Insomnia is a common condition that can creep up on you in different ways, it can make it difficult to fall asleep, stay asleep for long periods, or compel one to rise prematurely. Today’s challenges don’t help. COVID worries and the economic impact have undoubtedly kept many of us up, well into the wee hours of the night. Compounding this challenge are light and technology interfering with our ability to get our recommended 8 hours. Outside lights make it difficult to completely darken the home for the night. Even the little on/off button lights on equipment can interfere with our body’s circadian rhythm, the body’s natural sleep and wake cycle. Tossing and turning but then putting on a movie or a lamp to read in frustration is tempting, but likely to only make things worse. (I recently read that Netflix’s main competitor is sleep.) And having a few drinks at dinner adds more fuel to the fire.
It’s amazing how much happens to the body and mind when asleep. Memories are formed, learning is reinforced, cells exchange information, even our hormone levels fluctuate, and it affects every system and organ in the body. This is why your skin looks so much better after a good night’s sleep. Norma Desmond was on to something! Sleep supports brain function, it restores the body of depleted energy and provides the body time and rest to register the day’s events, priming it for more experience. Consistently deprive yourself of sleep and the health undoubtedly falls into that domino effect. Surely you have experienced this sleep-deprived state at one point in your life. You might be okay after one or two nights of little sleep, you might even thrive on the pent up energy, but stack up night after night of little to no sleep, you start to shut down. You don’t know when or how to eat, you can’t organize your thoughts, you start to snap at those around you. The downward spiral continues, for the ill effects impact sleep!
The average person sleeps about one-third of his or her lifetime. Less than that may be the underlying cause of deteriorating health. Sleep is vital. Sleep deprivation, after all, has been used in prisoner interrogation and torture tactics for decades by plenty of political powers. It has been the cause behind many modern disasters, like Chernobyl and the Exxon Valdez spill. And it can cause many different diseases and other health conditions, like diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart attacks, even depression.
Many yoga clients ask how yoga might help treat insomnia, as well as what are the best poses to do to deal with this sleep disorder. Plenty of studies show that yoga and the meditative aspects of yoga are extremely beneficial and can help alleviate insomnia symptoms. Any type of yoga may help, whether it be challenging and fast-paced like Vinyasa, or steady and slow, like Yin and Restorative Yoga. Practice consistently and you might notice that settling in for a nice long night naturally becomes easier. It doesn’t happen overnight, but with time and diligence comes one of the many gifts of yoga. A good night’s sleep.
Knowing when to practice which types of yoga is important. Sun salutations are aptly named, and like with any vigorous vinyasa-style yoga, better to do them early on, giving you energy, strength and stamina to endure the day’s stressors. Quiet and more subdued styles are better for late afternoon and evening time. The most important element of any style is getting in touch with your breath, for it is that breath control that allows the body and mind to calm you. All that breathwork in the morning with sun salutations paces the breath for the rest of the day, keeping the physical and emotional levels reasonably adjusted to the body’s needs, making it far easier to fall into a good night’s sleep when the time comes. And if sleep still eludes you, just before bedtime try some quiet restorative poses with plenty of support to slow the breath, body and mind. Breathe in and out with your nose to tap into your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest and digest breath.
My favorite restorative pose to get me in sleep mode is Legs up the Wall, known as Viparita Karani in Sanskrit, or a similar pose Legs up the Chair. Lie on your back, with or without a mat, hinge the hips and line the legs up the wall or bend the knees and line the legs up a sturdy, armless chair, (keeping the feet and the knees at the same height), and you may fall asleep right there. Once settling into either pose, it’s easy to lose time and forget your worries. The breath slows, along with the heart. The blood flows down the legs, opposite its natural path, relieving the heart and brain and providing plenty of fresh, oxygenated blood to restore both of depleted energy, yet at a quiet, even, and calming pace. Ripe for rest and sweet dreams. Add a strap around the legs above the knees to keep the legs contained if you want extra stability and support, though letting the feet and knees go wide along the wall can also be releasing.
If you are already in bed, try some slow, steady and quiet breathing, extending the exhale longer than the inhale, sending the brain a message to calm itself. The body follows suit. Focus on the natural breath rhythm to help you keep your mind off of worries that may be stirring the mind. I also find that as I do this, releasing tension in the body is easier if I maintain a symmetrical, even stance, donning a corpse-like pose. I find myself sleeping more on my back now as a result, so much easier on my hips, knees and sacrum. Yoga is so tangential, one good habit smoothly flowing into the next, just like the inhale flowing into the exhale, the exhale into the inhale. I’m less likely to react to tossing and turning by turning on my device and more likely to try some meditation and breath control. Likewise, I’m more likely to watch other bad habits that can keep me up, like drinking alcohol or eating something with sugar before bedtime. All in all, over time I have found that yoga has helped me practically eradicate insomnia.
Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite!