I hear about it countless times a week.
Can you please tell me what postures help with sleep? Can we do a yoga for insomnia class today? Are there any breath techniques I can do to sleep better? Do you have any meditation cd’s you can burn for me, I can’t sleep?!
How much are you getting these days?
In fact, I know all too well the perils, terror, and frustrations that revolve around being unable to catch a substantial amount of sleep on any given night.
It started when I went off to college countless years back. It went on for weeks on end and over the last ten years I have continued to battled with sleeplessness.
It’s about 11.30 now as I sit down to type this post and I can remember that I told my massage therapist at four that I was exhausted when she asked me how I was doing. The plan was to head home after my last class today, drink a cup of hot tea, and hit the sack for a much needed eight hours of beauty sleep.
That brings me to my first important point: We must plan our night time rest. Sleep is one of those things that constantly gets left off the to do list as if it is unnecessary.
Sleep is not only mandatory for good health, its a process that remains a mystery of which scientist can’t quite explain. We know it has a powerful effect on our mental health, from our emotional well being to efficient brain function. It effects our mood, our memory, and our ability to concentrate. It is the time when our immune & nervous systems work on repair and it is when vital hormones are timed to release.
Arianna Huffington has set a Sleep Challenge encouraging women to sleep themselves to the top (and not in that kinky 60’s Mad Men sort of way).
I will talk more about this topic as the seasons progress, in the mean time I would like to offer a few tips.
- Make the room you sleep in as comfortable as possible. Pillows, sheets, blankets, jammies, lights, and noise. All of these things can effect your experience. Make sure your bed and accoutrements are clean, comfortable, and pleasing to the touch. Lights should be on low, none of that overhead light nonsense, and cut out noise from electronics in the bedchamber all together.
- Lights: Many of the artificial indoor lighting conditions that are commonly encountered in modern society are arbitrary and bear little relationship to natural light conditions. It is believed that certain artificial lighting conditions may have an adverse effect on the natural biological rhythms that influence human behavior. One of the pivotal moments in my journey through sleep therapy came with the recommendation of creating a simulated sunset in my home. Brilliant!
Start by turning off all the overhead lights in your home three or more hours before you go to bed if you use them at all. Floor and desk lamps are turned off an hour or so before lights out leaving either low watt bulbs in a couple of fixtures on or going to candle all together. Let candles or a soft LED light be the last point of illumination in your room until you’ve decided to call it quits for the day and count sheep. This simulated sunset triggers the bodies natural circadian rhythms. For this reason, light therapy has been gaining a lot of ground. There are lights for both sunrise and sunsets and some are even set up to function as your alarm system so you get to circumvent the whole waking up to that blunt noise annoyance that most of us deal with. On that note, a Zen Clock is high on my list of things to purchase.
- Noise & Electronics: Get rid off all computers, television sets, and radios where you sleep. The abrasive lights along with the sounds are killing not only your sleeping patterns, but for many couples, time for intimacy. There are some that would swear too that the electrical currents from these devises are reeking havoc on the subtle body systems even in their standby states and would suggest leaving all laptops and cell phones in another room all together.
- Bed: There are two things to be done in bed. One of them is sleep. One of them is, um, not sleeping. Reading, crosswords, homework, list-making, sewing, eating, watching movies all disrupt your sleep. How? It is confusing to the body when you do any of these activities in the place where you are meant to lay your head down and get some shut-eye. If you refrain from these disruptions you will send a strong and constant signal to the body that BED= SLEEP… and, um, sexy time…
- Ritual: Create an evening routine to train the body and the mind. Mine starts with the simulated sunset, followed by tea and time for reflection. Sometimes I do a few restorative yoga postures and some pranayama before I slide in between the sheets.
- Sharing Space: It may be a worthy investigation to see if sharing your bed space is serving you. If you and your partner are on different schedules and cycles you may be disrupting each other in your quest for rest. Many couples, recognizing the need for individual space, have turned to the Master Suite design concept where two bedrooms accomodate the couple. It may add an element of longing back into long standing relationships which is an added bonus. I for one rarely sleep in the same place on any given night. Some nights I stay on the couch, some in bed one direction, and other nights I spin around and face the other wall to admire my paintings. I certainly am not the kind of woman who is going to sleep on the same side of the bed for the rest of my life- with or without a partner in it. For me it is fun to move about in search for slumber and has been made easy with my round bed. According to one friend, it is very Hugh Hefner of me ;0)
These are just a few ways you can make your rest quest one prone to more success.
Do some research. Create a ritual for yourself. Invest in time to unwind. Try and relax and if you find yourself staring at the walls for hours on end then get up all together and sit in another room while you drink some hot tea or stare at a candle. Resist the urge to worry about or beat yourself up over sleep and soon enough your eyes will shut and slumber will be at hand. Talk to your teachers about breath and posture options, meditation recommendations, and perhaps have an advisor come into your home to check out the Feng Shui of your space.
Till next time,
Good Luck & Goodnight-!!









