Secrets of proper sleep according to Ayurveda

The Indi­an sci­ence of life Ayurve­da places great impor­tance on sleep. Night rest in Vedic med­i­cine is called the “nurse of the world”, because it allows you to relieve the accu­mu­lat­ed ten­sion, put your feel­ings and thoughts in order, and pre­pare for a new day. In order for sleep to be of high qual­i­ty and healthy, cer­tain rec­om­men­da­tions should be fol­lowed.

Sleep in Ayurveda: how to prepare for it?

Night rest is a spe­cial rit­u­al, a sacred action, and if you per­form it accord­ing to all the laws and rules, then all the ele­ments in the body — wat­ta, pit­ta and kapha will be in bal­ance. It is on this that prakri­ti and the har­mo­ny of the inner world depend, and hence all health accord­ing to Ayurve­da as a whole. The first thing to remem­ber is that you can’t eat up two hours before bed­time, and this applies to both phys­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al food. When immersed in the king­dom of Mor­pheus, any diges­tive process­es in the body must be com­plet­ed, so you need to have din­ner 4 hours before going to bed. The excep­tion is milk — you can drink it imme­di­ate­ly before a night’s rest.

In bed, only sleep­ing is allowed, but for read­ing, writ­ing and think­ing, it is bet­ter to find anoth­er place. Ayurve­da also rec­om­mends tak­ing a bath before going to bed. If it is not pos­si­ble to wash the whole body, then hands, feet and face should be washed. A foot mas­sage with sesame oil will com­plete the rit­u­al, as well as a short med­i­ta­tion that can give vent to the neg­a­tiv­i­ty of the past day.

Ayurveda medicine about proper sleep

Every lit­tle thing mat­ters, like the loca­tion of the bed:

• the ide­al option is to set the head of the bed to the east. Accord­ing to Ayurve­da med­i­cine, this will pro­vide med­i­ta­tion sleep;
• lying with your head to the north means los­ing your own poten­tial, bring­ing dishar­mo­ny to the bal­ance of the three doshas. Such an arrange­ment of a sleep­ing place will facil­i­tate trav­el to the astral plane, but you will have to pay for it with your own well-being;
• a head­board direct­ed to the south will open the gates for feed­ing ener­gy chan­nels and your health will improve;
• if the head “looks” to the west, then bad dreams will occur.

Ayurve­da rec­om­mends main­tain­ing health by sleep­ing on an ortho­pe­dic mat­tress. It main­tains the nat­ur­al posi­tion of the spine with all its phys­i­o­log­i­cal fea­tures, pre­vent­ing the dis­place­ment of the ver­te­brae, mus­cles and lig­a­ments, as well as pinch­ing of nerve fibers and blood ves­sels.

As for the choice of posi­tion, ther­a­pists and ortho­pe­dists rec­om­mend sleep­ing on your back. It will be good if you pick up a low pil­low that reduces pres­sure on the spine. Women who dream of pro­long­ing their youth should think about the appro­pri­ate­ness of this pose, because it elim­i­nates pres­sure on the skin of the face, which means it acts as a pre­ven­tion of ear­ly aging.

Ayurve­da does not advise health sup­port by sleep­ing on the stom­ach, because in this posi­tion the load on the spine and cer­vi­cal ver­te­brae increas­es. The neg­a­tive impact of this posi­tion is expe­ri­enced by the cer­vi­cal region and the diges­tive tract. In addi­tion, there is pres­sure on the chest. A per­son who spends most of the night in this posi­tion wakes up bro­ken, tired, with pain in the neck and low­er back. But rest­ing on the side relax­es the mus­cles. More­over, suf­fer­ing from heart­burn, it is bet­ter to sleep on the left side, and with a defi­cien­cy of gas­tric acid — on the right.

Health according to Ayurveda depends on the duration of sleep

Per­haps, the Vedic sys­tem attach­es the great­est impor­tance to this fac­tor, because the dura­tion of a night’s rest direct­ly affects a per­son­’s well-being. Active­ly inter­act­ing with the forces of nature, Indi­an teach­ing pre­scribes to get up and go to bed accord­ing to the sun. In the evening, the time of kapha comes — the best moment to get rid of the neg­a­tiv­i­ty accu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing the day. Stay­ing awake after mid­night can aggra­vate Pit­ta and Vata. Pit­ta will increase appetite and pro­voke a desire to sat­is­fy hunger, which is strong­ly dis­cour­aged, and height­ened wat­ta, which con­trols sleep just before dawn, will reduce its qual­i­ty dur­ing these hours.

Accord­ing to the laws of Ayurve­da, over­fill­ing is very dan­ger­ous, and not so much for the body as for the spir­it. Too much rest leads to the devel­op­ment of a state of iner­tia and lazi­ness. There­fore, you can sleep no more than 8 hours a day.

The science of life about proper awakening

Awak­en­ing is a whole sci­ence and the bal­ance of doshas and health in gen­er­al depends on what it will be. The ide­al time to wake up is between 4 am and 6 am. Accord­ing to the fun­da­men­tal trea­tise on Ayurve­da — Ash­tan­ga Hri­daya Samhi­ta, you need to get out of bed dur­ing Brah­ma Muhur­ta, that is, 48 ​​min­utes before dawn. This not only devel­ops a use­ful habit, but also deter­mines the suc­cess of the whole day, and in the long term, spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment and the choice of life pri­or­i­ties in gen­er­al. Those who get up at sun­rise get up togeth­er with all the saints, start­ing med­i­ta­tion and oth­er self-improve­ment prac­tices, there­by set­ting the har­mo­ny of their inner world.

A little about daytime sleep

Ayurve­da med­i­cine has not bypassed day­time sleep. But if you want to lie down and relax dur­ing the day, sea­son­al­i­ty must be tak­en into account. Dur­ing the sum­mer, when the days get longer and the nights get short­er, day­time naps can be a good idea, but this may not be for every­one. Over­weight peo­ple are not rec­om­mend­ed to sleep dur­ing the day in any sea­son, as this con­tributes to even more lazi­ness and apa­thy. A short rest dur­ing the day is rec­om­mend­ed by the sci­ence of life Ayurve­da if:

• you are very tired, doing men­tal or phys­i­cal labor;
• suf­fer from any dis­eases or are in psy­cho-emo­tion­al stress;
• it is use­ful for small chil­dren and the elder­ly to sleep dur­ing the day;
• trav­el.

Ayurve­da med­i­cine con­sid­ers yoga nidra to be the ide­al form of sleep. It pro­vides for com­plete phys­i­cal rest, pro­vid­ed that the clar­i­ty of mind and sen­si­tiv­i­ty of con­scious­ness are main­tained. There­fore, cor­rect and healthy sleep aims to get clos­er to this ide­al in order to most ful­ly ful­fill the mis­sion of the com­ing day, pre­pare your­self for a new incar­na­tion and real­ize the divine plan.