How Can I Fight Sleepiness During Meditation?

[With English interpretation] Ven. Pomnyun Sunim's Answer to “How can I fight sleepiness during meditation?.”
Selection from Sunday Meditation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim. meditation q&a [Week 17] (August 2, 2020)

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Transcript

In general,

I have huge problems with sleep,

So I am generally very sleepy.

How can I fight it?

As soon as I calm down and feel comfortable,

I start to doze off.

Now it's normal for you to feel sleepy when you are comfortable with your eyes closed.

First,

You might be tired.

Second,

You haven't had enough sleep.

In these two cases,

If you engage in continuous meditation for two days or so,

It actually helps solve themselves.

When I say two days,

I mean two days straight of meditation.

But of course,

There are people who actually have health issues or medical issues with sleep and these people are continuously drowsy.

There are several examples of this.

However,

One example is that if your stomach doesn't really move well,

If the stomach doesn't naturally engage in its natural movements,

Then you tend to doze off when meditating.

In this case,

During breaks in meditation,

You can actually massage your own stomach vigorously so that you get it moving,

So that you allow it to refer to its natural motions.

That relieves it somewhat.

To summarize,

If you are drowsy because you lack sleep or you have sleeping issues,

It takes a little bit of meditation,

But they tend to resolve themselves.

But if you have other health issues,

You need intervention to help with those health issues.

If you're drowsy because of lack of sleep or because you're tired,

Just because you actually lay down and sleep doesn't mean it's solved.

It actually continues.

So allow it to resolve itself after meditating continuously for over days.

Maintain your focus on the breath,

Even in the midst of drowsiness,

And you'll see it resolve itself.