Sleep and Deep Relaxation

Nobody doubts how important sleep is. It only takes one bad night to feel ragged and unable to think straight.  Before you know it, you are the human equivalent of a dead battery, flattened by a steamroller weight of weariness. It’s the state in which accidents happen, rash decisions are made and sometimes things are said that are later regretted. It’s impossible to function like that without courting disasters, great and small.

Whether it’s heatwaves, addictive computer games, small children who won’t settle, full bladders, bodily aches and pains, uncomfortable digestive systems or ‘end of the world terrors’, there are many reasons we might not get a good night’s sleep. Quite apart from the shocks, loss and grief and curved balls life can throw at us. 

Sleeplessness, especially insomnia, which is prolonged, could be interpreted as your nervous system feeling emotionally or physically ‘unsafe’, which may be justified… or not. You can’t just switch it off. An easy switch would be a fine thing, but there isn’t one, or at least not one that’s accessible to your conscious mind.  To your subconscious mind you are either safe or you are not safe. There’s no in-between. It won’t mess about, it will ‘protect’ you by keeping you in a state of vigilance. Which is the same as keeping one eye open all the time.  

Unfortunately, to keep going on an even keel through really difficult times or uncertainties, we are often deprived of the very thing we need the most – a fully restorative sleep, commonly known as ‘a good night’s sleep’.  You need it to think clearly, make good decisions and intentionally take a positive attitude to deal with life’s vicissitudes. When you are overtired and wired from lack of sleep sometimes you can barely put a meal together, find the right clothes to wear or remember your priorities for the day without ‘losing it’. That’s when having to deal with anything of importance becomes risky because you’ll probably make mistakes.

What I’d like to share is that regular yoga practices can promote better sleep patterns and lead to stability when everything has been turned upside down. Experiencing deep relaxation, without necessarily sleeping, can improve quality of sleep when you do get to sleep.  An example of deep relaxation is at the end of a yoga session, when you lie on your mat in Shavasana (corpse pose), provided it’s not rushed and there is a period of stillness with no music or talking that allows you to sink within into deeper relaxation.  Sometimes that relaxation feels more restorative than a good night’s sleep and I once heard that 20 minutes of restorative yoga practices are worth a whole night’s sleep. I can’t reference the source of that claim, and it may just be a modern myth, but many practitioners in my yoga classes have said they want to stay on when the class has finished for an impromptu sleepover, right there and then.   Alas, most room hirers do not allow sleepovers.

How does yoga help with sleep?  Mostly, I would say, through the combined effect of various practices carried out consistently over time, allowing you to reset and rebalance yourself.  By alternating effort and release when moving your body (asana practices) in sync with breathing in and out, which promotes prana (life energy) to flow uninterrupted, which in turn supports the physical body, leaving it more at ease and ready to relax. The breath’s relationship to the nervous system can be harnessed by using a slightly longer outbreath to stimulate the ‘rest and digest’ system (parasympathetic), which calms everything down naturally.  

Hatha Yoga refers to the Sun (Ha) and Moon (Tha), in other words day and night.  The in-breath is energising, corresponding to daytime or sun energy, and the out-breath is relaxing, corresponding to nighttime or moon energy.  Although Hatha Yoga is sometimes called ‘forceful’ yoga that is because an ancient text called the Hatha Yoga Pradipika has some ‘extreme’ and, for most people, unsafe yogic practices. Although they may be fascinating, not many people are interested in trying them out and I wouldn’t recommend them, but the principle of Hatha, as the cycling of the in and out breaths, remains sound. Gentle, unforced breathing is used in most yoga classes. Breathing itself is an autonomic function of the physical body from the moment we are born in that we don’t have to think about it for it to carry on until we stop breathing at death.  Yet we also have some conscious control over it, and we can extend the length of the out-breath, for example when expressing a sigh or blowing a candle out. Pranayama, which means regulating the flow of prana through breathing practices, is potentially very powerful, affecting both mind and body. Used wisely it can down-regulate the nervous system and effectively prepare for rest and relaxation.

Have you ever felt ‘raw’ from lack of sleep? Does this resonate with you?  What did you do to help yourself start to wind down and get a proper, replenishing night’s sleep?
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Perhaps you already practice yoga or have done at some time, or maybe you have never tried yoga before. It doesn’t matter at all. You are all welcome to join me in the four-week progressive course called ‘The Art of Deep Relaxation’.  We will explore and experience a variety of yoga practices, including asana, pranayama, guided visualisation, meditations and mantra to find our way into deep relaxation.

Susan