Unable to sleep

[kohls6781]

Hi,

I do meditation for 20 mins, 2 times a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. I feel very relaxed and happy, but I am not able to sleep in the night. After going to bed I stay awake for 4, 5 hrs. Does this happen with anyone? Should I cut down my meditation time?

This happens with any type of meditation, mantra or vipassana.

For some health reasons, I should not do any yoga or breathing exercises. I can only do meditation for now.

Please advise. Thank you.

[Anthem]

Hi kohls6781,

Welcome to the AYP forums[]

A couple questions so we can better understand your situation.

1- How close to sleep time is your second meditation?

2- How was your ability to fall asleep prior to mediation?

3- Is this a consistent pattern for you where every single night it takes this long (4-5 hours)?

[kohls6781]

Hi Anthem11,

Thank you for your response.

1. I do 2nd session around 6 pm and go to bed around 11 pm

2. Prior to meditation, my sleep pattern was normal. It may take 20
   minutes for me to sleep after going to the bed. I would sleep for
   8 hrs.

3. It happens, I can say, 70% of the time. Sometimes even after
   doing meditation, I would sleep immediately. But that is not the
   case most of the times.

[anthony574]

It could have something to do with your diet or something else related to your habits (tv before bed, caffeine, ect)

If its yoga-related, don't sweat it. If you're waking up fine and seem to need less sleep enjoy it :-) It's common to go through phases where you sleep less. Whose to say how much sleep you need anyway?

[Anthem]

Hi kohls6781,

Seems like you have a nice amount of space between your last meditation and sleep. A suggestion would be to reduce your meditation time down to perhaps 15 minutes per session and to see if that helps. Another would be to shorten the evening meditation time down further to perhaps 10 minutes and see of that impacts the situation.

It will take a little experimentation on your part and then observing effects, but self-pacing your time in practices would be a good place to investigate.

I agree with anthony, diet would be another good area to investigate too. For me, eating too close to bed-time has impacted the quality of my sleep.

Best of luck!

[CarsonZi]

Hi kohls6781,

One question for you to help me better understand....Are you tired after waking up in the morning and having had less sleep then usual?  I have the exact same thing happening right now but it goes in spurts for me.  I had a span of time where I was sleeping maybe 3-4 hours a night, and waking up ultra refreshed after having an "energy massage" some months back, and right now after recieving Shaktipat on Sunday I have not needed more then 3 hours of sleep per night to feel completely rested.  I do let my body "rest" for longer then this, but I don't get more then a few hours of sleep per night these days.  If you are tired in the mornings I second the diet and exercise suggestions...if you wake feeling well rested I would say give it time and it will sort itself back out.  Enjoy not needing so much sleep while you can and get a few extra things done with the time you would normally be sleeping.  

Good Luck!

Love,
Carson[^]

[kohls6781]

Thank you all very much.

I am going to pay attention to other parameters like diet, physical activity, degree of tiredness etc to see if they are causing the problem.

But one thing though. Sometimes, on the days when I do meditation, though I feel very tired, body exhausted, eyes feel heavy, I can't sleep. The whole system wants to sleep, but something just stays very alert. This does not happen if I don't meditate.

CarsonZi, I usually try meditation over the weekend because of the sleep problem. I get up very late the following day. So I don't know how I feel if I get up early. I will try one day.

[Shanti]

quote:Originally posted by kohls6781

But one thing though. Sometimes, on the days when I do meditation, though I feel very tired, body exhausted, eyes feel heavy, I can't sleep. The whole system wants to sleep, but something just stays very alert. This does not happen if I don't meditate.

Welcome to the forums K.

What you are describing is conscious sleep.
Yogani has talked about it in this lesson:
Lesson 213 - Q&A – Conscious sleeping

Hope this helps.

[kohls6781]

quote:Originally posted by Shanti

quote:Originally posted by kohls6781

But one thing though. Sometimes, on the days when I do meditation, though I feel very tired, body exhausted, eyes feel heavy, I can't sleep. The whole system wants to sleep, but something just stays very alert. This does not happen if I don't meditate.

Welcome to the forums K.

What you are describing is conscious sleep.
Yogani has talked about it in this lesson:
Lesson 213 - Q&A – Conscious sleeping

Hope this helps.

Hi Shanthi,

I can't thank you enough for pulling Yogani's message out for me. I was thinking that I was too sensitive for meditation and must give up the practice for time being. But now I know that I am not alone. I will continue with my meditation. May be I will do 10 mins now and slowly increase it to 20 mins. Thank you very much.