The question is often asked – how much sleep do we need? There are lots of ideals and beliefs around how much sleep we need, and how this changes due to our age or what we do. I learned a lot about this when I was studying for a diploma in Herbal Medicine.
But I have noticed that it’s not really about how long I sleep, but the quality of sleep that I am getting.
If I go to sleep with unresolved emotional issues, and a million thoughts going through my head, or if I have had a tough day with my daughter and not taken the time to discuss it with her, it really affects the quality of my sleep. I may have the suggested 8 hours sleep but the quality is poor due to the fact that I have so many undealt-with issues.
All of these things that I take to bed with me can be very tiring because on some level my body is still processing them all night long – and when I wake, I feel tired and as if I haven’t really slept at all.
What’s the solution? What changes to sleep and the quality of my sleep have I made?
- First of all, there is no such thing as perfection, so just taking baby steps is a good start. I sometimes forget and just fall asleep in a state of exhaustion, but that is changing with time.
- I have committed to communicating with my family and loved ones so that if anything comes up, it can be dealt with there and then before I go to sleep, rather than brushed under the carpet to be dealt with when there is time. There is never enough time and all these issues just keep building on each other until the pile is massive and much harder to deal with.
- I prepare myself for sleep. I try to not get too excited or do activities that are stimulating my nervous system for a few hours before my sleep time. So no doing accounting or business emails after 5pm! I have recently been taking the time to have a shower – not just to get clean, but as a loving ritual for myself… and I really enjoy it. After my shower it feels great to spend a little time putting cream on my body and giving myself a massage. My skin really needs it as I have neglected it most of my life.
- I make time to wind down, to be with myself and relax. This helps because then I don’t end up in bed wired, feeling like I will never fall asleep.
- When I do go to bed, I put myself to bed as if I were putting a baby to bed. I really take the time to get comfortable, so that my body feels fully supported.
I deserve to love and care for myself fully, and it’s something that I had never really taken time to do. We often give this much care to others and our children but forget to also give that same care and dedication to ourselves.
So I have discovered that it’s not so much “how much sleep do we need?” but how I am living before I go to sleep, and how that affects the quality of my sleep. I learned these simple ways from presentations by Serge Benhayon and Natalie Benhayon, and from my own experimenting and experience.
By Rosie Bason, Mullumbimby, NSW
1,072 Comments
A great reminder for us to feel everything is complete from the day within our bodies before we go to sleep and if not then to nominate what we feel is unresolved so not holding onto it.
Sleep is an over rated commodity and like everything that is in this physical world is ‘indulged in’ and now with the understanding that our bodies can go into a rhythm that supports our sleeping patterns that allow us to go into a deep repose-full sleep, so our bodies are rested with a minimal amount of time being wasted in bed.
Quite simply the more purpose I feel in my life the less I feel I need to sleep, I get up filled with enthusiasm for what I can bring to the day ahead.
Not being over-tired when we go to bed adds so much to the quality of our sleep and so our winding down as you have shared Rosie, is of great importance.
Connecting to our essences and or inner-temple provides the most amazing support for us to be totally rested so our sleep is nurturing for our bodies.
Last night I got home late after crawling through hellish traffic and a whole bunch of other situations that led to a lot of reaction. I was sure that I was going to sleep terribly as I got home sweaty, hot, tired and grumpy. I lay on the bed without a cover as I was too hot for the duvet. I paused and asked my myself how could I support myself to sleep. The next instance I covered myself with the duvet and tucked myself in like a sausage. It wasn’t suffocatingly hot and I did actually have a better sleep than was expected! The moral of the story is that the body knows how to support itself when we listen.
I love the idea of having a shower and time for you before going to bed. I normally have a shower in the morning but maybe need to change this or even better feel when to have a shower or bath in the evening and when to have one in the morning as I feel the key is being able to listen to what we need to support us and honour this.
Sugar exhausts me emotionally and physically and directly effects my sleep.
The quality we sleep in must have a knock on effect into our next day and then our day must also then be complete so we can sleep deeply and thus be fully rested so we can give our all in the next day and this rhythm will continue to be a foundation that will continue through out our lives if we so choose.
When we listen to our body it tells us what is best to eat, what time it needs to go to bed and if it needs to rest. It is super simple yet in our modern day society we have negated this and hence why there is such huge illness and disease statistics.
Not speaking up and honouring how I feel no doubt disturbs my rhythm of sleep. For every movement I make in my day that honours how I feel, bares the consequences of having a good night’s sleep. I cannot separate a twenty-four hour cycle into day and night for how I am with myself in my day affects the quality of my sleep at night.
Rip Van Winkle, sleep forever and when we awaken to the True self then we are open to deepen our awareness and Loving ways, so that the way we sleep or go into repose will always support us even into our next life now that is True responsibility!
Sometimes, no matter how much sleep I get I can still end up exhausted. The more I look after my body during the day, the more I eat well, and take care of the quality I move in (i.e., less racing around, and more gentleness and stillness) the deeper I sleep at night. This changes the quality of sleep enormously.
‘I put myself to bed as if I were putting a baby to bed.’ Recently I shared an accommodation with 3 other students and we started a ritual with tucking in and a good night kiss. The tenderness and deep love touched all of us, provided a new level of intimacy and offered a great foundation for sleep.
If I go to sleep with unresolved emotional issues, and a million thoughts going through my head, or if I have had a tough day with my daughter and not taken the time to discuss it with her, it really affects the quality of my sleep.’ If we ‘mis-use’ sleep to deal with things that happened during the day, we deny ourselves the deepening that is on offer during the night.
Great to reflect on the extent to which we make our life about quality and the presence of our being, or the ideals – the pictures of how/what we think we/life should be. The former brings a richness and a depth to our life and our relationships, the latter dampens it down and disconnects us.
When I take the time to prepare myself for sleep by taking a warm bath, moisturising my skin, blowing my hair dry so it feels lovely in the morning and organising my sheets and bed clothes before I sleep, the way I wake feels completely different to if I get caught using a screen before bed and going onto social media which has a way of sucking me in and totally disturbing my sleep,as I go to bed later and feel far less rested in the morning.
“….it’s not really about how long I sleep, but the quality of sleep that I am getting.” I have come to realise the importance of this quality too, and how dependant it is on how I have spent my previous day. Which brings a responsibility of how I am choosing to live and interact with everyone I meet.
How my day has been lived, how I am feeling as I wind down for sleep, do have an impact on how I sleep, and that then has an impact on how I wake and feel the next morning, everything is connected.
I find the quality of my sleep is down to how settled I feel at the end of the day – and how settled I feel is down to if I have given the day my 100 percent – in my work, in all my responsibilities at home and in all my relationships, then when you lie down at the end of the day my body can deeply rest, otherwise there is a constant tension of not living or not giving what I know i could have.
I love what you share here, Meg and I can relate to it a lot. For me without completion in all areas of the day is key in how I can surrender my body over to sleep. Checking out doesn’t work for me and leaves me feeling tired in the morning.
I love what you bring into your wind down routine to support you to have a quality sleep, ‘I make time to wind down, to be with myself and relax. This helps because then I don’t end up in bed wired, feeling like I will never fall asleep.
When I do go to bed, I put myself to bed as if I were putting a baby to bed. I really take the time to get comfortable, so that my body feels fully supported.’
I find I can still do work before going to bed but it is the quality of the way I work by not taking it on or getting caught in any issues that allows me to surrender and let go in my sleep
Bringing awareness to how, or more so the quality in which I go to sleep has been life changing. I now understand the incredible opportunity we have to maximise our rest, our bodies restoration and rejuvenation and deepening in connection to our being through the quality in which I wind down, approach and go to sleep. And yes agreed with quality as the focus the quantity has been redefined and has my vitality upon waking with a readiness to live the day that awaits.
Thank you Rosie, I still have a lot to learn about sleep and quality of sleep. Your words here really rang true for me “All of these things that I take to bed with me can be very tiring because on some level my body is still processing them all night long – and when I wake, I feel tired and as if I haven’t really slept at all.” I really know this as it happens a lot, thank you for the clarity of what you have expressed, it’s also given me a lot of inspiration for taking better care of myself and my quality of sleep.
I noticed last week that our bedroom didn’t feel right anymore. And I was wondering if that is the reason also why I slept not good lately.
So me and my partner looked why we didn’t like the room. The love and stillness was missing. The room felt empty and more dark. We both could feel that we did not really honour our bedroom and our time together. from there we started to reorganise our room. It was amazing, we felt in 5 minutes time already a shift in the room.
And even better, I slept very well and woke up feeling all the love within and around me.