10 home remedies and reasons for excessive sleep

If you want to be more rested by sleeping less and want to be more productive, more vibrant, and more productive throughout the day, here are 10 suggestions from Sadhguru to reduce the amount of sleep you get. Along with this, the interrelationship between the state of sleep, food and rest is also being explained.

Questioner: Namaskaram Sadhguru. I want to ask you something about sleep. I know you've talked about this a lot but I want us to go into it a little more deeply. You have said that there are some easy ways by which we can reduce the amount of our sleep. I do all my yogic practices, but I still feel that my sleep needs are more than most people get.

Sadhguru: Are you asking me to go deeper into sleep?

Questioner: Yes, in his science!

Sadhguru: We must understand what is sleep? Sleep means the time to get fresh again after getting rid of the fatigue of the body. This means that during this time the body removes its impurities. Whatever damage is done to the body in day to day life, it is the time to repair it at the level of cells, at the level of energies and in many different ways.

The amount of time you need for this repair process depends on how much repair your body needs. How much harm do you do to your body while living life, that is the question! If there is a lot of conflict, friction within you, then the loss will be a lot. If your whole system is well stable and working smoothly then there will be less internal friction, less friction and naturally less body repair required.

10 tips to reduce the amount of sleep

#1 Taking Fresh Food

Sadhguru: What can you do to reduce your sleepiness? The first thing is - always eat fresh food. It is a simple understanding in Yogic culture that if you cook something, it should be eaten within one and a half hours. After this, inertia starts coming in that food. If you eat too much inert food, the body becomes sluggish and needs more sleep because the body has to spend a lot of energy to eliminate that inertness. This means that your body's repair time is increased because you have put poor quality fuel in the form of food in your system.

When food is cooked, in a way you kill the life present in it and it does not survive again. If a person dies and his body is kept like this for three days, it will rot. The same thing is true with every living being, whether it is a vegetable or the flesh of an animal or anything else. As soon as we cook and destroy any life form, it begins to rot.

Well there is nothing wrong with rotting because then it becomes a different kind of life. Rotting means that some other life is now making it its food. Many kinds of organisms get into it, even if they are very microscopic bacteria! You won't be able to see them but they are feasting on this rotting food. If you eat something that the bacteria are enjoying, you will definitely get sick. It does not mean that you will get ill immediately as they do not have the power to infect you, but still it definitely reduces your energy and makes your body lethargic.

Many of the cooked, ready-made canned foods you buy from the big stores are there for a month and you bring them to your fridge for another month and whenever you want to- Then keep eating little by little. This food forces you to sleep more and even doctors tell you that you should sleep for eight hours or else you will not be healthy physically and mentally - because they themselves eat the same food!

#2 Eat plain food

Except humans, every creature gets molded according to the situation in which it is, but humans have such ability that they can make the situation as they want. This thing makes man something special, completely different from other creatures. So, those who care even a little about themselves should be careful about the things that go into them.

The food which has a very small amount of complex memory, that food becomes a part of your system within two to four hours. Such food significantly reduces the amount of sleep you get. But, in today's world it is becoming more and more difficult to get good quality food, because most of the food you eat is not fuel for the body but a lot of merchandise. A lot of people, those who live in Western countries and have been eating this kind of food, tell me that when they come to the Isha Yoga Center and live there, after two or three months they start to wonder whether they are eating enough. Why are you not getting enough sleep? They believe that they should sleep for at least 8 hours but here we have a standard of four hours. We get enough sleep in just four hours and yet we are growing, healthy, happy and getting more done in every way.

Your body is not made to digest food that contains a lot of chemicals and artificial things. Even 1% of the food that is artificial, chemical - whether in the form of fertilizers or other chemicals, preservatives - that food creates disturbances in your digestive system and spoils the digestive system.

People in America use a lot of antacids, which are chemical medicines to suppress acidity in the stomach. These are not good for your stomach. The burning sensation in your heart, in your liver, is not because you are in love with someone - but because your entire esophagus is burning with acids for many reasons. Even if 1% of the food you eat is in the form of artificial substances, chemicals, your system's ability to absorb this food is greatly reduced, and because of this, the amount of sleep is greatly increased. Because your body is fighting against itself, you need more time, more sleep to heal it naturally.

#3 How much should I eat?

How efficiently you manage your energies determines how alert you are! If you want to meditate, the awareness should not be only of the mind but of your energies. That's why it is said to those who follow the Yogic path that they should eat only 24 mouthfuls of food and chew each mouthful twenty-four times. This happens that the food gets ready to be digested in the mouth itself and it does not create any lethargy by going further into the system.

Those who do this in their evening meal can wake up at 3.30 in the morning. In Yogic system, this time is called Brahma Muhurta. It is very good to do yogic activities at this time because nature also helps you in your spiritual practice.

#4 Do not sleep immediately after eating

The mental state of many people is such that until they fill their stomach with a lot of food and make the body completely lethargic, they cannot sleep. If your condition is also like such people, then you should fix it by paying attention to this matter. It is not a matter of sleeping but of a special mental condition.

My point is that 80% of the food eaten by those who go to sleep within two hours of eating goes waste. You should give it enough time to digest the food you eat.

#5 Correct direction to sleep

When you lie down straight, parallel to the ground, your pulse rate drops drastically. The body does this automatically because if your heart continues to pump blood as before (when you are standing or walking/running), then when you lie down, too much blood will flow to your head, causing damage to the brain. . Blood vessels that go to the top of the body are more efficient than those that go to the bottom of the body. When they reach the brain, they become as thin as a hair, so that not a single drop of blood goes further than necessary.

By keeping your head towards North while sleeping and staying in that direction for 5-6 hours, the magnetic attraction of the earth exerts more pressure on your brain, because of the significant amount of iron in your blood. It is not that sleeping like this will kill you but if you do this every day, you are inviting trouble for yourself. People who are above a certain age, and who have weak blood vessels, their veins can burst (hemorrhage) and they can also get paralysis. Even those whose physical system is healthy cannot sleep well by keeping their head towards the north, because then the circulation of blood in the brain will be more than necessary, due to which good sleep will not be available.

For those living in the northern hemisphere of the Earth (i.e. areas above the equator), the best direction to sleep is with your head facing east. North East is also fine. West will do and if it is very important, keeping the head towards the south will also do. But never to the north. If you are in the southern hemisphere, do not keep your head in the south while sleeping.

#6 Don't force yourself to sleep

The amount of sleep your body needs depends on your physical activity. There is no need to keep a fixed amount of food or sleep for yourself. Eat less when your activity level is low and a little more when your activity level is high. The same is true for sleep as well. As soon as the body gets proper rest, it will wake up, whether it is 3 or 8 in the morning. Don't set an alarm to wake up in the morning. The body must wake up after getting the necessary rest.

Forcibly avoiding sleep reduces physical, mental and other abilities. Never do this. Let the body get as much sleep as it needs.

But, if your body is using the bed as a grave, it will not want to leave the bed. Somebody else has to wake you up from your sleep. It depends on how you are running your life. Those who have the mental state of avoiding life, who want to run away from life, will naturally eat more and sleep more.

#7 Maintaining a blissful state

Sleep means temporary death. Sleep is the time for maintenance of the body, for refreshing it. During the day time, if you keep the body in such a way that there is minimum damage to it, then automatically the maintenance time is also reduced. This can be done by eating the right foods and keeping yourself in a blissful state. If there is no conflict in your body, you are in a blissful state throughout the day, you have designed your body in such a way that there is no conflict in your energy system and your mind, your emotions are also free of conflict, then your The amount of sleep automatically decreases.

#8 Don't fight with your life

The body needs rest, not sleep - but the most profound form of rest most people experience is sleep, and that's why they talk about sleep. Basically the demand of the body is not sleep but a state of relaxation. When you do not get rest at night, you remain tired in the morning, health can deteriorate. So, it is not sleep but the state of relaxation that is more important.

If you keep your body in a state of rest all day long, if your work, exercise or any of your activities are in the form of rest for you, then naturally your amount of sleep will decrease. The problem is that people are taught to do everything with full force, under stress. I see that people are tense even while walking in the garden in the morning. This type of exercise gives you more harm than happiness. Don't go at everything like it's a war. Whether you are walking, running or doing any exercise, why can't you do it comfortably, joyfully?

Don't fight with life. Keeping yourself fit and fine is not a battle. Play a sport, run, swim, walk or do whatever you want. You will be in trouble only if you are only obsessed with eating cheesecake. Otherwise, doing any activity comfortably and maintaining good health is not a difficult task.

#9 Yogic Actions: Shambhavi Mahamudra

The first change that people who do yogic practices like Shambhavi Mahamudra find in themselves is that the speed of their pulse slows down a bit. For example, if someone has recently done the Inner Engineering program and started doing Shambhavi, they can note their pulse rate before and after dinner and then, twice daily for 6 weeks. If Shambhavi practices Mahamudra, he will see that his pulse has reduced by 8 to 15 counts. During Shambhavi one actually goes into a state of deep relaxation, his pulse slows down even more.

After 12 to 18 months of practice, you can bring your pulse rate up to 50 to 60. If this happens, the amount of sleep you get will decrease dramatically because your body will naturally be in a state of rest throughout the day. Whatever your activity, the body will be in a state of rest and will not ask for much sleep.

#10 Zero Attention-

We teach a special meditation method, Zero Meditation! It is taught in a program that is only offered at Isha Centers in Southern India and the United States. We don't teach it elsewhere because it requires a special environment, training and other processes. Zero can dramatically reduce your need for sleep. This is just 15 minutes of meditation but you will see that if you stabilize properly in this meditation process then your metabolism will reduce up to 24%. In the conscious states of meditation, the decrease is highest at 24%. If you go beyond this, you will not normally be conscious. If you have to stay in the state of rest till a certain limit and come out of it in the conscious state, then you cannot go beyond 24%.

You will find that this 15 minutes of meditation is equivalent to 2 to 3 hours of sleep in terms of rested state. The reason it is taught under controlled, dedicated conditions is because it causes dramatic changes in the chemistry of the blood in your body.

If the changes you want to bring about in your inner state are not happening - do online Inner Engineering as the first step to change yourself from the inside.