['meditation_duration']<8*3600]

Resulting scatterplots with linear regressions are:

![](https://niplav.site/img/increasing/aggregated_scatter_total.png)

![](https://niplav.site/img/increasing/no_outliers_scatter_total.png)

    >>> field='minutes_asleep'
    >>> np.corrcoef(aggregated['meditation_duration'], aggregated[field])
    array([[ 1.        , -0.32231845],
           [-0.32231845,  1.        ]])
    >>> np.corrcoef(no_outliers['meditation_duration'], no_outliers[field])
    array([[ 1.        , -0.01685158],
           [-0.01685158,  1.        ]])

The outlier data is mainly from a single Goenka retreat, which have a
sleep schedule that almost doesn't overlap with my natural sleep schedule,
so there's some significant data contamination here. I still think that
the reduced sleep at the time didn't have a strong negative effect on me,
and my best guess is that that's due to the large amount of meditation
I was doing.

#### Anecdotes

On a 1-month meditation retreat I did I noticed a stark reduction in my
sleep time, at ~10 hours of meditation a day I probably slept 5-6 hours
a night (I usually sleep ~8 hours if uninterrupted).

I friend of mine with a long-term chronic illness, also a long-term
meditator, tells me he sleeps ~6-7 hours per night, at around 2 hours
of meditation a day.

### Inquiry

If you're a meditator and track your meditation or attend meditation retreats, *and* have a wearable (like a [fitbit](https://store.google.com/category/watches_trackers?hl=de&utm_source=fitbit_redirect&utm_medium=google_ooo&utm_campaign=category&pli=1), [oura ring](https://ouraring.com/) &c), I'd be highly interested in analyzing your data. More so for intense and/or long meditation retreats.