ISLAMABAD, August 25 (Online): A study explores the benefits of meditation-relaxation therapy for people with narcolepsy who experience sleep paralysis. A new study reports that around 20% of people worldwide experience sleep paralysis. As the lead study authors explain, finding oneself mentally awake as the body’s voluntary muscles remain asleep can be a terrifying experience; sleep paralysis can bring with it a range of hypnagogic hallucinations. But for some people the fear that it can instill in them can be extremely unpleasant and going to bed which should be a relaxing experience can become fraught with terror. The research is a small-scale pilot study exploring the efficacy of meditation-relaxation therapy as a treatment for sleep paralysis in people with narcolepsy. This is a condition that sleep paralysis sometimes accompanies. Meditation-relaxation therapy produced a 50% reduction in the number of days on which the study participants experienced sleep paralysis. Normally, our voluntary muscles remain immobilized during sleep, leaving us free to dream of physical activities without injuring ourselves in reality. Every 90 minutes or so, we move between rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep. During both stages, the body remains relaxed. The eyes move during REM, which is the … Continue reading New therapy may ‘dramatically’ reduce sleep paralysis events