Meditation

Sleep disorders left untreated can cause more than just daytime sluggishness. They can damage your physical health and lead to diminished productivity, weight gain, accidents, impaired memory, and put a strain on your relationships.  It is simply meditation for sleep - an effective, natural solution for anyone who wants a more natural approach to achieve deep, rejuvenating sleep, and waking up feeling refreshed and recharged.

Meditation for sleep - a mind calming practice that focuses on breathing and awareness of the present moment that  can be a powerful solution to insomnia and other sleep disorders. Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on your breathing and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present without drifting into concerns about the past or future. It helps you break the train of your everyday thoughts to evoke the relaxation response, using whatever technique feels right to you. If you want to stay healthy, perform to your potential, and feel and look your best, consistent quality sleep is a necessity.

While various meditation practices can help with sleep disorders, guided sleep meditations is an effective solution for restful sleep as it helps you gradually fall into a sleep-state through soothing sleep-inducing music, vocal tracks, and visualizations. 

1 - Practise meditation  regularly twice a day for about 20 minutes. Seek the guidance of an experienced meditation instructor to determine the practices that would suit you best. Sahaj Samadhi Meditation or one of the guided meditations led by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

2 - Practice alternate-nostril breathing with a 1:2 breath ratio and breath observation meditation or Yoga Nidra before sleeping.

3 - If you wake up in the middle of the night, practice alternate-nostril breathing with a 1:2 breath ratio.

4 - Meditation Enhances The Brainwaves of Sleep

5 - Meditation Brings Us To The Present (Instead of Tomorrow’s Worries)

6 - Meditation Boosts Melatonin (The Sleep Chemical)

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" Insomnia "

The night felt very long, but it ended as all nights do.

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" Sleepless Nights "

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

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" Peer Pressure "

Only surround yourself with people who lift you higher.

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" Lack Of Concentration "

Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety. 

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" Caffeine Consumption  "

Sleep is a symptom of caffeine depriviation.

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" Getting Angry "

Tolerance - Patience and the destructive effects of anger and hatred. 

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" Impact on Eyes "

Every closed eye is not sleeping and every open eye is not seeing. 

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" In Solitude "

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. 

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" Lack Of Stamina "

If a person is always tired and stressed ....they may not have proper stamina which can cause Insomnia. 

The Sleeping Pattern

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Scientists have since found that the brain goes through characteristic patterns of activity throughout each period of sleep, and that it is sometimes more active when we're asleep than when we're awake. Understanding these patterns, and the factors that affect them, may help in making choices that will lead to better quality sleep.

Shifting Sleep Patterns

Sleep patterns can be affected by many factors, including age, the amount of recent sleep or wakefulness, the time of the day or night relative to an individual’s internal clock, other behaviors prior to sleep such as exercise, stress, environmental conditions such as temperature and light, and various chemicals.

For example, for the first year of life, sleep often begins in the REM state. The cyclical alternation of NREM-REM sleep in newborns is present from birth but at 50 to 60 minutes is much shorter than the 90-minute cycles that occur in adults. Consolidated nocturnal sleep and fully developed EEG patterns of the NREM sleep stages emerge only after two to six months. Slow-wave sleep is greatest in young children and it decreases steadily with age, even if sleep duration does not change. This may be related to changes in the structure and function of the brain.

Sleep history—the quantity and quality of an individual’s sleep in recent days—can also have dramatic effects on sleep patterns. Repeatedly missing a night’s sleep, an irregular sleep schedule, or frequent disturbance of sleep can result in a redistribution of sleep stages, for instance, prolonged and deeper periods of slow-wave NREM sleep. Drugs may affect sleep stages as well. For example, alcohol before sleep tends to suppress REM sleep early in the night. As the alcohol is metabolized later in the night, REM sleep rebounds. However, awakenings also become more frequent during this time.

Stress !!

Stress isn’t always bad. In small doses, it can help you perform under pressure and motivate you to do your best. But when you’re constantly running in emergency mode, your mind and body pay the price. If you frequently find yourself feeling frazzled and overwhelmed, it’s time to take action to bring your nervous system back into balance. You can protect yourself — and improve how you think and feel — by learning how to recognize the signs and symptoms of chronic stress and taking steps to reduce its harmful effects.

Because of the widespread damage stress can cause, it’s important to know your own limit. But just how much stress is “too much” differs from person to person. Some people seem to be able to roll with life’s punches, while others tend to crumble in the face of small obstacles or frustrations. Some people even thrive on the excitement of a high-stress lifestyle.

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Things that influence your stress tolerance level  :

Your support network - A strong network of supportive friends and family members is an enormous buffer against stress. When you have people you can count on, life’s pressures don’t seem as overwhelming. On the flip side, the lonelier and more isolated you are, the greater your risk of succumbing to stress.

Your sense of control - If you have confidence in yourself and your ability to influence events and persevere through challenges, it’s easier to take stress in stride. On the other hand, if you believe that you have little control over your life—that you’re at the mercy of your environment and circumstances, with limited ability to make changes—stress is more likely to knock you off course.

Your attitude and outlook - The way you look at life and its inevitable challenges makes a huge difference in your ability to handle stress. If you’re generally hopeful and optimistic, you’ll be less vulnerable. Stress-hardy people tend to embrace challenges, have a stronger sense of humor, believe in a higher purpose, and accept change as an inevitable part of life.

Your ability to deal with your emotions - If you don’t know how to calm and soothe yourself when you’re feeling sad, angry, or troubled, you’re more likely to become stressed and agitated. Having the ability to identify and deal appropriately with your emotions can increase your tolerance to stress and help you bounce back from adversity.

Your knowledge and preparation - The more you know about a stressful situation—including how long it will last and what to expect—the easier it is to cope. For example, if you go into surgery with a realistic picture of what to expect post-op, a painful recovery will be less stressful than if you were expecting to bounce back immediately.

Sleep !! Adequate ? How much ?

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In today’s fast-paced society, six or seven hours of sleep may sound pretty good. In reality, though, it’s a recipe for chronic sleep deprivation. Just because you're able to operate on six or seven hours of sleep doesn't mean you wouldn't feel a lot better and get more done if you spent an extra hour or two in bed.

While sleep requirements vary slightly from person to person, most healthy adults need between 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night to function at their best. Children and teens need even more. And despite the notion that our sleep needs decrease with age, most older people still need at least 7 hours of sleep. Since older adults often have trouble sleeping this long at night, daytime naps can help fill in the gap. The quality of your sleep directly affects your mental and physical health and the quality of your waking life, including your productivity, emotional balance, brain and heart health, immune system, creativity, vitality, and even your weight. No other activity delivers so many benefits with so little effort!

Sleep isn’t merely a time when your body shuts off. While you rest, your brain stays busy, overseeing biological maintenance that keeps your body running in top condition, preparing you for the day ahead. Without enough hours of restorative sleep, you won’t be able to work, learn, create, and communicate at a level even close to your true potential. Regularly skimp on “service” and you’re headed for a major mental and physical breakdown.

While it may seem like losing sleep isn't such a big deal, sleep deprivation has a wide range of negative effects that go way beyond daytime drowsiness. Lack of sleep affects your judgment, coordination, and reaction times. In fact, sleep deprivation can affect you just as much as being drunk.

The good news is that you don't have to choose between health and productivity. By addressing any sleep problems and making time to get the sleep you need each night, your energy, efficiency, and overall health will go up. In fact, you’ll likely get much more done during the day than if you were skimping on shuteye and trying to work longer.

Insomnia ? What's that ?

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Insomnia is a sleep disorder that regularly affects millions of people worldwide. In short, individuals with insomnia find it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep. The effects can be devastating.

Signs and symptoms

Insomnia itself may be a symptom of an underlying medical condition. However, there are many signs and symptoms that are associated with insomnia:

• Difficulty falling asleep at night.
• Waking during the night.
• Waking earlier than desired.
• Daytime fatigue or sleepiness.
• Irritability, depression, or anxiety.
• Being uncoordinated, an increase in errors or accidents.
• Tension headaches (feels like a tight band around head).
• Difficulty socializing.
• Worrying about sleeping.

Sleep deprivation can cause other symptoms. The afflicted person may wake up not feeling fully awake and refreshed and may have a sensation of tiredness and sleepiness throughout the day.

Insomnia can be triggered or perpetuated by your behaviours and sleep patterns. Unhealthy lifestyles and sleep habits can create insomnia on their own (without any underlying psychiatric or medical problem), or they can make insomnia caused by another problem worse. Most adults have had some trouble sleeping because they feel worried or nervous, but for some it’s a pattern that interferes with sleep on a regular basis.

Insomnia also can affect your daily activities and cause serious problems. The lack of sleep can cause other symptoms. You may wake up feeling tired or not well-rested, and you may feel tired during the day. You also may have trouble focusing on tasks. Insomnia can cause you to feel anxious, depressed, or irritable.

The Nervous Brain

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The human need for sleep is a mystery. The central nervous system is always impacted by sleep. There may have been other things that evolution added onto the primary function of sleep, but the primary function of sleep probably has something to do with the brain."

Idea is that sleep might enable the brain to clear out toxic products produced when we're awake. The brain is a huge consumer of energy, which means it also produces much waste. Some recent research suggests that sleep is a time when the brain sweeps itself clean, but those results need to be replicated. It might be something that kind of happens with sleep, but it may not be the most important thing sleep is doing.

Humans spend nearly a third of their lives asleep. Going without sleep will literally make you psychotic and, eventually, kill you. It's clear that shut-eye is crucial to the body's ability to function. But no one knows what sleep actually does. "It's sort of embarrassing," said Dr. Michael Halassa, a neuroscientist. "It's obvious why we need to eat, for example, and reproduce … but it's not clear why we need to sleep at all."

We're vulnerable when we're asleep, so whatever sleep does, it must be worth the risk of the brain taking itself mostly offline. There are a few theories about why we sleep, and although none of them are totally solid, a few try to explain what happens each night, pulling in research on topics ranging from cellular processes to cognition. Researchers say it does seem clear that sleep is key to the brain's ability to reorganize itself — a feature called plasticity. It puts the body on alert for a wound but no wound happens. This could easily help explain the links between sleep deprivation and negative health outcomes such as heart disease and stroke.

In the past 50 years, there has been a decline in average sleep duration and quality.

Anxiety to insomnia

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It’s difficult to cope with insomnia. Especially drains body when you suffer from anxiety. Anxiety sufferers who spend many of their waking hours in states of mental and physical distress cannot afford to lose sleep to anxiety-related insomnia. To give your body a chance to recover from the extra stresses, you are at risk for having to deal with every day it is essential for you as an anxious person to learn to manage your insomnia.

Treatment options for an anxiety disorder also include cognitive-behaviour therapy, as well as relaxation techniques, and medication.

Stress and anxiety may cause sleeping problems or make existing problems worse. And having an anxiety disorder exacerbates the problem.

Reduce Anxiety, Sleep Soundly

To reduce anxiety and stress:

• Exercise : Regular exercise is good for your physical and mental health. It provides an outlet for frustrations and releases mood-enhancing endorphins. Yoga can be particularly effective at reducing anxiety and stress.
• Get an adequate amount of sleep : Sleeping recharges your brain and improves your focus, concentration, and mood.
• Meditate : Focus on your breath — breathe in and out slowly and deeply — and visualize a serene environment such as a deserted beach or grassy hill.
• Prioritize your to-do list : Spend your time and energy on the tasks that are truly important, and break up large projects into smaller, more easily managed tasks. Delegate when you can.
• Direct stress and anxiety elsewhere : Lend a hand to help others which will take your mind off  of your own anxiety and fears.
• Talk to someone : Let friends and family know about it and they might be able to help, and  also consider seeing a doctor or therapist.
• Play music : Soft, calming music can lower your blood pressure and relax your mind and body.

Image Source - Pinterest

Cheer up !! 😊

Teen pressure

PEER PRESSURE

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The influence of friends (bad or good) can extend to many facets of everyday life. Late night partying, studying, or even just hanging out with no real purpose will crucify your sleep. It is important to prioritize things in your life, sleep being one of them.

Some of the main causes of peer pressure are related to age-appropriate behaviour. Adolescents develop a strong desire to fit in with their peers and be accepted by them. This desire makes adolescent peer pressure tough to resist.

Peer pressure isn’t just about a group of kids daring someone to do something. Often, it’s much more subtle. Peer pressure occurs when group of people coerce each other to go along with certain beliefs or behaviours. The group approves of the followers and sometimes harshly disapproves of those who don’t fall in line. The consequences of being rejected by one’s peers are embarrassment and shame, both very negative emotions for teens.

An obvious form of peer pressure is teen drinking at parties. Kids who attend are expected to drink and some may be expected to drink heavily. Subtler forms of peer pressure exist in clothing choices or attitudes toward sex or drug use. Simply agreeing with the group’s attitudes usually isn’t enough; teens have to prove themselves by backing their words with actions.

Generally there are a few people in the group that are the leaders. These individuals set the rules for everyone else and are seen as authority figures by their peers. Anyone who challenges the rules is challenging the authority of the leaders. Teens may be unwilling to speak up because they’re afraid to lose a friendship with one of these leaders or because they fear losing their status in the group.

The consequences of having bad friend group that may lead you to do inappropriate activities is a cause of insomnia also. Now that you are aware of some of the most common sleep stealers, do you best to avoid potholes that will impair your quality of life, and future.

The Fault in our Technology !!

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You don’t need to shut down your brain in order to get to sleep, in fact, shutting down your brain is just lonely. You will get to sleep best if you are tired (exercise), comfortable and if you have a set pattern of what you do before bed every night.

Accepting poor sleep should not be considered normal, even if you're getting older or have a lot on your mind. Quality of life is affected greatly when a person is not well rested. 

Allison Harvey is a professor of sleep and psychology at UC, Berkley. She says TV is a passive technology so it doesn’t stimulate the brain like computers do. “Where as a lot of the video games, Facebook, Twitter, will respond back at us"

"So they are interactive and maybe get in the way of sleep more than the passively received ones.”

Interactive technology makes us more alert and can lead to insomnia when used at night. Light from computer screens can mess with the body’s circadian rhythm and can lead to poorer sleep.  

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Few Steps Can Be Taken For Not Falling In Technology's Trap : 
Avoid screens before bed: The blue wavelength light from screens affects levels of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. This can really prevent your mind from switching off resulting in you struggling to get to sleep.

Switch of social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc all stimulate your mind. Many people automatically take a look at social networks when they go to bed. All of these get your mind racing and alert.

Avoid caffeine: It seems obvious but so many people drink coffee, tea, energy drinks and high caffeine soft drinks. After 2pm, try to replace these with water. A lack of water is one of the top reasons for tiredness in the day so if you are feeling a bit sluggish in the day, try drinking more water and avoid caffeine.

If you really, truly are not falling asleep, get out of your bed and don't look at phone screen, you should go and  take care of something else. Something you have been avoiding like cleaning the door handles, doing laundry, reading books or anything else which might make you happy afterwards, then that night your brain might encourage to agree to sleep and start thinking of it to be more fun and exciting , which may help stimulate your brain in functioning in that way and getting in routine.

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A dose of humanity

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Medicine Side Effects 

Relying on medicines is nothing other than battling daytime drowsiness and becoming sleep deprived. A number of common medications can prevent from falling asleep. Since chemicals working varies for everyone causing sleep problems in many cases.

Antidepressants can cause insomnia. There are few common features of insomnia like not feeling refreshed, unable to sleep despite being tired, difficulty in concentration, body ache and heaviness of body. Anyone can try to check themselves whether they are sleep deprived person or not by checking how long does it take to fall asleep in night? How often do you wake up in between? Which all medicines do u intake and their quantity and side effects? Are there any signs of daytime fatigue?

We all must know about medicine details and their side effects in order to avoid insomnia. A particular dose of everything is good but if done over can cause problems, you should always take right amount according to prescriptions and not try to become doctor on your own and intake random medicines.

A 52 year old lady was suffering from sleeplessness since last 4 years. She was barely able to sleep for ½ or 1 hour at a stretch. She was having Hypertension since 4 years and also had Hypothyroidism since 2 years, due to which she took many medicines and painkillers. Hypertension is also known as high blood pressure in which there are medicines like Anti-arrhythmic drug and beta blockers which cause insomnia. Beta blockers in India are known as ‘Atenolol’. The lady was under the consumption of this medicine which eventually lead to insomnia. Becoming a sleep deprived person she started having continuous flow of thoughts in her mind which did not allow her to sleep well also. Atenolol can cause side effects that may impair your thinking or reactions also.

There may be other alternate medications present that can treat your ailment or health condition without shaking off your sleep. Switching medications or lowering dosages with a doctor’s guidance may help ease insomnia which occurred due to medicine’s side effects. Restful sleep is essential for feeling well and recovering from the health problems, therefore don’t lose sleep over medication side effects and interrupt your healthy lifestyle. Changing your medication might be the perfect solution for good night’s sleep and a step towards setting your routine.

Hectic Lifestyle

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In this fast moving society that we live in today, we all are caught up in the hustle and bustle of life with packed schedule.

A hectic schedule can also affect people's lifestyle. Hectic schedule affects  healthy relationships. Thus, those unhealthy relationships formed lead to problems in working place, argument with parents, misunderstandings between friends, which cause stress. The quality of relationships maintained by people relates to the ability of tolerance to stress. There are several ways in which stress is dealt with. The best method is a change in lifestyle. Controlling and being in charge of thoughts, schedule, emotions and way of dealing with problems. Also relaxation techniques act as stress buster such as deep breathing, listening to soothing music, meditation, exercises. Therefore, it is important to maintain a healthy relationship and taking out time to rest and relax and calm down.

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Time management helps an individual to manage time and achieve their goals. Time management is essential because of time being limited resource which cannot be reversed or rewinded. Everyone must try to lead an organized and a healthy lifestyle by inspiring to do physical activities, efficient time management skills.