Mindfulness training courses could benefit older people, given new research revealing that the practice has positive effects on sleep, daytime fatigue and depression – the latter two of which often result from poor rest among the elderly.

Conducted by the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, the study found that older generations suffering sleep disturbances found mindfulness meditation to be more effective than sleep hygiene education programmes.

David Black, author of the study and assistant professor of preventative medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, observed how surprised the researchers were to find that mindfulness meditation was in fact more effective than sleep hygiene initiatives.

“Mindfulness meditation appears to have clinical importance by serving to reduce sleep problems among the growing population of older adults and this effect on sleep appears to carry over into reducing daytime fatigue and depression symptoms,” he remarked.

If you’re keen to look further into the benefits of mindfulness and want to try the practice for yourself, why not download one of the many apps available onto your smartphone and start from there? Alternatively we have released a full series of free mindfulness exercises on this website. This can be a great introduction into this form of therapy and once you’ve given it a go, you can seek out more involved courses to further reap the benefits.

We recently featured some of the best mindfulness apps out there on our blog, so take a look to see if any of these sound right for you. We’d love to hear how they’ve worked for you, so drop us a line in the comments below.