Saturday, September 24, 2016

Sleep: Some interesting Facts ( All Sketches by me)

-Irish Proverb

In the morning you beg to sleep more, in the afternoon you are dying to sleep and at night you refuse to sleep.

Ask teenagers: what they would not give to keep sleep at bay? Ask working adults: what would we not give in exchange for a few more minutes to sleep?

Ever experienced Yog Nidra or Yogic sleep? I have done. Several times. I was meditating and slipped in yogic sleep: it felt like I had slipped into a box of vaccuum: totally dark (words like dark and black do not even begin to describe it), totally empty, totally restful, totally motionless, totally sound less, totally dreamless, just a state of deepest rest. And someone calls out your name and you come out of it realizing you were awake recollecting that something strange had happened to you.

In Hindi it is called Samadhi!

Yog Nidra is among the deepest possible states of relaxation while still maintaining full consciousness. One appears to be sleeping but the unconscious mind is functioning at a deeper level. It is a sleep with a trace o deep awareness. In normal sleep you lose track of ourselves but in Yog Nidra you don't. Its funny because you have not been sleeping and yet been in a state that's way deeper than your normal deep sleep!

45 minutes of Yog Nidra is as restorative as 3 hours of sleep.

The hours that children spend asleep influence their ability to perform on cognitive tasks. Children who sleep through the night and have few night waking episodes have higher cognitive attainments and easier temperaments than other children.


Benefits of Sleep: Good adequate sleep improves memory, boosts creativity, improves performance of athletes or even common workers, improves performance of children in class, helps increase attention and focus, lowers stress and anxiety levels and blood pressure and helps treat depression.

Sleep hygiene: Sleep hygiene constitutes of establishing healthy rules to induce regular healthy sleep so you stay healthy. If you are a baby or a child, it also helps your parents stay sane!
The rules include preparing a good sleep environment, establishing a sleep ritual consisting of bathing, changing in night clothes, reading a bedtime story, playing sleep music and saying goodnight. 

Beauty Sleep: Want more benefits out of your sleep? Go to sleep.
A good sleep rejuvenates your tired skin and gives your complexion a healthy glow. In fact it even helps your eyes appear brighter and hair bouncier.

Most major diseases in the world like hypertension, cancer, high blood pressure, heart diseases, depression, mental diseases, anxiety and stress disorders, even simple fevers, cold and flue etc. to name a few, lists good restful healthy sleep as necessary for their treatment. 

Social jet lag: If you wake up at a different hour during the weekdays and a totally different one on weekends you may be suffering with social jet lag which is quite similar to travel jet lag except that in travel jet lag you physically change time zones whereas in social jet lag you stay at the same place.

Sleep Debt: Sleep debt is the cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep. Too much sleep debt results in serious physical and mental fatigue and significantly reduced performance levels.

Dysania: Dysania is the state of finding it hard getting up out of bed in the morning. 

My personal peculiarity: All my life I have been catching the sun leave its bed sleepily, give a big yawn, stretch itself and say good morning to me personally . When I allow him to catch me in bed instead I feel I lost the day. 
I love to rise early when the sky is still ink black. The phenomena of witnessing the rising sun, its first ray of light, the chirping birds and the gradual lightening of the sky holds a special place in my morning rituals...
It fills me with joy in my heart, a song on my lips and a spring in my step that others get through their cup of coffee. Early rising is my cup of coffee. More than that.


  1. Nice article. Thanks for sharing.
    Best Regards

  2. Interesting and informative content. Thank you for sharing your article.
    Best Regards

  3. Thank you for sharing the article. It was an interesting/informative reading.

    Best Regards