[_y5hn]

That's been in use for thousands of years already: yoga, pranayama and meditation.

There are courses one can take where one learns this, like Art of Living and any other that follows the same traditions.

Yes, there's research on that, and new studies should absolutely gain from this study. Not entirely sure you'll observe the same effect, that depends on meditator, but you can fall asleep during practice.

I have over a decade experience with it, and have also participated on a study on breathing exercises and epigenetic effects from that versus blind control.

[mattlondon]

I think the point of replacing sleep is to save time.

Replacing hours of sleep with hours of yogo or mediation seems like you are not gaining anything.

[gitaarik]

Meditation is a practice, you practice to keep your mind "clean" and don't clutter it with unnecessary thoughts, worries, etc. If you master this skill, you will require less sleep. And then you don't have to be sitting on the floor all the time, you can just live your life without cluttering your mind all the time. So it is ultimately more efficient than cluttering your mind all day and then needing lots of sleep. But it does take some initial practicing time before you reach that state of mind. But with all things, if you put some effort in beforehand, you can reap a lot of gain afterwards. Doing this practice for about 20/30 minutes every morning can already quickly bring great improvement to your daily life. If done right that is. It's easy to do it wrong also, and then it can not bring any benefit. Sometimes it's necessary to first work out some traumas before you start a serious meditation practice. Sometimes meditation actually helps you work out traumas. It all depends on the person and situation. For some people guided meditation works great, other people rather just sit in silence. It doesn't really matter, as long as you find something that works for you.

See it like exercising: you might think that spending time on exercising takes away time that you could spend on doing useful things. But it actually gives you better health, making you function better in your daily life. So it enables you to do things more efficiently. And you'll feel healthier, better, happier. So ultimately you gain from it.

[frereubu]

I think the point would be if you could replace ~8 hours of sleep with ~1-2 hours of meditation. I very much doubt it's a like-for-like replacement, but it might go some way to reducing the need for full sleep, e.g. 2 hours meditating + 2 hours sleeping = 8 hours sleeping.

[hahajk]

Is the idea that yoga/meditation are more efficient than sleep at redistributing the cerebral fluid? That would be very surprising.

[_y5hn]

What people really require for sleep vary a lot. But there are claims some people practicing very intensely, need only 4-6 hours of sleep at night. That's rarely a goal in itself though, as it's not a means to become more efficient or "save time", in a traditional, linear way of thinking at least.

However, the goal of meditation can be very diverse, since there are many different techniques, each with their own aims and side-effects. Generally, the main goal is often to calm the mind, make the body relax and let go of stress. There are many more benefits though, which you only realize when doing personal and experiencial practice over longer periods of time. It's not like the effects are the same for each person even, so it's more like a discovery process rather than do A, B, C techniques for X, Y, Z gains. However, there's a baseline of methods and general health, which is what it's usually used for. Very few people are suited to be munks or living in secluded communes like that. But it can be Very nice to be on a 1-2 week retreat now and then.

[sonofhans]

“You should meditate 10 minutes each day,” the teacher said. “But I can’t find 10 minutes every day!” said the student. “Then,” replied the teacher, “you should meditate for 60 minutes each day.”

[zadler]

Which exercises would you say trigger movement of cerebrospinal dluid in the brain?

[DonHopkins]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM5_dgKDsrc

[ArthurAardvark]

It's hilarious to me that these practices are laughed off, trivialized through memes and hyper-objectivity (science can't evaluate their value in a practical manner -> "Lulz hippie-dippie nonsense for ditzy/ungrounded women!!!!" -- Western dolt). Its insane considering their benefits...that are of course tragically perfect for those who would never participate

Of course that's a huge generality, I'd say it may be 1 out of 5 people like that in the US, but its the fact that it is not constrained to any particular demographic/background.

[dotnet00]

I've seen actual psychiatrists suggesting meditation or yoga as additional ways to help with certain issues (eg anxiety) along with medicine, and the benefits of say, just conscious, controlled breathing as is involved in both are obvious to anyone who has a temper.

I wouldn't be surprised if the idea that it's completely useless because it can't be scientifically observed in a traditional sense is highly correlated with people who think that mental health issues aren't real in general.

[hombre_fatal]

It's dismissed like any other woo woo bullshit: strong claims, no evidence.

Where's the evidence that yoga and meditation accomplish the effects of sleep and how strong is it?

[_y5hn]

There are studies on this, and I see they've been updated a bit. It doesn't seem to replace sleep due to Delta-waves during deep sleep, but can be used over time to maybe reduce the need for sleep. Enough sleep is of course important for clarity of mind and for releasing toxins and stress. In the West we often suffer from chronic sleep-deprivation, so meditation may help in that as well as ensuring enough rest in order to recuperate.

https://www.artofliving.org/us-en/meditation/sleep/meditatio...

You don't really need studies for this when you can have experiential evidence through own practices, which is much more important for an individual than external studies.