Prepare yourself for a Good-Night sleep

Good quality sleep is such a precious possession, you probably won't exchange it for anything in the World.

Here are few tips to help yourself sleep well:

1. Early dinner :- Finish eating around 3 hours prior to your sleep time. When digestion in the stomach is over, it becomes easy to sleep light and deep.

2. Clean yourself, change into light, loose clothing - this helps remove any stagnation and allows better energy exchange with environment 

3. Make sure your bedroom is clean & tidy, organized well and as dark as required to sleep well.

4. Warm milk can be taken as the last meal before sleep. Milk can digest well at night time, so no worries. However, make sure to have small quantity of milk as per your real hunger, that time so you can sleep-off timely and peacefully.

Milk has sedative property which can be soothing for sleep. If your body has any inflammation or wounds then turmeric milk can be taken, for short time, as a healing medicine.

5. Calm yourself down before sleeping. Stop all brain activity around 2 hours prior. This includes checking mobile messages, social media, watching tv etc.

6. Hair oiling helps nourish the brain. When oil is applied at night, this may enhance sleep quality too. 

Oils are of 2 types - hot nature e.g. Mustard oil and cold nature e.g. Coconut oil. A cooling oil, shall also calm down the brain, while a warm nature oil may provide much needed heat to brain during a cold, winter night.

7. Soaking feet in warm water, is a home remedy for sleep. This practice of around 20 min, has a cooling & calming effect on brain and helps fall asleep, soon.

8. Oil massage of feet with a warm oil like sesame oil for example. When feet are rubbed with oil, this induces sleep and helps fall into deep, peaceful one.

9. Gentle pranayama, around 20 min of exercises like 

• "Nadi shodhan" (Alternate Nostril Breathing) , 
• Deep breathing, 
• "Bhramari" (Humming Bee), 
• "Sheetali" (Cooling Breath) etc. 

shall also help calm mind and enhance quality of sleep.

10. Calming & relaxing Yog asanas like 

• "Shav asana" (Corpse pose),
• "Yog Nidra" (Yogic relaxation), 
• '"Balasana" (Child's pose')

can be added to regime before sleep. 

Light exercise such as 

• Walking 
• Neck movements 
• Eye exercises etc. 

can be additional great practices, to add before calling it a day.

11. Self analysis or Journaling is a very good activity to write down about the day, record learnings or close emotional matters, before sleeping off. 

This practice helps off-load stress & anxiety, and relieves fear, anger, hurt etc. from mind, thus  bringing calmness. 

12. Focused meditation or a meditative relaxing technique, can help bring down excess palpitations or Blood Pressure. Regular practice shall relieve anxiety and work great when added to sleep routine.

13. Calming, soothing music is a gentle way to give oneself the environment to sleep well. One may either listen or play light, devotional music on an instrument, to experience the effect of calm on mind.  

14. Prayer or 'Japa' (name chanting) help one expresses gratitude, remember divine and feel thankful. This is another magical way to feel fulfilled, trust higher powers and off-load any tensions or fears. Thus, praying before sleep is a beautiful practice to follow, regularly.

15. Keeping mobile phone away, outside of bedroom helps. This ensures no disturbance due to late night or early morning messages etc. or phone sounds etc. It also ensures an extra effort to reach the phone and makes it easy to practice solitude and relaxation, for good sleep. 

Do you have another practice, that works best for good sleep? Do write it down in comments and let us all know about it 👍

Take Charge!

Swaadhin Education 

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