Yoga - Ask Yogi Marlon

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Learn the ancient ayurvedic practice of abhyanga

A Good Night's Sleep

If you habitually do not get a good night's sleep, in addition to not feeling well or thinking clearly, chances are you are aging faster than you could be. When we sleep are body repairs on a cellular level. It removes toxins, and lends attention to sustaining us in a way that ordinarily is not possible during waking hours. (Very experienced yogis are more at rest in meditation than most are in their deepest sleep. This is one reason they tend to live so long).

In recent years meletonin has been of great help to many insomniacs, but isn't this just another Western pill cure? It does not make sense to provoke oneself to sleep, when the concept itself is one of ease.

Additionally, we process the events of our lives during stage 2 of sleep, or REM sleep. This is when we dream. Studies have proven that deprivation of REM sleep for as little as a week has a disruptive effect on our lives. Psychologically we are much less stable. We become easily irritated and overwhelmed. If you are a chronic insomniac, you may experience life on a daily basis in this subdued state of alarm. Over years, you can easily regard the inability to cope as just a part of living, when truly it is not.

In ayurveda, one would classify sleeplessness as a typical symptom of "deranged vata". There are many things one can do to curb that particular type of excess energy. In doing so, you will experience much more than a good night's sleep. It's obvious that you will be more energetic, but you will also be clearer minded, and generally in better health.

The information below will help your body naturally release the biochemical that enable sound, restful sleep. If occasionally, you do not sleep well, you can try a few of these tips that seem easy for you. If you never sleep well, it's best to do them all. No need to be severe with yourself. Just add them one at a time until you sleep the entire night through without waking up even once.

Try these tips:

1. Stop drinking all caffeine. OK, ease off if you need to, but immediately cease intake of coffee, black or green tea, Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, chocolate, etc., as early in the day as possible. Definitely do not ingest after 5 p.m.

2. Do not drink heavily. The boozy effect of alcohol will "put you out", but once your body processes the alcohol, its sugar content will makes you restless or wake you up.

3. Avoid sweets that have refined sugar, like cookies, cakes, and chocolate.

4. Do not watch or read material that contains violence, fowl language or disturbing situations. That includes TV, movies, radio, the newspaper, the latest gripping novel, and particularly the news. This will only make your body release biochemicals, such as adrenaline, that serve to give you bursts of energy. They are stimulants, and therefore detrimental to sleep.

5. Perform abhyanga-see full explanation. Pay special attention to rubbing sesame oil that you warm between your hands, on the soles of your feet.

6. Take a warm bath each night before bed. Temperature should be just a few degrees above body temperature. It needn't be so hot that your heart races or you feel drained when you get out.

7. Sip some herbal tea that is especially formulated to relax. Look for ingredients such as chamomile and oatstraw.

8. Make sure the light in your bedroom is soft. Bare bulbs and overhead fixtures give off light that creates tension. Instead, use table lamps with shades, frosted bulbs (preferably full spectrum), and indirect lighting. Avoid florescent light at all hours.

9. Sleep in a well-ventilated room. If the weather is temperate open two windows for cross ventilation. You want to be able to breathe easily. If it is winter turn down the heat to about 60 degrees and stay warm under natural fiber (cotton, linen, wool, or silk) blankets, or comfortable. Down with a is costly, but very comfortable because it is warm yet breaths.

10. Sleep without clothes! Moving in your sleep is much more difficult when bedclothes twist around your body. Waistbands constrict breathing. Sleeping this way is actually warmer as the Eskimos prove every night!

11. Keep a glass of room temperature water near the bed. If you are thirsty during the night you will not have to get up for it. Chances are you will doze right back to sleep you if you do not get up and walk around. Cold water is too much of a shock to the body at any hour.

12. Turn off the lights. Your eyes react to even the smallest amount of light. Your brain sends bio-chemicals for wakefulness, not sleep.

13. Do not sleep with the TV, radio or stereo. Try to remove all external stimuli that would draw your attention outward. Sleeping is an inward process.

14. Momentarily think of some problem, large or small, you would like to solve, but do not dwell upon it. Just think of it, the possible solution of which your are currently aware, and let it go. Ask for guidance from your Higher Source. Now is not the time to fester or try and solve. Ask for the answer to come to you in the morning.

15. Count your blessings before you go to sleep, being grateful for the gift of the passing day.

16. Pray for yourself, others and all of mankind.

17. Perform this simple breathing exercise as you drift off. The extended exhale creates the oxygen/carbon dioxide ratio in your bloodstream that is conducive to sleep. That stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. That is the one that rebuilds cells, detoxifies the body, and promotes relaxation.

S-l-o-w-l-y breathe in and out through your nostrils only. Breathe in for a count of 8, and out for a count of 12. Keep doing it for 20 minutes, clearing your mind of all but the flow and count of the breath. Trace the breath with your mind as it makes the belly rise and fall.

Chances are you will be asleep long before the 20 minutes are up. That is fine. Not need to complete it.

After weeks of doing all of this, if you still are not sleeping the night through, my guess is that you are resisting a very big change that needs to happen in your life. If you were sleeping well, the work you'd do in your dreams on a psychic level would make that change evident. Take an honest look at your life, and strive to find the inner strength to make the necessary changes.

Nitey Nite,

Yogi Marlon

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