Could people with insomnia stick with a bedtime meditation app for four weeks?

Details

The main goal was to test whether bedtime app-guided mindfulness meditation and a combination of laboratory and home sleep assessments were practical, rather than to establish a treatment benefit. Participants had chronic insomnia and difficulty falling asleep. Researchers collected sleep measurements, questionnaires and daily sleep logs before and after the four-week program, and conducted exit interviews.

The study met its preset targets for enrolling and retaining participants, completing assessments and following the practice. Among those who stayed, completion was 95% for laboratory sleep studies and 100% for questionnaires. Interviews also supported the approach’s acceptability, with participants describing experiences such as relaxation and greater calm.

Preliminary questionnaire results suggested better sleep quality, less severe insomnia and less mental or physical activation before sleep. A measure of how sleep responds to stress showed only an uncertain trend toward improvement. Although physiological sleep measurements were collected, the abstract does not report whether those measures improved. The small sample, short follow-up and lack of a control group mean these findings support further research, not a conclusion that the app treats insomnia.