How To Sleep Well

Sadhguru explains what the body needs is rest, and not necessarily sleep. Quality of sleep is connected to the quality of life. If you wake up well, you well.

Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serves as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times.

Transcript

Questioner 1 I was wondering how can I decrease my hours of sleep?

How can I improve my sleep quality?

Sadhguru See,

Sleep is not a requirement in one's life.

What the body requires is rest.

Sleep is just one form of rest.

Lot of people are beginning to think,

In Tamil Nadu if somebody says,

Rest panikaranga means they are sleeping.

Need not be,

You can sit and rest,

Isn't it?

Yes?

You can stand and also rest.

You running,

If you stand,

Doesn't it feel like rest?

If you're standing,

If you sit down,

Doesn't it feel like rest?

There are many ways of resting.

The most important thing is,

Rest means you're changing the energy equation where consumption is lowered,

Production is going on at the same pace.

So after a period of time,

You feel rejuvenated because consumption has been lowered.

Essentially you're managing the energy equation,

If you're in activity,

The consumption is more.

Whatever you're producing,

It's not enough,

After some time you feel exhausted because the consumption has been heavy.

If you lower the consumption and increase the production,

After some time you feel energized.

Suppose you're running,

If you run a mile,

After that you can't take another step,

Let's say,

Oh many of you have been running for Isha marathons,

Isha Vidya marathons,

After forty-two kilometers,

All right,

Whenever.

After a mile or two,

You can't take another step.

Don't eat anything,

Don't drink anything,

Just sit down for ten minutes,

Again you find rejuvenated,

Isn't it?

All you have done is lowered the consumption,

Production is still at the same level.

So now there are ways to lower the consumption and increase the productivity also.

So if you come to a certain state of ease,

When I say ease,

It's not something that most people will ever understand because most people are not at ease.

If you're at total ease,

If the system is at total ease,

Everything is at ease,

It is well rested always,

It is rested.

Because it's so rested throughout the day,

If you sleep in the afternoon,

Do you see you can't sleep much in the night?

Yes?

Oh,

You're already experimenting?

If you sleep in the afternoon,

You can't sleep much in the night unless you're sick or you're very tired because of something.

Because it's well rested in the day,

It can't sleep in the night.

So you don't have to necessarily sleep.

If you sit here also,

If your body is resting,

You will see your sleep quota will naturally shrink.

How to increase the quality of sleep?

Don't try to increase the quality of sleep.

The ideal way to live is,

There is no sleep in my life.

But that's not possible right now,

Still body has some inertia,

So it sleeps minimum.

Rest of the time,

It is at ease.

If you keep this at ease,

Then sleep does not occur to the body unless it comes to a certain point of exhaustion.

So body is never ever asking for sleep,

But it is definitely asking for rest.

If you do not know how to sit here in a restful manner,

It will try to rest,

Like this.

If you can sit here totally at ease,

It will sit here for hours without falling asleep.

Otherwise,

This is the only way it knows how to rest.

So do not try to increase the quality of sleep,

There's no such thing.

Just learn to keep your body restful and at ease,

Consciously.

If you sit here now,

One simple thing you can do is you sit down,

You come and sit down here,

Just move your attention from the top of your head down to your toes and see if everything is loose and easy and relaxed and at ease.

Are you sitting like this?

Sit,

Just bring this to ease as much as you can.

Not everything is in your conscious level.

As much as you can consciously bring it to ease,

You will see suddenly if you are the kind who'll fall asleep at ten o'clock,

If you simply one hour you sit here at ease,

You will see your sleep will get postponed by half an hour.

You won't feel sleepy at ten.

Naturally you're awake.

So instead of trying to increase the sleep quality now,

You increase the quality of life.

If you increase the quality of life,

When I say increase in the quality of life,

Nothing in your life,

Whatever you may be doing,

From simple breathing to any complex activity that you do in your life,

The quality of that will not improve if you cannot do it with ease.

Is that so?

Hmm?

Only when you can do something with total ease.

Let's say you're riding a bicycle.

If you're riding like this,

Like this,

You can't say you're enjoying your cycling.

If you can ride it with ease,

With so much ease that even if you take off your hands,

It'll go only straight the way you want it to go.

You're at ease.

Because you're at ease,

The quality of your cycling has improved,

Isn't it?

So these two things are connected.

So if you enhance the quality of your life,

Naturally sleep quota will go down.

If the quality of your life goes bad,

You can't do anything with ease,

Then also you cannot sleep,

But stressfully you cannot sleep.

Not because you're well rested,

You cannot sleep.

You cannot sleep because you're stressed out.

If you do this,

You will not live long.

If your body does not get enough rest,

It will die,

It will break,

Something will go.

If you're not at ease,

That means you're in dis-ease.

You're heading there.

You're in dis-ease means you're in a certain state of ill health.

But if we say you're diseased,

That means you're dead.

So don't move in… stay into the direction of dis-ease,

Move into the direction of ease.

If you become totally ease,

Sleep quality… sleep quota will come down.

Quality of sleep will be good because quality of life is good.

You want to increase only the quality of your sleep,

Life does not work like that.

If you wake up well in the morning,

You will also sleep well in the night.

There's a whole lot of systems to give this to people.

In the Eastern cultures,

In India particularly,

All these systems are built into one's life.

Of course,

They're throwing it away because they all became modern.

Modern means to be distressed,

Constantly in tension,

Agitated,

Worked up about everything.

That means you're really modern.

Otherwise traditionally,

All these things were built in from morning when you wake up till you go to sleep.

What you should do,

How you should handle yourself,

All these things were fixed.

Till the beginning of this generation,

Everybody was aware,

Suddenly they all became English educated and they become modern and tense.

Otherwise,

This was called achara vichara – what to do,

What not to do.

Everything is built from morning to night,

All aspects of life,

How to do it.

If you do it like that,

So that you can do everything with ease,

As much ease as possible.

So those who are not able to dedicate their life to yoga and spiritual process,

For them it was built into natural culture,

At least this much ease you know,

So that you wake up happily and go to sleep and sleep well.

Even today,

This is the thing that they will say in India,

If you… if people say,

What has happened,

You know this happened,

That happened in my life,

They say that's okay,

But in my life,

If I lie down,

I sleep well.

He might have made so much money,

It's okay,

But I sleep well.

You see,

Hear this,

People say this,

This part of the cultural expression,

I sleep well means I'm living well.

Only because I live well,

I can sleep well,

If I'm not living well,

I cannot sleep well.

So do not try to increase the… improve the quality of your sleep,

Improve the quality of your life,

Then you will naturally sleep well also.

Reviews

So simple, yet we miss the simple. Probably because we're all living the modern. Thank you for your wisdom.

Love it! Thank you 🙏

Mind blown at this concept of needing REST, not needing sleep and the connection to living life at ease. Wow.

I love this message. Improve the quality of your life and sleep will naturally improve.

Great message! It all makes sense. Thank you. Namaste 🙏

Love your so wise, simple words. Thank you Sadh Gurru & Namaste!

Thank you for your sharing of this wisdom. I so appreciate your direct teachings 🙏🙏👍

thank you 🙏🏻 i sleep quite well but my husband does not… i don’t think he is a very happy person anymore

Improve the quality of your life! 🗝 Very good to remember 😁
TY🙏🏻

This was exactly what I needed to hear! Thank you so much 🙏

Quite a surprising message and unique way of seeing things. Much enjoyed.

An interesting perspective in sleep and rest

I love being enlightened🙏

Was not headed in the direction I expected and I was pleasantly surprised! Namaste 🙏🏻

Increase the quality of your life you will naturally increase the quality of the sleep also.

Duh... good advice!

Motivation at it’s finest

Thank you 🙏 I loved this meditation namaste

Everyone should take a listen. Really open your ears and your mind to this philosophy because it’s brilliant!

I find comfort in his matter of fact delivery. He simply states the truth and I love it.