Meditation and Sleeping Patterns
Kundo
Sydney, Australia Veteran
Namaste all,
I have recently undertaken a bit of a challenge - a 30 Day Mindfulness Meditation Challenge. I took a leaf out of an acquaintance's book and set both a goal and a trigger (the trigger concept baffled me at first). I thought I'd keep it simple so my trigger is lighting a candle on my shrine. I then do a sitting meditation for 15 minutes. The time I have chosen is just before bed because it's the only real "me" time I get.
The first night was quite good. I felt completely centred and calm and promptly slept like a log for 7 hours (which is my target but I never usually get to). The second night I almost fell asleep a few times and zonked out afterwards. Last night however....... I did the meditation and felt very calm and centred and ALERT. In fact, so alert I didn't drop off till just after 2:20am. I woke at 5:55am and felt quite ok. It's now 1:47pm and I am just having my first ingestion of caffeine (Coke Zero). I don't feel tired at all.
I have been keeping notes on this and have been updating my blog (http://dhammachick.wordpress.com). Has anyone else ever experienced this after meditating?
In metta.
Comments
I think meditation is similar to sleep in restoration. But probably if you went a whole month with 3 h sleep a night it wouldn't be good.
@Jeffrey - yes that is one of the reasons I'm monitoring it. It concerns me a bit.
Good plan. Set yourself a plan. Bravo.
It will adjust. Meditation can be like a yoyo. We are the string and the mind/ego rolls up, down and loopy loop. Good idea to monitor or journal but not to worry . . . everything sounds fine
@dhammachick: the first thing you should pause to think is what exactly are you trying to get out of this Mindfulness Meditation Challenge.
I find that sitting meditation usually sharpens my mind, and makes me more alert and aware to the present moment. Precisely because it is not conducive to sleep (in my case, at least), I practise it in the morning, when the whole family is away. It is my longest meditation of the day.
Before going to sleep, I do lying meditation in bed to unwind, release tension from the body and prepare myself for a good night sleep. This meditation is totally different from the morning one. The idea is to unwind, not to become more mindful, and somehow the body understands the difference because I doze off in no time and sleep all night.
I suspect the trigger that you mention (though I don't know it by that name), is a symbolic act you do to let your mind know that you are about to enter a different state of consciousness, a way to break the routine and say to yourself, "Okay, I'm getting ready to meditate now." I light an incense stick and that works as a Pavlovsky reflex.
I suspect your meditation practise close to sleeping time has been building up in cumulative stages to gradually make you too alert. Perhaps the first night you could sleep like a baby, but the consistency in the rhythm is now having the opposite effect.
Meditation can be like a yoyo. We are the string and the mind/ego rolls up, down and loopy loop. Good idea to monitor or journal but not to worry . . . everything sounds fine
First of all, I learned some absolutely amazing tricks with my Duncan yoyo back in the day when we thought getting a yoyo made for a successful birthday and getting a Duncan made you cool. Damn, I'm old.
An undesirable side effect that I discovered when I tried to journal was that I found myself looking for experiences that I could journal about while trying to meditate. Which, I'm sad to say, is very probably an incredibly accurate metaphor for how I've lived too much of my life. Anywho, just something to watch for.
Excuse me @dhammachick for this tiny aside in the thread but this comment by @yagr bears mentioning.
It is so typical when you launch on journal-writing that all of a sudden you look out for interesting things to register only to find that nothing seems interesting or important enough to deserve an entry!
Czech-Austrian poet Rilke (sorry again, I love Rilke) used to say that even if we were stuck in a prison cell, life always offers material worth putting down into writing. We have to blame ourselves, not life if we can't find something interesting to write about.
I appreciate all the feedback.
In metta
Myself, I wouldn't judge either circumstance yet because each only happened once. Sleep patterns vary in life normally. Some days, I can sleep 10 hours, some days, I sleep 5. The significance comes in the consistency and pattern of the result of the meditation program you are doing.
To be completely honest, unless you are quite an advanced meditation practitioner, I'm not sure I'd say that a mere 15 minutes of meditation is enough to substitute for hours of sleep. Meditation is restful, yes, and I've read stories about meditation masters who meditate as such that they can forgo normal sleep. But I would cautious jumping to that, or any other conclusion at this point. For us average humans, as you know I'm sure, sleep is a life requirement, and a continued pattern of not getting enough sleep becomes extremely problematic and is unlikely to help your practice.
That you sense a connection important enough to mention it probably means there is a connection. What the connection MEANS . . . eh. I'm a sucker for 'what it means' because then I can make important decisions for the rest of my life, right then in the moment. Then after long enough I realize the meaning changes with the direction of the breeze. Sigh. I still try, though, or watch the selfing try to grab control.
I meditate last thing before bed, too. I've started falling asleep in the past few weeks, whereas before I was quite peacefully alert for a while after. I am struggling with sleepiness in general during meditation, no matter what time of the day. I'd hoped I wouldn't have this particular challenge but it looks like I do. Damn.
Is the 30 day challenge related to Sharon Salzberg's book?
I started writing an answer and then realised that I had misread Patterns for Partners.
So I will just silently withdraw and leave you to imagine what the answer was.
/Victor
@Hamsaka - no it's just a challenge that a few of us came up with together.
So far I've only had the one episode of uber alertness. The rest of the time I have felt calm and centred and had a good solid sleep.
@dharmamom - I've had the journal for a few years now. I find that blogging helps me get things out and I enjoy writing. I know regret not pursuing it as either as a journalist (career) or writing as a past time and possibly self published. Although I think that is something I will start to do as my illness progresses.
In metta.
You seem to be preoccupied with sexual matters lately......
(It's a 'guy' thing...)