Question:
On the Ellen DeGeneres show you said that you get up at 4:00 am to meditate. I would like to become an early riser also, because the early morning is the only quiet time for meditation where I live, but also because I would like to get more done during the day. I never sleep through the night, and this has been a life-long pattern. I go to bed around 11:00 pm and usually wake up around 3:00-4:00 am for a couple of hours, then fall asleep again, waking at 8:00 or 9:00 am. If I have to get up earlier than this I feel a lot of anxiety and end up sleeping very little or not at all. I have tried many things to improve this (including doctors, meditation, hypnosis and counseling, EFT, yoga, spending time in nature, working on personal goals) but nothing has helped much. I have also tried getting up and meditating at 4:00 am, but I end up getting tired again and I have to return to bed. Our ancestors used to sleep for a few hours, then get up and return to bed, and I suspect that this ancient habit is partly related to my interrupted sleep. When I wake up, I feel groggy for a couple of hours and don't really get going until about noon. I drink a few cups of coffee in the morning.
I am tired of living this way, and was wondering if you had any suggestions to help me adjust my pattern from that of a late riser to an early riser. Were you always an early riser, or have you been able to condition yourself in some way.? I deeply appreciate your writings, which inspire and uplift me when I am frustrated and depressed.
Answer:
You may have to tinker with your schedule to arrive at a sleeping pattern that suits your needs. First of all you need to determine how many hours of sleep you need to function at your best. From what you have laid out above it looks like you need about 8 hours. Next you should determine what time you can get up that allows you to have the quiet time and gives you the extra time for the other things you would like to get done for the day. Take that time and back it up 8 hours and look at that as your new bedtime. You offered 4 a.m. as the time you want to get up, but perhaps 8 p.m. is not practical as a time to go to sleep. But if 5:30 a.m. still allows you to meditate in a silent house and still gives you 2 or 3 more productive hours during the day, then perhaps you can live with a 9:30 p.m. bedtime.
If you can come up with an outline something like this that makes sense to you, then you can work on setting up the conditions to make it work. For instance, to help avoid the likelihood of waking up in the middle of the night, make sure you eat a light dinner, such as soup and salad, and don’t eat anything after 7 p.m. The quality of your sleep can also be improved by not getting your mind overly stimulated with work activities or other worries in the hours before bed. If you do wake up in the middle of the night, don’t get up for a few hours. Remain in bed and let your body continue to gain rest until you fall asleep again.
Lay out a general plan for how you would like your daily schedule to flow, and then write down all the benefits that will come from that. Fully visualize and step into how you will feel living in this new sleep pattern. Resolve to follow your new sleeping time for a minimum of 3 weeks to give your body time to adjust to the new sleep cycle. After 3 weeks you should be well on your way toward establishing your new routine.
0 comments:
Post a Comment