An interesting signpost

A signpost near Bandipur Tiger reserve, Tamil Nadu

Tips for handling Sleep problems

There is nothing like a sound sleep to keep one fresh and going. With me it’s much more; I sort of have a dependency on it. My mind almost refuses to function if I have not had a real sound sleep. So naturally, sleep has been an area of interest to me. Recently, I have had several discussions around sleeping problems with many people. It looks like quite a few have one or the other issues. Therefore I thought it makes sense to write a post on it. And as it looks, it turnt out to be an unusually long one.

Typically there are three problems: Getting in to sleep, maintaining the sleep and lastly not feeling fresh even after 8 hrs of sleep. When one or more of this happens regularly, that’s a sure sign that something is not really right

Most common and simplest of the problems is getting in to sleep. This is an indication that the mind and or the body is very active. First get the basics right: avoid exercises/ coffee/ smoke for 2-3 hrs prior to the sleep. Also avoid stimulating mental activities. A gap of 2 hrs between your meals and sleep is recommended and it is also advised not to drink plenty of water before getting to sleep.

 Contrary to the general perception, alcohol does not induce a good sleep. The quality of the sleep is severely impacted by alcohol and in higher quantities, it interferes with the memory. The process of storing temporary memory to permanent memory happens at night through a process called ‘memory consolidation’ and alcohol has a direct influence with it.

 Most of the restlessness in the body and the mind comes through an imbalance between the energies in the body and mind. If by nature your body energy is very high and mind energy low, you will have a lot of restlessness in the body. On the other hand, if your mind energy is very high and body energy low, you will have a lot of issues with obsessive thinking. In the first case, you need to include some relaxing activities in your daily schedule (like meditation) and in the second case you need to take up some solid exercising. Most issues with restlessness will be taken care of.

 Getting in to sleep becomes a problem when the mind is under stress, caught up with some compulsive thinking, brooding over a conflict/problem or is excessively obsessed with some planning. More compulsive the thinking is, more the effort to break it and get to sleep. In the case of stress, it is very common that people wake up in the middle of night (~2-3AM) and even before they know get sucked in to thinking and unable to resume sleep. In such cases, it’s a good idea to break the thought train and that will let you sleep peacefully.

Gibberish meditation is a simple but very handy technique to switch off this stream of thinking, even for those who do not have prior experience with mediation. I have written a separate post on it and advise you to read it. If your mind is too busy and does not let you sleep, practice it just before going to bed. You will sleep like a baby.

 For some people the problem is with scattered thoughts and off it goes from one thought to another. Such people will find it beneficial to do some ‘focusing’ just before going to bed. There is a great technique called ‘candle flame gazing’ that can help you (In yoga, this is called Trataka, in case you want to Google). Here is how you practice this. Place a glowing candle at arm’s length at the eye level. Sit relaxed and look at the flame of the candle. The flame should not flicker. After a while, when the eyes get tired gently close them and focus on the after image of the flame in the dark space before your eyes. When the image begins to fade/ move away, try to hold it steadily. When you can no longer hold the image, gently open the eyes and repeat the practice. Do it 4 or 5 times.

Practice notes:

1. Instead of the candle flame, you can use a dot (.) on a wall
2. People who suffer from any eye aliments should not practice Trataka
3. People who suffer from epilepsy should not practice Trataka on a candle flame, instead should practice on the dot.
4. It’s not recommended to practice Trataka for a prolonged period of time, as it might leave a permanent impression on your retina. Once a certain level of focus has been achieved, use some alternative techniques to maintain it
5. When you practice Trataka, lot of suppressed impressions and emotions will surface. Sometimes they may surface too quickly and can make you down. If that happens, do not practice this technique.

 For people who have a strong unconscious mind (generally the emotional type of people), the problem is to do with the day’s events and other information need to be processed. Even when you are asleep, the unconscious mind keeps analyzing the events and tries to make sense. If you are a person who dream a lot, that’s an indication of this problem. This results in two issues. Firstly, you have no idea what the unconscious mind is doing with the information. Secondly, this consumes a lot of energy, so that you don’t feel fresh in the morning even after an 8 hour sleep. Here is a brilliant technique to handle this:

                Let’s call it the ‘rewind technique’. Just before you sleep lie on your back, close your eyes , relax your body and start re-playing the entire day’s events backwards from the moment you closed your eyes. Just watch as you watch a film. Don’t start thinking about it. Try to go in to as much detail as possible, like what you felt, what thoughts were going on in your mind at that time, the sense perceptions etc. Should you get distracted in between (very likely), gently bring your mind back and continue. Thought it may sound very simple, this is a profound technique and if you can practice it on a daily basis, not only that you will sleep like a baby, you will also be freed from the unconscious mental processing that makes your life miserable.

                 Stress is another common problem that causes sleeping problems. Stress affects both the ability to get in to sleep and maintain sleep. The root cause behind stress is that you have too much identified with your thoughts. If you generally have a lot of emotional burden, practicing some witnessing technique will help. The essence of this is to make a bit of distance with your mind, by watching it. But it’s not going to happen in one day. You will have to cultivate it gradually. Here is how you can practice it:

Before you go to bed, sit with your spine erect and watch the breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils. Thoughts will distract you; gently watch them and come back. You might alternatively observe the rise and fall of your abdomen as you breathe in and out. The most important thing here is not to strain. Be as relaxed as possible and watch it with a sense of detachment. About 20 minutes would generally suffice.

 If you have too much stress accumulated on your body (which is indicated by stiffness, tightening of muscles in more acute cases aches and pains), you can also watch your body from inside. Take your attention in to the body and watch your body from inside. Relax every muscle as you do this. The stress accumulating in the body is a common problem these days because of sedentary life styles and bad postures. Exercises and massages will also help to remove stress from your body. The exercises should involve stretching and relaxing of the muscles.

                 The sleeping posture bears an important correlation with the quality of sleep. There is a direct relationship between your thoughts and body movements. That’s when a specific kind of thought occurs in the mind, it creates specific body movement. The converse is also true. A stress on any muscle in the body  in turn triggers a particular thought pattern in the mind. If you sleep with your body tightened in any way, it’s time to change it. This is more the case with those who sleep on their tummy and hands tucked below the neck. Lying on your back or side is a definitely a more relaxed posture.

                 The time just before going to sleep and just after you wake up is very significant. This is when the conscious mind is still not very active, but the unconscious mind is active. Normally this is the time you kind of hallucinate. People with very strong unconscious mind, this is the time very deep impressions are created and reinforced. These impressions have a deep impact on your personality, mood etc. Two things will help. One is that you sleep when you are really sleepy; try reading something before you sleep or try one of the exercises described above. Secondly, leave the bed as soon as you are awake. This is very important especially for those who feel down in the mornings.

                If you are feeling tired even after 8 hours of ‘good sleep’, check out one of these possibilities. If the room is not ventilated, you may not get enough of oxygen at night and that could make you dull in the morning. For some people, it could be that your natural way of breathing is very shallow and it becomes more shallow at night. For such people, either a deep breathing technique (like Pranayams) or engaging in some aerobic activities would help.

                 There is a medical condition called sleep apnea, which obstructs the breathing during sleep. But it is hard to detect. If you have anytime woken up choked at night, perhaps this is one possibility. You will need to get medical help to sort this out.    

                Another reason why you feel tired in the morning is that the unconscious mind is very active during the night. The techniques described above (especially the ‘rewind technique’) will surely help. This is important for those who have a lot of emotional stress and confused patterns.

                 Some people who feel tired in the morning, despite a regular fixed sleeping pattern, might need to try increasing / decreasing the duration of the sleep by say 30 mts. The mind goes through different stages during sleep and when you wake up in some of those stages, you feel fresh and in some other stages you feel down , irrespective of the duration of the sleep. Sometime it so happens that you have a fixed schedule and you always get to wake up exactly during the phase where you feel down. If nothing else works, try to change the duration and see.

 You will need to experiment with some of these techniques for a few days to see what works for you.

Playing with Gods

We in India are pretty friendly with gods. Not only that we have countless to choose from according to one’s own tastes, the relationship is pretty much personal and informal. We not only worship them but also demand things, accuse, avoid and even bribe them. Most of our gods are not those serious looking types, but are quite humane in many ways, playing pranks. Gods play a very important role in the everyday life on any Indian- you can’t find a vehicle in India without a god’s photo or idol on the dashboard (If you ever wondered why there aren’t as many accidents in this chaotic traffic!)

But then we also try to fool around with gods. Not in a big way (we are also afraid of them) but more as a matter of convenience (and gods do understand that!). Here are two examples I came across:

1. We had planned a trip to Rameshwaram (this is famous Shiva temple located at the southern most point of India) sometime last year. Everything was planned; but then we came to know that back at my hometown a cousin of mine was expecting a baby anytime. According to our belief system, if a child is born in the family, one is not allowed to visit a temple or perform any religious rites for few days ( as a matter of fact 10 days if the child is male and 3 days for females).

We were slightly worried if the trip will have to be cancelled. There was every chance that the child would be born and we will have to call of the trip.

Then my wife gave me a great idea. She asked me to request my cousin’s family not to inform us if the child was born before we left. She observed that there was no sin if we visit the temple unaware. Of course I didn’t do it and as for our luck, we made the trip without any problems.

2. A friend of mine who had been to Hajj (the pilgrim to Holy Mecca) started growing his beard. When I met him few days back, I curiously asked him about the significance of this and he explained to me that once you perform the pilgrim to Mecca, you are supposed to let your beard grow. But there is a rule; it’s expected to be grown till your chest (you should be able to hold it in your fist).

I met this guy again today (that was the trigger for this post). I was amused to see that he had trimmed his beard. I asked him if he decided to go against the rules laid down in the scriptures.

No, he explained. The rules were very clear- you are not supposed to shave, you have to let your beard grow and there was a maximum length to which it could grow. But there is no mention about how short it can be. So my friend trimmed his beard very short. This definitely looked much better in a corporate environment, but the crux is that he actually found a way out without going against the rules.

Gods also love fun!

Motivating Children

My daughter has a “Spell Bee” competition (this is a competition on getting spellings right..) coming up in her school in Feb. Yesterday evening my wife complained to me that she was not preparing in spite of her repeated pestering and demanded that I interfere.

 I have always thought that my wife’s approach to getting things done was wrong (as with all women); she was too nagging. Whereas I am a strong believer of the fact that children should be motivated than forced upon. Well, here was my chance to prove the point; so I decided to have a  conversation with my daughter about this.

 “How has your preparation been going on for Spell Bee?” I asked

 She mumbled something in response; indicating that she wasn’t really enthusiastic about the conversation.

 “You will have a surprise gift from me if you get the first prize” I didn’t have a better choice for motivating her than this age-old proven tactic of offering something.

 Her eyes lit up briefly (OK, I was on the right track)

 “You will get a pair of nice Cinderella shoes in you win the first prize” (She has been behind me for that expensive shoes which I obviously thought was sheer waste of money)

  Now, I am waiting for to explode with joy, but…

  “Not needed papa”, her response was cold and for moment I went blank

 “Pink color shoes with golden laces..”, maybe I had not made it look attractive enough

  “Listen papa. If I win the “Spell Bee” contest, I will get a reward of 12 lakhs. So we will have lots of money, we can buy whatever we want…..May be we can also buy bigger home, more comfortable car… Or expensive clothes…”

  I had absolutely nothing to say; there was just a deep pain somewhere.

 Few months back when I had been to my ancestral home, I found a “pencil-case” in an abandoned cupboard. I had won it as a prize in a competition when I was in 3rd standard. It was something unearthly to me and meant everything in the world for quite sometime. When I saw it after several years, I was amused at the details that flooded my memory- the smell of the plastic, the pictures on it, the glossiness of the packet, how it feels and everything about it. I brought it with me back to Bangalore and it’s lying on my table. A strange joy fills my heart whenever I look at it.

 So much has changed in 30 years. I can understand generation gap, but can’t really understand it when our own children are generations away from us…

Intelligent Creepers

(Continued from the previous post…)It’s not just the trees alone that are intelligent. Something that was really amusing in the forest was the large creepers. If you look at them, you can see that they go from one tree to another. The trees are several meters apart and the creepers are several meters above the ground.

One thing that amused me was how these creepers reach from one tree to another. One theory that came to my mind first was that these creepers had climbed on to the trees when the trees were pretty small, and then they grew with them. But that didn’t relay look like a prabable theory, because in most cases it would have taken several years for the creepers to reach such heights.

 

The most important observation against this theory was that it did not look as if this happened by chance. It looked very deliberate.

 A friend of mine who lives near a forest area gave me this explanation. These creepers actually reach out to the adjacent trees first on the ground. Once they climb to a certain height, they tighten themselves and lift them up to the desired height.

This seems plausible, but stillone question remains? Why would they lift themselves up like this? Because the probability of being destroyed is very high on the ground?

 Then the fundamental question remains, how do these creepers know that such a risk exists and then know what needs to be done and does it in such a brilliant way?

Intelligent trees

Do trees have intelligence? I think most of us will agree that they do. But can they think the way we humans think? Here are some examples from my recent trip through a forest. It’s really amazing and it’s hard to believe that they cannot think.

In the picture above, the tree is leaning on to the pathway, probably to get more sun light. But then the probability of the tree falling down is very high. To prevent that, the tree has put in a special root (see the red arrow) in the horizontal direction, to compensate for the tilt.

Here is another example

This tree too had the same problem. It is leaning on to the pathway. But this is very huge tree and it cannot use the same technique the other tree used.  So it did something different. It developed another set of fresh supporting roots (see the red arrow) that sort of acts like a pillar.

How do trees figure out such issues and take corrective actions?  We think our intelligence is in the brain, but where does the intelligence of the trees reside? Or are we mistaken, is every cell of our body carry that intelligence?

On dreams again

I had this dream today early in the  morning. I was living in Germany. In the street where I was staying, pillars were being erected for a flyover or overhead railway line. I was enquiring with someone if the prize of the apartment I was staying would go up if the construction was complete. There were two small restaurants nearby and I vividly remember choosing between them and picking some specific stuff like juice from one of them. Then there was a room, where there were two Indians apparently changing their cloths. I had picked up some conversation with them, but can’t recollect. I woke by then and was out of the dream.

 Though it looks like one of those common strange dreams, I was amused by the complexity of it. Last night I was watching a film depicting the struggle between an Indian King and the Britishers. There were many English men in the film and only when my wife pointed out, it occurred to me that this had probably triggered the dream. The last time I was in Germany was 2004, but the memories were still intact. The image of the pillar erection comes from Bangalore itself, where the metro rail project is going on. Yesterday afternoon, I had been to a shop right outside the office campus. The place was extremely crowded as I waited in anticipation for the shop keeper’s attention. The shop that I saw in the dream, resembled this shop (the way it was designed). The place I met the two Indians probably (this I am not really sure) came from a movie I watched last week where two Indian medical students turn in to serial killers in the US. They were staying in a similar room in the film.

 All these events had taken place at different points of time and seemingly not related at all. Why the mind tried to connect them in to a dream? Was it just a trial and error going on in the mind to see if it made any sense? Or is there an underlying connection between all these things?

 My experience is that mostly the dreams are triggered by something very recent; something that’s caught the attention. But then what is the mind doing with it during sleep? Is some sense making process going on? And can’t the mind do any sense making without connecting those things together?

How does the mind choose what memory to be recalled in connection with a particular trigger?  Is there a logic that the mind uses or is it just random firing of neurons? Is the mind trying to resolve something? So in reality what is unresolved? The current trigger or some thing unresolved in the memory? In other words is the mind trying to make sense of the current trigger using stuff in memory or is it the other way?

 I happened to catch the dream because I woke up in the middle. But I am sure this must have been happening several times during the night, just that I wasn’t aware or I cannot remember. Is there a result out of these dreams, something like a conclusion, understanding etc, that gets stored in to the mind. In that case it’s very likely that the mind is being programmed without our awareness.

 In the east they say, in deep sleep activities are absorbed in the root ignorance. Probably there is a point.