
The general conclusion is that humans need a basic core amount of sleep of about 7-8 hours (for adults) for optimal functioning without accumulating sleep debt. They also found that long-term meditators who meditated for at least a couple hours daily could function well on 5-6 hours of sleep. They found that those who meditated improved their PVT scores, and if they had less sleep and also meditated, their PVT scores weren’t significantly affected. Studies performed in this area have looked into replacing some portion of sleep with meditation, and measuring whether participants can still perform well on psychomotor vigilance tasks (PVT). Studies have shown that psychomotor skills improve post-meditation, despite a lack of sleep After this, the average person starts to experience difficulty functioning normally during the day when they sleep less than 5-6 hours, even if they meditate more (with the exception of long-term skilled meditators). This relationship holds fairly linearly up to about 2-3 hours of meditation. So 10 minutes of meditation is roughly equal to, and able to replace 10 minutes of sleep. It also depends on whether a person has been a long-term meditator. The fact is, human beings generally need a minimum of about 4-6 hours sleep, after which the amount of meditation done can be equivalent to the remaining amount of sleep needed to reach the 7-8 hours required for optimal functioning.

Is it True that 10 Minutes of Meditation is Equal to 4 Hours of Sleep?įalse. To understand why, let’s dig a little deeper into this relationship by first looking at a common misconception. Human beings need an effective minimum amount of sleep, and cannot completely replace one for the other. There is a caveat to this – this relationship only exists to a certain point. Generally, this relationship is directly correlated – that is, you can replace 30 minutes of sleep with 30 minutes of meditation. Meditation has been shown to be associated with a decrease in total sleep time, particularly in long-term meditators – so yes, it can partially replace sleep. So the question remains – can meditation be a substitute for, and at least partially replace sleep? However, sleep is a mandatory part of life, while meditation isn’t. Both meditation and sleep have powerful restorative powers to not only rest the body and mind, but revitalise and energise all parts of ourselves.
