Sleep

Sleep is the best meditation

Dalai Lama

Sleep is the best meditation? Well if Dalai Lama said it ..it must have some deep meaning to it. I started meditating in 2011 and have benefited from it ever since. But looking at sleep in form of meditation…was something new. I am a night person, so usually I spend most time working late night. The silence in the night cuts the distractions and I work the best during those wee hours. But lately, not sleeping on time was causing chaos in my routine. It was leaving me tired and thereby irritated and also affecting my diet considerably. I was not getting hungry at the usual eating hours which led me to eat more or sometimess less. It also affected my productivity…I had pending work and the quality of work was also not up to the mark of my expectation. I started feeling overwhelmed with the daunting tasks at hand which were ones not that big a deal. And most of all….I was ultimately having even no time to sketch and blog…which made things worse for me since my JOY CLASS was not being attented. So I was not sleeping, not sketching….no doubt ……stress was at its peak. After realising all of this I thought what was going actually wrong here? Was it sleep, was it organisation or was it too many goals? Did pushing myself out of comfort zone brought me to this point? or were those sleepless nights responsible? May be all of this ….still figuring it out. But in the last days, I tried to sleep on time, took it slow and stopped getting overwhelmed by work ..and the TO DO’s and thought of the NOT TO DO’s ….well I guess it is slowly working now. I am regaining the clarity in head, feeling more present, refreshed, energized and paying more attention to what I eat.

Since winter is seeping in ….the beauty of the fallen autumn leaves carpeting the ground with the vibrant yellow colour, the birds and the hedgehogs collecting food to prepare for the cold winters caught my eye. I thought of the hibernation period and the Bear.

We have to BEAR in mind not to BEAR under the load of everyday responsibilities and forget the basic thing that is SLEEP. 

The Bear sleeps through the cold winter to wake up at spring. We don’t have to do that but we underrate sleep often or sometimes overrrate it. For some people it is just 5 hours ..for some it is 8. What is your functional optimum sleep value? Also, sleeping at the right time is the key. Studies say that cortisol levels i.e. the stress related hormone rises if you sleep after midnight or undergo sleep loss in general. So optimum and timely sleep is the key. Now what Dalai Lama said… SLEEP IS MEDITATION….makes so much sense. A relaxed body results in relaxed mind and the relaxed mind is meditative. Meditation is stillness and sleep too. Meditation energizes and sleep too.

So in this fast paced world…those who cannot meditate atleast sleep well. Lets SLEEP OVER THIS THOUGHT. Good night.