JAMA Internal Medicine
February 16, 2015
David S. Black, Gillian A. O’Reilly, Richard Olmstead et al.
485 citations
A 6-week mindfulness meditation program improved sleep quality more than sleep hygiene education in older adults with moderate sleep disturbances. Participants in the mindfulness group saw their sleep quality scores drop from 10.2 to 7.4 on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, while the education group's scores fell from 10.2 to 9.1, a between-group difference of 1.8 points. The mindfulness group also showed greater reductions in insomnia symptoms, depression symptoms, and fatigue. No significant differences were found for anxiety, stress, or a marker of inflammation, though the inflammation marker declined over time in both groups. The findings suggest that community-accessible mindfulness programs can improve sleep and related daytime impairment in older adults.
General Hospital Psychiatry
September 11, 2021
Jennifer Huberty, Megan E. Puzia, Jeni Green et al.
76 citations
Using a meditation app for eight weeks led to greater improvements in depression and anxiety among 239 adults with insomnia symptoms compared to a control group. The mental health benefits were driven by reductions in both physical and mental arousal before sleep, which fully accounted for the effect on depression and partially for the effect on anxiety. Fatigue and daytime sleepiness did not explain the changes. A meditation app may improve depression and anxiety in adults with sleep disturbance by lowering pre-sleep arousal.
Translational Psychiatry
March 21, 2021
Jennifer L. Kruse, Megha M. Vasavada, Richard Olmstead et al.
47 citations
Lower baseline levels of the inflammatory marker interleukin-8 (IL-8) in females, but not males, trended toward predicting a better response to ketamine for depression. In 46 depressed patients receiving a single ketamine infusion, changes in IL-8 over time also differed by sex and treatment response: increasing IL-8 was associated with decreasing depression scores in females, while the opposite pattern appeared in males. Other inflammatory markers showed no significant relationships. These preliminary findings suggest that sex differences in IL-8 may help explain how ketamine works and could guide personalized depression treatment.