The Night Shift

The impact of Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY) practice on sleep

Every night, we slip out of consciousness for several hours and wake up restored. While we are away, the brain revisits the day, strengthening some memories and letting others fade. That work follows a pattern.

Stages of sleep

A healthy night moves through cycles of about 90 minutes.

What the SKY studies found

30% → 55%adults sleeping well after a three-day workshopKanchibhotla et al., 2021

↓ 20%insomnia scores in physicians over eight weeksKorkmaz et al., 2024

↓ 31%daytime sleepiness in young adults after eight weeksChaudhari et al., 2020

77% vs 60%daily vs occasional practitioners who sleep wellSloan & Kanchibhotla, 2020

Sleep architecture, measured overnight

Both studies recorded time spent in each stage of sleep: one in a sleep laboratory, the other with a contactless bedside sensor.

Deep sleep held on in middle-aged SKY practitioners

Move or drag across the chart to compare the two nights.

Deep sleep as % of the night · group averages

Adapted from Sulekha et al., 2006 · NIMHANS, Bengaluru. Overnight sleep-lab recordings of healthy men. Each hypnogram is one representative night; deep sleep (N3) combines the study's stages 3 and 4.

Four days of SKY, more time in the stages that restore

Hover or tap a bar to read the values.

Redrawn from Pathania et al., 2022 · AIIMS Rishikesh. 41 doctors and nurses on pandemic shifts in intensive care and emergency units, measured with a contactless sensor before and after a four-day online SKY workshop.

Two kinds of rest.

Sleep is nature's built-in reset; it asks nothing of us. SKY is a deliberate breathing practice that leaves one in a quiet, meditative state, and the research suggests the rest we cultivate by day may deepen the rest that comes at night.

The first chart is an illustrative night. Study charts are redrawn from the papers cited beneath them; values are rounded to whole numbers.

Infographic by Sri Sri Institute for Advanced Research