During sleep, the body renews itself and recuperates energy. The general guidelines are to have eight hours of sleep and to get a regular schedule in terms of when you go to sleep and get up. Personally, I like to get to sleep early, about 8.30pm, and then get up at around just after 4.am. If I get a bit less, it doesn’t really matter so long as in general I go by this roughly. The exact amount of sleep a person can get, or that they need, will vary from person to person. For example, people may need more sleep if they eat a lot. This is to make sure that the energy is processed properly through digestion and muscle growth, which occurs following heavy training during sleep predominantly.
In recent times, sleep has become more and more difficult, and many people resort to taking various drugs to help them, or sleeping with the television on to distract them from over thinking. In todays world, people in general are less active. For example, even in a busy job, there is emailing instead of walking up the stairs, and increased transport options instead of walking. Even in martial arts practice, there is a standardised way to do things, which involves being told exactly what to do rather than figuring it out independently.
In the past it was more normal to expend more energy so that you cultivated an emerging sense of accomplishment through trial and error. This is when seeking to become was more important than arrival. In other words, there was a certain amount of energy expended which was good for health, which would be considered inefficient in terms of technical performance by todays experts. So ambition to achieve more at a quicker rate has paradoxically made us more lazy and unhealthy in many ways. This has made many people more restless instead of more accomplished.
Because of the hectic schedules we live with, there is a need to switch off but at the same time there is a lot of confusion surrounding the best way to go about it. It is difficult to go to sleep and have a restful sleep if you are thinking in terms of what you haven’t achieved. What about that email you didn’t send? Maybe you forgot to reply to a text message quickly enough. All of these modern day problems can be played over in the mind and turned into problems. In reality, however much you achieve, there will always be more to do tomorrow. So it is important to stop trying to cram in so much everyday, because no matter what we achieve there will always be more to do. For example, if you are a salesman and you reach your targets they will go up anyway no matter how much you try to reach them.
When you try to go to sleep immediately after being in a high energy state, all that happens if you toss and turn in your bed. For example, if you bring the work mentality to bed at night, when you lie down you tend to be wired and tired at the same time. So sleep begins long before you drop off. For example, the natural cycle is to rise in the morning, and gradually wind down from midday onwards. It’s like the rising of the tides, they reach a high point and then recede back. This is because energy is expended and outwardly manifests during the day time, and then gradually settles back to the centre at night. If you picture a circle, the energy reaches the periphery in the day time, and then concentrates back to the centre and becomes small at night.
So to be up all day and night is like your inner sun is shining all day – the earth is bound to get scorched! So the temperature drops at night, metabolism slows, outward bound senses begin to decline. To sleep effectively, you want to be in a state of non activity. Or at least, this is what should happen ideally most of the time. This slows everything down, including the mind, which is otherwise be active during the day. This is all common sense. It is a question or resting so that you can work, as well as working so that you can rest.
So it is important to go to sleep in the right state so that you begin a new each day. Otherwise, the events and problems of the previous day tend to follow on to the next. In the Bible, God Himself is said to have rested after creation. This surely wasn’t out of laziness, but because not only is there a need for non doing, but also of breaking down the old. In Hinduism, Shiva is depicted as the destroyer. The relevance of this is that unless you destroy the barriers to the new, you will not get rid of the old. Obviously, there is a fear that if you destroy what you know, then who you are is jeopardised. However, what you are gets blown up like a bubble during the day, and all that happens at night is that this same bubble pops and flattens back down. There is a change of form but the materials are all there to be revitalised and rebuilt anew each day.
When you feel a renewal and fresh perspective, It is like being born again. This is why it’s best to tire yourself out with physical or mental work throughout the day time, and gradually wind this down in the afternoon to enter into a more mediative state. When one feels tired they just slip off to sleep easily because they have usefully employed their energy. If you just go out for a long walk, chop some wood, or do any kind of manual work for a few hours a day, then you will see what I’m talking about. This also gets you out in the fresh air, which obviously is a healthy thing to do.
So we go from activity to non activity, from energy to nothingness. This state of nothingness is often called death, but in fact a restful sleep is a bit like a mini death. It’s important to establish this idea of renewal and becoming anew each day in the mind, so that nothing is left unfinished from the previous day.
It’s not like you need to achieve everything in one day in order to rest. This is unnecessary holding on and leads to anxiety before sleeping. This does not mean that you do nothing in the day just because you think it will never be enough. It’s not that at all. It’s just about being realistic about what is actually possible and doing that, rather than what you imagine or what social expectations are. These realities are often very different. So you get to a point where its best to write off the expectations of the day at a sensible point, dropping them off and picking them up again as you would your luggage at the campsite. However, a lot of people hold on to their luggage and refuse to rest for the night. But what sort of state are they in the next day? Often they are unable to do what’s needed of them, and they regret not stopping earlier.
when you go to sleep at the right time, the bags are there in the morning ready for the next hike. It really is like that. A lot of baggage which we hold on to can simply drop off when we relinquish holding on to it. Knowing this and putting into practice can drastically reduce the need for so much sleeping pills or other interventions. So in the morning, you take it all, all the baggage, to the new destination is the next day. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from wanting to do an entire life journey with a heavy back pack in one day.
Further Tips
Certain sounds assists with dropping off to sleep, because they resonate with the heart chakra, the solar plexus. The solar plexus is known as the heart centre, because it is related to not only distributing blood and energy around the body, but because it is in charge of relating us to the wider environment, including the universe. So this chakra is more active in the evening and night, whereas the Hara centre (the bodys physical centre) of the lower chakras is more active in the day time. To assist with night time work, try listening to water sounds, which are related to blood and circulation. It is also beneficial to listen to Indian Classical Music, as well as Western classical Music. Personally, I find Indian Classical music only makes sense when one becomes meditative, I never had any taste for it before I that.
There is a tendency in Martial Arts to be in this mode of never switching off. This is a big weakness if it isn’t sorted out with appropriate strategies. The biggest strength of martial artists is the energy they bring. To compliment this, learn to develop the opposite complimentary aspect of yourself during rest. During a war, a soldier could either easily go to sleep because they would be so exhausted, or be kept up at night with anxiety because of bombs going off around them. The bombs going off around you are not anything you can change, but your self awareness that you should be winding down is entirely within your control to respond to. so if the work has been done, it even becomes easier to sleep under disturbance. So it is not so much about having perfect sleep all the time, but creating the necessary inner conditions for the best possible outcomes.
It is important to get enough sleep so that you are prepared for the next day. The key point is that it is a question of quality of sleep rather than just quantity. The more you get into the habit of planning and preparing for sleep properly, the more it becomes a habit like muscle memory. So at first it may seem difficult, but then on top of your efforts you will also have good habits going with you rather than against you. In this way you will be swimming with the tide rather than against it. Otherwise, sleep becomes a big effort that requires too much insistence and energy for you to settle into it and relax. What a burden it then becomes! It is the same thing in training, at first it’s a big effort but eventually habits kick in so that your efforts become easeful and relaxed, even though you are fully energised. So going to sleep has nothing to do with diminishing energy, it’s just the energies of the body go down and the inner subtle energies are used to revitalise the system.
You prepare for sleep as you would prepare for an exam, or even a competitive match. All the hard work is done earlier on so that you gradually taper off with confidence. If you try to do everything at the last minute when all this should have been done earlier, this just causes regret, anxiety, and all sorts of emotional states which interrupt clarity of the mind and restfulness. If a blacksmith tries to heat up the metal when it’s time to cool down, there won’t be enough time for it to set. This requires organisation. Similarly, if they try to heat it up again when it is setting, they risk ruining the finish by interrupting the cooling process so it doesn’t set. Sleep is very much like that, you heat yourself up with activity in the day, and set into the mould at night as you take on a new form.
In terms of sleep position, I recommend sleeping on the right side. The right side is usually the stronger side, the yang side of the body. This is where the liver is and pressure here helps to stimulate this area so that it works optimally. If you keep your knees slightly raised and overlapping, this also creates a bit of pressure in the abdomen, to help stimulate the gut. It also stops you rolling over so much. I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve never had a problem with it. The key is to also stretch your spine enough so that your not compressed. The left side is generally reserved for circulation, so pressure here could become counter productive, whereas if you make it free to expand by lying on the right side, the allows for increased circulation. Of course its only natural to toss and turn from time to time, so these are just guidelines.
