28 Jul Meditate to Sleep Better

Sleep acts as a very crucial element in our thinking and learning. If you’ve ever crawled under the blanket trying to get yourself a peaceful sleep and failed at it, you would know how troublesome the day to follow can be. Lack of sleep or clinically known as insomnia apart from robbing you of a smooth day, affects the sleep deprived person in considerable other ways. It naturally tends to make you irritable and bad tempered, enfeebles your attention and analyzing power. Further, sleep deprivation and continual sleep loss can put you at risk for problems like diabetes and heart problems.

In addition to the already mentioned, men and women who suffer from sleep deprivation have lower libidos and less of interest in sexual desires. Sleeping less may also act as a catalyser for putting on weight. It is accepted to be so because the people suffering from insomnia have lower levels of Leptin which is the chemical that makes you feel full where as they have higher levels of Ghrelin which is the hunger-stimulating hormone.

Studies have shown that an estimated 70 million of people in the USA suffer from sleep deprivation. To fight this problem the experts have come up with a pragmatic and permanent sleep inducing solution – Meditation.

Meditation is a mind relaxing practice that spotlights the breathing and mindfulness of the person in the moment. Meditation is known for crumbling the disturbing train of thoughts to induce relief from insomnia in the concerned person’s mind.

Each night before you begin your struggle of trying to sleep, try a simple technique. This will help you excessively. Maintain a good temperature in your room where you neither feel cold nor hot. Switch the lights off. You can have dim lit candles or tea lights for a good ambiance though. Sit down calmly on your bed and commit yourself to a pacifying focus. Some examples of the focus could be a sound like ‘Hari Om’ or ‘Nam Myoho Renge Kyo’ or any other sound that you find very soothing. Keep repeating the sound aloud for about fifteen minutes while inhaling and exhaling. This process of devotion of the mind will put your soul into peace, making you feel much lighter than the usual. This method is one of the deepest and penetrates you into the unconscious. Try this process for a month and you will notice a tremendous change in your sleeping pattern. You will feel deepness in your sleep, and at the break of the day you will feel absolutely fresh.

Not only is meditation known for the betterment of sleep but it is also quite similar to sleep in some ways. Mind you, it is similar to sleep and not a replacement.

“By doing meditation, you can turn your body into a powerhouse by generating an inner source of energy“, said Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

The amount of energy our body renews from meditation far exceeds what it does from sleeping. Further, when we oversleep, we tend to be drowsy and dormant which is definitely not the case with over meditating.

Although both sleep and meditation are known for refreshing us but meditation can free us from the past emotional or mental shackles also. It helps the mind in rejuvenating and getting over the otherwise difficult to forget memories. Also, we can never really decide when we want to sleep but that is not the case with meditation. One can actually choose when they wish to meditate, be it in their office or at home.