Ghazal Sharma, Col (retd) BP Kamal
Meditation is a technique for achieving a feeling of detachment from the world through intense concentration, restriction of incoming stimuli and deep relaxation.
Meditation is the highest form of relaxation, peace of mind, merger of oneself with the nature, The Super creator and for most of us God’ and shutting ourselves for some time from distracting environmental and social stimulus.
For most of us since years back meditation is all about praying to God in one form or another. The main aim of meditation is to control the mind and condition the body and mind to focus on things which are best for achieving your goals and making your life happy and contended with what you have.
Meditation form varies from person to person depending upon her/his environment, education level, particular life interests as per one’s style of living. For some it should be going to hills and taking refuge there and thus merge with the nature, for some exercising and sweating out to control the body and soul, for some listening to the music of one’s choice, for some singing songs and for others the activities which they like to do for enjoyment and do not mind spending time and money on it.
In modern day world with every type of news and negative and positive stimulus in form of net, media, newspapers , magazines and radio , the level of stress , ambition, unfulfilled desires, seeing others doing better than you has all led to increasing cases of manic depression and manic highs. It leaves our mind continuously pondering over certain issues which generally are unwanted, draining, distracting in nature and increases stress level which in turns badly affects our efficiency level from performing better.
So far people who feel that meditation or focussing your mind is a difficult process to practice sleeping is the best form to put our tensions, worries, apprehensions, physical and mental tiredness at Way. Although mediation is awakened state of controlling mind and sleep is non awakened state of mind but what is important is control and relaxation of individual mind.
It has been found out scientifically that an average adult needs 6-8 hours of daily sleep in 24 hours cycle to keep the bodies and mind medically and energetically fit to sustain daily chores of life. During sleep the mind is 90-95% off from distractions with only the deep sleep reaching a near perfect stage of equivalent to 99% where there is no form of distraction to our mind. Although the brain is still functional carrying out control on the body like a central processing unit of computer and here as our body but it is similar to power suspended state of computer or subconscious form of our mind where all types of thoughts are put to rest till you are in sound or deep sleep.
Mechanism of sleep is very important to be understood before we actually start getting benefitted by the sleeping process. The sleep as described by studies in late 1950,s can be divided into sleep cycles of 90 minutes each and thus for a healthy body minimum of 4 sleep cycles are important in 24 hours cycle comprising of day and night which amounts to minimum of 6 hours of sleep for average adult with infants sleeping from 18 hours in the beginning and later to 10-12 hours of sleep in early adolescence periods. Since sleep is interspersed with Rapid Eye movement (REM) when we are not deep sleep and tend to experience dreams which are more prominent in early hours of morning or towards 3 or 4 sleep cycle at night it is always better to add on to 5 sleep cycle or increase in sleep hours from 6 to 8 hours to at least get a deep sleep of 6 hours complete out of 8 hours total sleep period at night. It is for sure that if you remember your dreams in the morning the sleep as a whole was not a deep or sound sleep.
Sleeping might not be easy for most of us in modern age because of exposure to all types of stimulus, stresses, our ambitions and more important the natural age factor where all types of health, occupational and social worries in various forms engulf us leading to insomnia and chronic insomnia in many cases. For less severe cases of insomnia natural therapies like eating a bite more than required at night or when you have to sleep can make you go off to sleep with in 15 to 30 minutes of meal.
The other is tiring your body in some form of physical activity to fall asleep at night or even during daytime depending upon availability of time especially for people on night duties. For people who suffer from chronic insomnia it is important to resort to medication in form of prescribed sleeping pills and slowly and gradually gear up one’s body with natural sleeping techniques by exercising sleeping as mediation process. Thus one can and enjoy this easy, tireless, which can be practiced by all irrespective of our social and intellectual background mind controlling meditating technique to control one’s mind.
Sleeping as a meditation exercise apart from shutting off oneself from outside world and resting and controlling your mind from all types of distraction provides adequate rest to our bodies too which in longer run allows us to focus on our life goals with healthy body and mind. It lowers blood pressure, gives rest to the brain which round the clock is open to all types of stimulai. It provides relief to aching muscles , makes all body organs perform better after being awake and make us perform better both physically as well as mentally.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
