Sleep Problems

People sleep because they have the instinct to sleep. But most people sleep without realising why does one sleep. They sleep because they feel sleepy, just as they eat because they feel hungry. Such people would sleep in such a condition that they would not wake up refreshed.

Many people find it difficult to get up in the morning after a good night sleep. Obviously they have nothing to look forward to in the day. They would be the people who even after sleep, would not get refreshed and would still be feeling drained and exhausted. Such people even when they get up in the morning, would feel weak or exhausted.

On days when something exciting is planned, man in general gets up early on his own. So, when a man does not get up early on his own, it is clear they have nothing exciting to perform in the day and so the nature makes it difficult for them to get up from bed. The nature knows that such people do not deserve to feel fresh in the morning as they are not going to be cheerful even while they are awake. Nature knows whom to reward with good sleep and freshness and whom to deprive of these.

So, the best medicine for solving insomnia is to be cheerful in the day and do something exciting, useful and rewarding.

Need for sleep

It is a great mistake not to take sufficient sleep. Seven hours is the general minimum needed for people. But normally 6 hrs of sleep every night is adequate for most people. It is nature’s way of re-charging our batteries for the next day’s work.

Some do equally well even with less sleep. Especially people who have a very strong nervous system they do reduce it even to five. With rising age, our requirement of sleep also diminishes. That is why old people often get going with less sleep.

But in the normal course, any reduction from six hours of sleep should be rare and ought not to be attempted without necessity. If the body is told to sleep only 2 or 3 hours it may follow if the will is strong enough, but afterwards it may get exceedingly strained and even break down for want of needed rest. The sleep is necessary because the entire parts of your body need the immobility in order to be able to live their own life independently.

Both during physical illness and for mental trouble sleep is a great help and its absence very undesirable because it would cause loss of curative power.

A couple of nights of short sleep made can make easier prey for viral infections like cold and flu. The good news is that as soon as you get enough sleep your resistance bounces back to normal. That is why when people are struck by fever, they are asked to sleep and take rest. Sleep has a direct connection with how well we resist infection. Immunity of sleep deprived people is lower than normal.

Why sleep problems?

The first reason could be physical. The restfulness of sleep is affected by food lying on the stomach. When the digestion is on it lowers the restfulness of sleep. Such people would feel the need to sleep more and they sleep more. If the person goes to sleep after digestion time [two to three hours after food], then he would have restful sleep and less sleep would be sufficient for him. Constipation, over eating, etc. could also add to our problems.

The second reason and most important reason for sleep problems is mental. The common cause is basically mental tension, i.e. . feelings like anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, worry, etc. If one’s mind conditions are perfect, the sleep would come by itself. Sleeping is not an act. It is an event. The conditions necessary for such an event are cessation of all thoughts, no lust, no discords, no fear, etc. Mind should have five qualities,

· self-control
· compassion
· forgiveness
· cheerfulness and
· surrender to God.

If these are present in mind, there would be no sleep problems. On the contrary, if you are mentally excited or depressed, you cannot sleep well. Sleep can also be a very active means of concentration and inner knowledge.

To recapitulate, there are many causes to insomnia. They are:

· Physical disability, pain or other medical reasons
· Worry and anxiety
· New baby in the house
· Snoring by your partner
· Your work hours are not regular, but erratic
· You don’t go to bed at a fixed time
· You take alcohol
· You are habituated to sleeping tablets
· Disturbing environments
· Poor digestion
· You consume chocolate, cheese and such other rich foods having tyrosine
· You fear you may not get sleep
· You had a nap during the day
· You have bad relationships
· You smoke or take soft drinks

Sleeping pills should never be opted for, since they cannot cure the problem. They are at best ok for one or two nights. Even there you run the risk of habit forming and needing progressively higher doses. What is basically needed is change in mental state and life style.

How to sleep

Sleep is a school one has to go through. The effective sleep is one where one knows how to use one’s nights as one uses one’s days.


When a person rests while on journey, he sleeps irrespective of no bed, no pillow and no ventilation. This should happen regularly.

In proper sleep, all physical parts should be put to total rest from the outer noisy life. This is necessary because rest and activity must alternate.

An individual who lies on a soft bed would in course of time develop spinal abnormalities. Hence it is advisable not to go in for spring and sponge mattresses and use only hard bed. Similarly high pillows would cause tension in the muscles and impede proper circulation of blood to the head. Then headache and backache would arise.

Sleeping with head to the east will save us from environmental ill effects.

Before going to sleep, we need to concentrate and relax all tensions in the physical body and relax completely like a rag, as though the body has neither bones nor muscles. We need to calm our body as much as we can, make it quiet and peaceful.

Therefore if one is physically tired, it is better not to go to sleep immediately but stretch and relax on the bed for sometime loosening all the nerves. The next step is to make the mind too peaceful and rest without any activity and bring it to quietitude and silence. Once we go sleep we must not carry the day’s thinking and ideas and make the mind make no effort, otherwise the mind would continue to work and you won’t be able to sleep well. When the mind continues to work, one cannot rest.

Many people who suffer insomnia often approach their bed with the worry whether they would get their sleep that day. And that worry itself would cause their insomnia for the night that day. Thus many times insomnia is its own cause. So if you fear you may not get the sleep, you may end up just achieving that.

Thus, for a good sleep, one must enter immobility in body and perfect peace with absolute silence in mind. Sensations or emotions had during the day must be allowed to drop off and given up. Those studying should not study till just before sleeping.

For a good sleep, a prayer would a good thing asking the God to watch over you while you sleep and then go to sleep.

If these are followed, one would wake up with the feeling of full energy, perfect freshness, contentment and joy.

How to make sleep come to you

People suffering from sleeplessness must find out for themselves as to what are the factors that are impeding the recharge of their energy during sleep and remove those defects. They should seek to purify their minds by adopting the five qualities above mentioned, so that they overcome all the tensions and relax. People who go to bed with a sense of fulfillment after having discharged their duties sleep well and get fully recharged during sleep. This is where the importance of one utilising his day time energy cheerfully in most constructive ways, lies.

If one does not get sleep despite all the above, he can try many methods to facilitate his entering the sleep state.

At physical level, a hot foot bath for about 20 minutes finished with a cold one for a few minutes would prepare oneself for sleep.

At mental level, if you are suffering from anxiety, the first thing you need to do is to stop thinking. If you can’t stop thinking, then divert your thinking away from your problems to something positives. Think of beautiful places you have visited, the beautiful babies you had had, their childhood, your past happy days, your visit to a temple, etc. Divert your attention.

At mental level, what is important is to prevent the mind from wandering and thinking of so many things preventing the sleep from coming. Hence the need is to have mind control. For achieving the mind control, we can do a number of things. Some of them could be as under:

1. Go into the state of Savasana and feel relaxed. Concentrate from toes to head, one by one all parts, and tell each of them to relax. Say

Toes…. Relax [three times]; then
Legs…. Relax [three times]

Move on similarly to every part, commanding each part of your body to relax. Let the commands be very slow and steady. As each part is told to relax, one can feel the relaxation and by the time all the parts are covered, the sleep is expected to come.

2. Focus on your mind and continuously and repeatedly tell it to “Go to sleep”. Say,

Mind… Go to sleep
Mind….Go to sleep

Repeated many times, the sleep is likely to come off. You know, our minds obey our conscious commands. For example, when we have to catch an early morning train, we go to sleep with an inner desire to get up early in the morning, say by 4 a.m. And to your amazement, even without an alarm clock, we would awake at 4 a.m. or little before. That is because your mind had heard your inner desire to get up by 4 a.m. and makes you get up by that hour. Thus, be aware that whatever conscious command you give to your mind, it does help you to achieve your desire.

3. While lying in the bed, visualise a little flame rising slowly from the earth and going up in the sky. Follow the flame to the sky, rising higher and higher, gently and slowly. Then visualise more such flames coming from different directions and gathering in the sky. When you do this, you would drop to sleep.

4. Imagine a field where there are a number of lambs are grazing. Then try to count the lambs one by one. As you go on counting them, you would drop off in sleep.

5. Simply start counting numbers from 1 to 100 and more. As the counting process goes on, you would drop asleep.

6. Observe your own breathing. Concentrate on the breathing as you inhale and exhale. Let your focus be on the tip of your nose and be watching the breath process taking place. If you are able to maintain this focus, you would sleep off automatically.

7. Some general guidelines for getting the sleep are

Maintain good relationships with others
· Avoid mid day naps
· Make sure you had completed your dinner two hours before your going to bed
· Walk for two hours before going to sleep
· Have a regular time for going to bed
· Make sure your room temperature and ventilation are fine
· In the winter, if you are sleeping on mats on floor, first put some newspapers on the floor and over that spread your spreads.
· Relax the jaw and allow your entire face to slack and get relaxed
· Check your eye brows. Let them get relaxed
· Tighten your each muscle and relax; do this repeatedly with every limb
· Relax your entire body
· Opt for having a good music 15 minutes before bed time
· Avoid reading in bed
· Never take any sleeping pill which are habit forming; they only borrow sleep from the next day’s quota
· Avoid worrying whether you would get sleep
· Make sure you have minimum six hours of sleep ever day
· When you don’t get sleep, don’t be looking at the clock

If you still don’t get sleep, be aware that insomnia has never killed any one. So don’t worry. But opt for life style change, both physical and mental.

The home remedies for sleep problems are as under:

Insmonia

1 Fry 1 tsp cumin seeds and powder
Mix with mashed banana and eat at night regularly

2 Make 2 tsp juice of from fenugreek leaves
Add with honey and take daily

3 Make powder of nutmerg / jathikkai
Take freshly extracted amla juice 1 tbsp and mix
Take 3 times a day. Do not prolong this as nutmerg may have side effects

4 Soak 1 tbsp pudina leaves to 1 cup of water for 30 mts. Take thrice a day

5 Tie a bunch of maruthani flowers in a muslin cloth bag and leave it near pillow while sleeping


6 Soak a handful of manuthani leaves in 1 cup coconut oil. Massage the head well before going to bed