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including physical pain or discomfort that interferes with falling asleep or staying asleep, side effects from medications and treatments, as well as stress and anxiety

Researchers divided the participants into 2 groups, both of which followed the same standard post-treatment care plan. In addition, one group also participated in a 4-week yoga program, consisting of 2 75-minute sessions each week. The yoga regimen included physical postures as well as meditation, breathing and relaxation exercises

Yoga also helped to reduce patients’ reliance on prescription sleep medication.

410 patients with cancer, all of whom had undergone one or more types of treatment—including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy—within the past 24 months. Most of the participants (96%) were women, with an average age of 54, and 75% of participants had breast cancer. All were suffering from at least moderate levels of sleep problems.

While short-term use of sleep medication may be useful, it’s critical to identify strategies for improving sleep that don’t rely on long-term use of sleep medicines

, researchers measured sleep for both groups using questionnaires and wrist sensors worn during the night. They found both groups had improved their sleep during the 4-week period. However, the yoga group experienced significantly greater improvements to sleep compared to the non-yoga group:

The yoga group saw their average sleep quality score improve from 9.2 at the beginning of the study to 7.2 at the end. The non-yoga group’s average score improved to a lesser degree, from 9.0 to 7.9.

The yoga group experienced more significant improvements to daytime tiredness than the non-yoga group.

The yoga group reduced their use of sleep medication by 21% per week during the course of the study. The non-yoga group, on the other hand, increased their sleep medication use by 5% per week.

that the group practicing yoga improved their sleep while also reducing their reliance on sleep medication

CDC’s first-ever investigation of prescription sleep medication that reliance on prescription sleep aids is alarmingly high, with 4% of the adult population of the U.S. taking medication to sleep

After 3 months, patients who did yoga reported significant decreases in sleep disturbances, increased sleep duration, and less reliance on sleep medication, compared to a group that did not participate in the yoga regimen.

A group of patients with a variety of cancers experienced improvements to sleep and decreases to levels of stress and fatigue after an 8-week program of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). MBSR includes meditation practices designed to address both physical and psychological difficulties.