5 Tips to Beat Insomnia

We all know how ragged we feel after a night of tossing and turning. Here are some ideas to help you get a good night’s sleep.  Deep sleep is essential for the body to carry out its daily maintenance routine; repairing and healing injuries and removing old and damaged cells. Insomnia raises cortisol levels (the stress hormone) and keeps them elevated. 

Cortisol is essential as part of the body’s response to stress, but prolonged stress with sustained cortisol production is very damaging. High cortisol levels weaken the immune system, and this is associated with serious illness, such as heart attacks, stroke, fatigue, weight gain, lack of concentration leading to accidents, the premature death of cells and early ageing.  

1            Do a lazy stretchy Sun Salute or a similar whole body stretch. The emphasis here is on SLOW and EASY movements. You are not raising energy but releasing wound up energy and tension and removing stagnant energy so the body and mind can fully relax & do its maintenance work as you sleep.

2            Have a bath rather than a shower.  Physically, it is more relaxing to lie horizontal the body in a warm water rather than standing in a shower. But this is not the only reason for baths being better at bedtime. The running water of the shower flows negative ions over your body, invigorating you, which is why showers wake you up (and are great in the morning). Whereas, when you lie in the bath, positive ions flow around your body and promote a feeling of calm and relaxation. As you lie submerged in warm water it is also possible that there is a latent psychological memory of being bathed in the warm fluid of the womb. 

3            Have a warm milky drink before going to bed. Yes, it does contain calories, but it might come down to a trade off between a good night’s sleep and breaking a pattern, before sleepless nights become the norm and lead to chronic stress and more serious health issues. If you are lactose intolerant you can substitute almond or soy or rice milk. If you want to lessen the calories, add warm water.

There is debate about the positive effects of warm milk, but like much that is medical, it often leaves out important aspects. Milk contains the amino acid, tryptophan, which helps in the production of the sleep inducing brain chemicals, serotonin and melatonin. Some research has posited that a glass of milk does not contain enough of the chemical to induce drowsiness. 

However, the fact remains that it does work for many of us, and other theories suggest that there maybe psychological and physiological factors  at work here, on more than one level. 


Consider that a glass of warm milk warms the body and when the body temperature is raised, body also responses slow. People sleep better when they are warm because the muscles relax more, and warm milk coats and soothes the stomach creating a sense of wellbeing, that is readily apparent when babies fall asleep after nursing.  

Milk is associated with mothers and a mother's love and care. Comforting feelings and remembrances can produce chemicals in the brain that actually form a sensation of well-being and relaxation. This brain chemical, serotonin, is associated with sleep. This feeling of well-being and relaxation may cause the sleepiness.

If you are milk allergic, consider almond milk, soy milk or rice milk.



4            200 steps after eating. Many wakeful nights are the result of indigestion. That feeling of bloating, wind and discomfort often caused by a combination of too much food and alcohol, eating too late and food that is richer than our normal fare. Lying in bed slows the metabolism, at the very time when we need it to work well to digest all that food. 

Swami Satyananda recommended that we go for a walk after eating, or if that option isn’t available, do at least 200 steps. Try jogging on the spot, especially with big arm movements before retiring to bed. This is a great way to shake down that food and allow the body space to do what it needs to do.



5            Play a Yoga Nidra track to help you sleep. Yoga Nidra is different from ordinary relaxations. It is a scientific yogic technique which relaxes on several different levels.  It is preferable to stay awake in Yoga Nidra to get the full benefits, but if you do go to sleep it confers a much deeper and more relaxed sleep. This makes it ideal to play at bedtime, or if you are lying awake tossing with frustration.   

Put on your earphones so you don’t disturb your partner and it doesn’t matter if you let it play more than once, before you wake up and turn it off, and roll over and go back to sleep.   
The more you use Yoga Nidra, the more effective it becomes. (Make sure you have an authentic Yoga Nidra as there are many claims to this technique. Satyananda yoga is an authentic source and produces a large number of these CDs.)




It is really important to get a good night’s sleep. Don’t let the odd wakeful night become a habit. Act quickly to change the pattern.

An inspiring read: Yoga helped her find peace in a hostile environment

REVIEW:

Zen Under Fire: A New Zealand Woman's Story of Love & War in Afghanistan by Marianne Elliott.

A profoundly moving account of her experiences as a human rights lawyer for the UN in Afghanistan. Marianne writes fluently, and shares her insights into the intensely complex political situation in easy to absorb chunks.   A month after arriving at her new job, and still feeling a bit underprepared, her senior colleagues go on a much earned holiday, leaving her as the Officer in Charge of a United Nations war zone, waving away her concerns with the reassurance that as long as no one kills Amanullah Khan, the powerful leader of one of the local tribes, all will be fine. But by lunchtime he is dead, killed in retaliation for the death of a rival leader the week before.

Marianne describes both her everyday working life, constant meetings and writing reports of the local conflicts, the violence against women and children, the struggle to grow food in the backlash of intertribal conflict and famine, and her personal struggles to cope with the endless stream of harrowing, negative information flowing in, and the heavy toll, this randomness of life and death around her, takes on her personal relationships. “I feel as though I am sleepwalking through my own life between guilt and sadness.” Feelings that are intensified by the tight security limitations imposed on her movements, both as a foreigner and a woman.

Eventually she turns to her fledgling yoga practice to rescue her from total descent into a cycle of fatigue, insomnia, PTSD, depression and addictive medication.  At first, her practice is almost mechanical. Unnerved by a phone call or a meeting, she would do some simple breathing exercises and a few sun salutes. Over time she becomes aware, that while the stressful situation remains the same, her attitude to the continual crises around her has changed. "Yoga is helping me little by little to trust my breath and my body, and to loosen my tight grip on control. I am starting to get glimpses of what yoga might be able to teach me ..."  Less control, more softness and acceptance. 

As she furthers her yoga journey through meditation retreats in various recuperation spots around the globe, she realises her compulsion to save the world has been fuelled by her own private fears and insecurities as much as her compassion and commitment to justice.

She takes comfort from the words of Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron who says that the purpose of meditation is not to make us feel better. “If we expect that, we will end up feeling we are doing it wrong most of the time.  Well, yes, exactly.  But to accept ourselves as we are.” It is ok to sit with sadness, doubt, anger and fear. “We can’t be of true service to others unless we are prepared to face our own shadows”.

For months she is angry at others for their cruelty and at herself for being so powerless in the face of the enormous suffering she encounters daily. She feels inadequate and berates herself for not being able to better the lives of those suffering around her, but eventually realises that one of her greatest gifts to the people of Afghanistan is simply to take time to really listen to their stories and record them in her reports. It is in giving up the need to feel in control, that she releases her ability to be herself and fully present in the moment. Not perfect in every situation, but present. 

With this new awareness, she finds more inventive approaches to getting things done. Where at first she was frustrated by intractability of UN security rules, she now finds ways to work within them and around them to achieve her goals. When there is no money for a project, she gathers resources and assistance from many disparate groups to make things happen anyway. 

One of her initiatives is workshops for police and prosecutors on women’s rights in domestic violence cases. In dusty corners of the country there are honourable men who want to find ways to make the law equal for all, especially women, yet they are hindered by a lack of training and the scarcity of actual copies of Afghan law to study. They ask Marianne to procure copies of the law and to provide training workshops. These workshops are led by her friend, Kate, a smart, articulate Canadian lawyer, who has developed a specialised curriculum for prosecutors on women and criminal justice. Kate effortlessly recites whole clauses of Afghan law, is also an expert in Sharia law, speaks fluent Dari, the local language, and quickly wins the respect of the male police and prosecutors in the room.

 

This is a remarkable read. By the end of the book you will have a much wider appreciation of the conflict in Afghanistan; the violence, the politics, corruption of warlords and those vying for power and also the remarkable courage and dignity of the Afghan people who try to live their lives and bring up their children in tenuous circumstances. 

It is also a story of the people who risk their lives to try to make a difference, in a country where human rights count for little, and the toll this takes on the human spirit. What is really inspiring, is that it is precisely in this ravaged country, with all its turmoil, that Marianne finds a sense of Self.  Through yoga and meditation, she is learns to “slow down” in Afghanistan, taking time to honour her feelings.  “It is transforming my ability to be in the presence of profound suffering without closing my heart or leaping too quickly into action. As I learn to sit with other people’s pain, I also learn to sit with my own.”

Since returning to New Zealand, Marianne continues to inspire others to overcome their fears. It is our fears that hold us back. “As I learned, our own fears, even our best intentions can get in the way of our ability to serve others. Yoga, writing and walking continue to be my tools to process fears that get triggered by the suffering I encounter”.