Improved sleep, cognitive processing and enhanced learning and memory task accuracy with Yoga nidra practice in novices

Karuna Datta; Anna Bhutambare; Mamatha V L; Yogita Narawa; Rajagopal Srinath; Madhuri Kanitkar

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0294678

Improved sleep, cognitive processing and enhanced learning and memory task accuracy with Yoga nidra practice in novices

PLoS One. 2023 Dec 13;18(12):e0294678. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294678. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Karuna Datta¹, Anna Bhutambare², Mamatha V L³, Yogita Narawa², Rajagopal Srinath⁴, Madhuri Kanitkar⁵

Affiliations

¹ Human Sleep Research Lab, c/o Department of Sports Medicine, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
² JRF, DST SATYAM Project, Human Sleep Research Lab, c/o Department of Sports Medicine, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
³ DST SATYAM Project, Human Sleep Research Lab, c/o Department of Sports Medicine, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
⁴ Department of Internal Medicine, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
⁵ Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nashik, Maharashtra, India.

Abstract

Complementary and Alternative medicine is known to have health benefits. Yoga nidra practice is an easy-to-do practice and has shown beneficial effects on stress reduction and is found to improve sleep in insomnia patients. Effect of yoga nidra practice on subjective sleep is known but its effect on sleep and cognition objectively is not documented. The aim of the study was to study the effect of yoga nidra practice on cognition and sleep using objective parameters. 41 participants were enrolled, and baseline sleep diary (SD) collected. Participants volunteered for overnight polysomnography (PSG) and cognition testing battery (CTB) comprising of Motor praxis test, emotion recognition task (ERT), digital symbol substitution task, visual object learning task (VOLT), abstract matching (AIM), line orientation task, matrix reasoning task, fractal-2-back test (NBACK), psychomotor vigilance task and balloon analog risk task. Baseline CTB and after one and two weeks of practice was compared. Power spectra density for EEG at central, frontal, and occipital locations during CTB was compared. Repeat SD and PSG after four weeks of practice were done. After yoga nidra practice, improved reaction times for all cognition tasks were seen. Post intervention compared to baseline (95%CI; p-value, effect size) showed a significant improvement in sleep efficiency of +3.62% (0.3, 5.15; p = 0.03, r = 0.42), -20min (-35.78, -5.02; p = 0.003, d = 0.84) for wake after sleep onset and +4.19 μV2 (0.5, 9.5; p = 0.04, r = 0.43) in delta during deep sleep. Accuracy increased in VOLT (95% CI: 0.08, 0.17; p = 0.002, d = 0.79), AIM (95% CI: 0.03, 0.12; p = 0.02, d = 0.61) and NBACK (95% CI: 0.02, 0.13; p = 0.04, d = 0.56); ERT accuracy increased for happy, fear and anger (95% CI: 0.07, 0.24; p = 0.004, d = 0.75) but reduced for neutral stimuli (95% CI: -0.31, -0.12; p = 0.04, r = 0.33) after yoga nidra practice. Yoga Nidra practice improved cognitive processing and night-time sleep.

Copyright: © 2023 Datta et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

MeSH terms

Cognition
Humans
Meditation*
Sleep
Wakefulness
Yoga* / psychology

Grants and funding

KD received the funding from Department of Science and Technology under Science and Technology for Yoga and Meditation (SATYAM), India available at https://dst.gov.in/, and was received vide their sanction order DST Satyam 2018/457 dated 28 May 2020. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.