Insomnia Inflammation Improved With Movement Meditation Tai Chi

The movement meditation tai chi as well as cognitive behavioral therapy may help reduce insomnia-related inflammation, according to a recent study.

During this study, researchers at the University of California Los Angeles recruited 123 adults over the age of 55 with insomnia who were randomized to receive one of 3 types of classes, including the following: cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, the movement meditation tai chi, or a sleep seminar (the control condition).

Researchers found that cognitive behavioral therapy helped reduce insomnia related symptoms via a systemic marker of inflammation known as the C-reactive protein. Furthermore, they discovered it reversed activation of molecular inflammatory signaling pathways--all of which were maintained over a 16-month follow-up period.

The study authors also discovered that Tai chi reduced inflammation at the cellular level from insomnia-related stress by reversing activation of inflammatory signaling pathways. Similar to the cognitive behavioral therapy, reduction of cellular inflammation was also maintained during the 16-month follow-up period, researchers say. 

Those participants assigned to the sleep seminar classes showed no significant changes in inflammatory markers, as expected.

These results provide an evidence-based molecular framework to understand how behavioral interventions that target sleep may reduce inflammation and promote health.

"Behavioral interventions that target sleep reduce inflammation and represent a third pillar, along with diet and physical activity, to promote health and possibly reduce the risk of age-related morbidities including depression," concluded Dr. Michael Irwin, who conducted this work along with his colleagues at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at the University of California Los Angeles, in a news release.

The study is published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

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