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Using Yoga to Cure Insomnia, by Thomas Polkinghorne

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

You are in bed, trying to get some sleep before you leave for work tomorrow morning. You know that if you do not get any sleep tonight, then tomorrow you will come into work drowsy and unfocused. Glancing over at the clock, you notice that it is 4am, and you are still awake. You need to get at least a couple of hours sleep now, yet the more that you think about sleep, the harder it is to switch off. The idea of going to work tomorrow deprived of sleep stresses you out even more. This becomes unavoidable, because you simply cannot sleep.

The above situation is probably as familiar to you as it is to me. Going to work after a sleepless night made it harder for me to maintain focus on my work, and a reasonable manner towards my co-workers. The idea of arriving at the office the next day resembling an extra from Night of the Living Dead was enough to keep me awake throughout the night. Such thoughts would turn anxiety into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

At first I thought that it was simply parts of my diet preventing sleep, as I had a taste for coffee and any other drink loaded with caffeine. I did not realize that the same substance keeping me focused throughout the day prevented me from switching off at night. Alcohol was another bad habit. I am not a binge drinker, but all it would take is a couple glasses of wine in the evening and I would be unable to sleep.

I corrected the above habits by simply cutting down on both caffeine and alcohol. I only drank one cup of black coffee in the mornings with breakfast, and replaced it with tea during the day. I would cut out caffeine in the evening altogether. I would also make sure that alcohol was also cut out during the evening if I wanted to get up early the next day.

Yet the problem remained. Even without the alcohol in my bloodstream, or my heart pounding from the excess caffeine in my system, I still had trouble sleeping. My mind would not allow me to relax.

I found the solution to my problem when I picked up a copy of Dr. Jonn Mumford's book, A Chakra and Kundalini Workbook. Admittedly I did not buy it with the intention of finding a cure for my sleeping problems, I bought it because of my interest in yoga and Tantra. Mumford had been recommended to me as an authority on both subjects. The book is full of yogic relaxation techniques that I found useful as daily practices. It was in practicing these techniques that I discovered ways in which I could properly relax before turning in. One technique in particular, known as "shavasana," served me well in this respect.

Shavasana means "corpse pose"—a reference to the deep state of relaxation that it elicits. This is most probably a reference to the way in which it has the Yogi lying supine on his or her back, like a corpse on a morgue trolley. As a pose it does not demand you to be a contortionist. It is a relaxation technique, in which the practitioner is more conscious of their body after having concentrated on certain vital zones. Like many of the poses in Hatha Yoga, it involves holding yourself still in that position and blocking out all thoughts, making it ideal as a cure for sleeping difficulties.

Shavasana can be performed on the floor as a meditation, but if your goal is to fall asleep, perform it in bed. Many authors who write about meditation advise you not to meditate while lying on a bed, as it can induce sleep, thus breaking your meditation. Since falling asleep is the goal of this exercise, we can safely ignore that rule.

Shavasana can be performed as follows:

• Lie on your back in a supine position with your arms at your sides and your palms facing upwards. Make sure that your legs are slightly parted. Close your eyes.
• Focus on your right arm. Visualize it in your mind's eye as best as you can and simultaneously feel the sensations that go through your skin, muscles, and bone in that arm. Feel the blood flowing through your veins. You do not have to spend too long doing this.
• Inhale and clench your right hand into a fist, lifting your arm slightly from the floor or bed. Hold it, and then drop it on exhaling. Relax your arm completely and let it lie, as though it were dead.
• Go through the same routine for your left arm, your right leg, your left leg, and then your torso from the base of your spine to the top of your skull. Tense, and then relax every part of your body in this order. When it is done, your whole body should feel completely relaxed. Take notice of the bed or floor below you, and how it makes contact with your body. Imagine yourself melting completely into the floor. Let the weight of your body surrender to gravity completely. Empty your mind of any distracting thought.

The above technique is the simple version of the one given in Mumford’s book. There is a more advanced version of this given in his book that you can progress onto, once you have mastered this elementary version. It involves concentrating on sixteen points of the body based on the joints, known as the Marmasthanani zones. For the purpose of sending you to sleep, the elementary version above should suffice.

Eventually, one of two things will happen. Either you will fall asleep, or you will enter a state known as Yoga Nidra. Yoga Nidra means "Yogic Sleep." This form of sleep is more like a trance. It is a state between wakefulness and being asleep, known as the hypnogogic state. During shavasana it can last for around twenty minutes, and like any other form of trance, you do not know that you have had it until you wake up from it. After a while of practicing this technique, I would sometimes find myself glancing at the clock when my concentration had been broken, to find that half an hour or longer had elapsed without me even knowing! This was not a bad thing, as sleep came almost instantly afterwards. Those who practice this on a hard floor, simply for relaxation find that after waking from Yoga Nidra, find that they feel more refreshed than they would have done after an ordinary night's sleep.

Although shavasana is an effective technique for getting over a sleep disorder, it may or may not work immediately. If it does not help you get to sleep on the first try, keep on practicing for a few weeks. You may find that eventually your body, and simultaneously your mind since the two are both linked more deeply than you may realize, will get the message and slide into sleep more easily.

Mumford lists the advantages of shavasana. These include relaxation of the muscles, nervous system and the complete relaxation of the mind. It can also lower blood pressure. Like many Yogic exercises, it is an excellent means of ridding yourself of stress.

There are other yogic positions that have been known to aid people in overcoming sleep disorders, and you can practice them before turning in as a supplement to this exercise if you wish. These include the Plow Pose, the Seated-Forward Stretch, and the Downward-Facing Dog. Since Hatha Yoga is beyond the scope of this article, I will leave you to research it on your own.

Practicing Yoga in general can be a good way of helping you to overcome insomnia. Yoga exercises can help you beat stress, which is a common factor in sleep disorders. If you like you can start a routine at night before you turn in, which is the best time to do it if sleeping is difficult for you. You can find a decent book on Yoga from which you can read and learn to construct your own routine, or you can take classes, as best suits your lifestyle.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2005. All rights reserved.

Ever since my brother passed away a year or so ago, my DVR will turn on and off by itself. It will even try to eject or play a tape when there isn't one in it. Sometimes I will say, "If this is you, then do it again," and it DOES! I miss my brother so much. Do you think this is him trying to contact me, or is it my imagination? Have you ever heard of anything like this before?

- Collette

Dreamchaser:

My favorite part of your question was when you said, "If this is you, then do it again," and it happened. Despite this, you're still wondering if it is your brother. OF COURSE it is your brother!

The easiest way for spirits to contact us is through electricity. Spirits, after all, are energy. They have ways of manipulating electricity and making their presence known. It happens with the ghosts in my house all the time.

One evening I was sitting at the table with my son doing homework, and the stereo turned on all by itself. We just looked at it and he said very calmly, "Excuse me. I am trying to do my homework," and turned it off.

On my nightstand in my room, which is a loft, I have a touch lamp. You have to touch the base to get it to turn on. You can touch it once for low, twice for medium, three times for high and four times for off. I was sitting in another part of the house when suddenly, the light in my room turned on to high.

Then there are the times when the television turns on or off by itself, or I walk in the kitchen when I am the only person in the house, and the oven light is turned on. I could go on and on.

As you can see, it really is quite normal for spirits to manipulate energy. I think that most of the time when it happens in MY house, they are just trying to play with us and/or get our attention.

This is what your brother wants: your attention. He wants you to know that he is there and that he is alive in another form. He absolutely wants you to see it and believe it. He also used to like to play practical jokes on people. He loved to watch their reactions. He's still like that, so this DVR trick is right up his alley. He loves your reaction.

He does wonder, however, why you don't pick up on everything else that he does. He messes with lights all the time. Your lights will go off, on, or flicker by themselves. He also has learned how to make your phone ring. He could only manage one ring for a while. Now he can actually get it to ring until you answer it, and there is nothing but static sound on the other end. He is quite active around your house.

You can also FEEL his energy around you. At times you feel that if you turned around, he would be standing there. His energy is that tangible to you. Please believe that energy. It REALLY is him in spirit form, standing in the same room with you. All of these jokes he is playing on you are his way of telling you to stop grieving. He is not gone. He keeps stressing that point to me and to you via his activity around your house.

I wish you acceptance of life in its various energetic forms.

*****

Astrea:

I often hear about this kind of thing happening. Often when people we love and are very close to cross over, they will find a way to show us they are all right. This is especially true of those who depart at a young age.

Your brother was a big prankster when he was alive, so he has decided the best way to get your attention is to work through your DVR. He knew that you would recognize it was him trying to communicate with you.

For spirits, electrical current is an easy way to travel. It takes less effort for HIM if he can come to you through wires that are already humming with energy to feed the DVR.

One reason he has taken this subtle approach is he doesn't want to frighten you. You're lucky there. His only reason for producing this kind of manifestation is to let you know that he's all right, that he's with you from time to time, and that he misses you (which feels very different for the people THERE than it does for us). Even though you can't hear him talk to you yet, he can hear YOU. He hears everything you say to him.

He's not trying to frighten you or seek revenge on anyone or anything like that. Nothing negative can come from him and certainly doesn't have any negative intentions. He's just trying to let you know he's there to help you if you need him.

Sometimes it's so difficult to let go of someone we love that we keep calling that person back to us from Heaven over and over again. They never get any rest, and they can't move on to be a part of the Complete Whole Spirit, which is God.

I don't feel, however, that you are doing this. Your brother is lingering because he decided to keep all of you company until the pain of his passing subsides. If you're not afraid they'll think you're nutty, ask other family members if they've had anything like this happen to them.

It might not be the DVR for someone else. My Big Daddy used to enjoy turning lamps on and off at regular intervals. Granny likes to turn the light from the stairs off when I'm about halfway down.

A tidbit of warning here: spirits come and go as they will. You'll NEVER know when he'll turn up, and no matter how ready you are, it's ALWAYS a little disconcerting. I have a friend who comes in my studio and taps me on the shoulder if I'm there alone. Even when I think about this on my way out to the studio, and feel I am prepared, I always COME OUT OF MY SKIN when he does that! Making us jump must be part of the fun for these spirits. Don't think you're being a big baby when that happens!

If you're still not convinced this is your brother, buy another DVR. The same thing will happen with that one, too. 🙂