You’re lying on your bed, the day went by, exhausted you’re finally on you back, light off, it’s finally time for sleep.
But the mind doesn't want to know. The body is tired but the mind is like a running train that won’t stop. Ever felt this?
More and more people suffer from insomnia, lack of sleep and poor energy recovery.
Why?
To much stress, things to do, worries, problems, anxiety and the list can go on…
What if If I tell you that simply paying more attention to what you do the last thirty minutes before going to bed will tremendously change your sleep quality and how you will wake ups the next day.
Unconsciously you can inculcate the mind with simple habits that will change the chemistry in your body.
In Yoga we classify our mind tendencies that influences our emotions and actions in three different qualities called “Gunas”.
Rajas:
Is the active, stimulating and positive force.
Rajas represents itself by passion, energy and motion. Is characterized by a feeling of attachment, a longing for satisfaction and desire.
Tamas:
Tamas manifests itself as impurity, laziness, and darkness. It is the consequence of ignorance and it prevents all beings from seeing reality.
Tamas is also grounding, stable, and relaxation.
Sattwa:
Truthfulness, faith, balanced, honesty, light are all aspect of Sattwa.
Its manifests itself as purity, knowledge, and harmony. It is the quality of goodness, joy, satisfaction, nobility, and contentment. It is free of fear, violence, wrath, and malice.
The most common state we are in our modern world is an exhausted body with an overactive mind.
When our mind is restless and we can not fall asleep the tendency it toward the “Raja Guna”.
This mean high cerebral activity and that our sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) is active; and we cannot fall asleep easily.
What to do?
The ideal would be a Sattwic-Tamasic state both in your mind and join your body.
In this case the parasympathetic nervous system is active, and we can feel a deep state of calm, balance, peace, happiness and relax.
Now that we have understood the theory let’s see some practical things you can do starting from tonight.
What to take care of?
-Eat the last big meal at least 2-3 hours before going to bed
-Dim the lights in your house and use maybe more candles and soft light.
-Avoid calls, discussions, negative influences, checking emails or social media.
-Switich off all the electronic devices, especially those with blue light (smartphone, computer, tv, etc..)
-Take a bath or a lukewarm shower, it cleans not only from the outside but it releases certain chemicals in your brain that relaxes your entire system.
As we’re made 70% percent of liquid, when water runs over us a certain purification happens in your body.
-You can do some gentle Asana, like legs on the wall to relax your spine.
-You can do some pranayama exercise (breathing technique) more here on my YouTube video.
The breath is a very powerful tool to direct your mind toward a balanced relaxed state in just couple of minutes.
You will be surprised by the efficiency.
Im sure this simple tools will drastically change your sleep quality and recovery.
I would be glad to hear your experience, let me know in the comment.
Namaste
Daniele