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How to Reduce Sleep Quota and Increase Sleep Quality – Sadhguru – Video

How to Reduce Sleep Quota and Increase Sleep Quality – Sadhguru – Transcript

Questioner: I was wondering how can I decrease my hours of sleep and 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 ‘He is resting’ means they’re sleeping. (Laughter) Need not be. You can sit and rest isn’t it? Yes? You can stand and also rest. You’re running – if you stand doesn’t it feel like rest? 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 on acute 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 sometime 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 forty 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’re fine 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’ll try to rest like this (Gestures) (Laughter) If you can sit here totally at ease it’ll sit here for hours without falling asleep. Otherwise this is the only way it knows how to rest. (Gestures) 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 lose and easy and relaxed and at ease are you sitting like this? (Gestures) (Laughter) If you 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 will fall asleep at ten o’clock if you simply one hour if 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 are awake. So instead of trying to increase the sleep quality no you increase the quality of life. If you increase the quality of life when I say increasing 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 (Gestures) 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 are 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 your 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 you 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 are in dis-ease (Laughter); you’re heading there. You are in dis-ease means you’re in a certain state of ill-health. But if we say you’re deceased (Word happens to sound as ‘dis-eased’) that means you’re dead. (Laughter) So don’t move into the direction of dis-ease move into 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’ll also sleep well in the night. (Laughs) 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. (Laughter) 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 were 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 a thing that they will say in India if you if people say ‘What’s 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.’ Hmm? He might have made so much money it’s okay but I sleep well.’ (Laughter) You see hear this? People say this it’s 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.

How to Reduce Sleep Quota and Increase Sleep Quality – Sadhguru – Notes

Please note that this video titled How to Reduce Sleep Quota and Increase Sleep Quality – Sadhguru is from Sadhguru’s Youtube channel. More information about Sadhguru is available on his website at isha.sadhguru.org. The transcriptions on this page are automated transcriptions. In case you find any errors please leave a comment below. If you would like to watch this video on the Youtube channel of Sadhguru then please search for How to Reduce Sleep Quota and Increase Sleep Quality – Sadhguru on Youtube