Sleep for Good Health
Good sleep induces happiness in the mind, relaxation in the body and rejuvenation in its every component; it also enhances mental talents and intellect. It helps eliminate the defects and weaknesses and ensures harmonious balance between healthy functions of the body.
If a person doesn’t follow the usual pattern of sleep, it affects Doshas. Sleeping in daytime increases Kapha Dosha and makes the body excessive unctuous and staying awake till late at night increases Vata that can cause various health problems Lack of sleep hampers digestion, clouds the mental state and burdens many organs. Sleep deprivation is linked to high blood pressure and depression, among other things. For more please visit Post Pregnancy Hip Pain
Sleep is important because it enhances Ojas which is considered in Ayurveda to be the master coordinator between mind, body and the inner self. Ojas is the finest product of digestion, the main life-supporting force within the body. It acts like a shock absorber, helping to insulate the mind from day-to-day stress and enhancing the body’s innate immune systems.
Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations
For a Vata sleep imbalance, indicated by difficulty in falling asleep, foods that are warm, heavy and oily are emphasized. Emphasize the sweet, salty and sour tastes, and cut down on spicy, bitter and astringent foods. Include poppy seeds in your diet.
Drinking a cup of herbal tea before bed can also be soothing. Apply a little massage oil to your hands and feet before you go to bed. In bed, practice deep, easy breathing to help you unwind.
Follow a Pitta pacifying diet if you tend to wake up during the night. Incorporate foods that are cool and liquid, and reduce hot, spicy foods. Sweet, bitter, astringent foods are good; reduce foods that are spicy, salty or sour. Try Date Milk Shake, and include poppy seeds in your diet.
Apply cooling oil such as coconut or olive to hands and feet before bed. Practice deep, easy breathing in bed.
If you wake up feeling dull and lethargic, a Kapha sleep imbalance, favor foods that are light, dry and warm, and minimize or avoid foods that are heavy, oily and cold. Focus on spicy, bitter and astringent tastes, and reduce sweet, salty and sour tasting foods.
Massaging hands and feet, especially the nail-beds, with a massage oil will help.
Here are ten Ayurvedic tips for blissful sleep:
1.Eat three meals during the day breakfast, lunch around noon and an early dinner.
2.Do regular balanced exercise.
3.Try to go to bed by 10 p.m., during the drowsy Kapha time of night, so that your mind can settle down faster.
4.Eliminate or restrict severely the intake of stimulants such as caffeine or alcohol.
5.Wear comfortable clothing to bed, cotton is highly recommended.
6.Do not bring work-related material into the bedroom.
7.Keep your bedroom dark or very dimly lit.
There are various factors that affect the sleep. The more active one is, the healthier a person is, the better they sleep.
Food
The evidence for the direct effects of food on sleep tends to be fairly meager. On should try and have dinner as early as possible and should not sleep immediately after it. Dinner should be the lightest meal of all the meals taken during the day and should not be skipped.
Alcohol
With small doses of alcohol, it acts as a relaxant so one goes to sleep. Slightly higher doses means the brain is not going to awaken as readily so in a sense the sleep is a little bit deeper but it is actually its ability to response that has changed. The brain can’t react as quickly as we would want to. Associated with that is poorer breathing, snoring and disturbed sleep.
Caffeine
Caffeine’s an interesting compound in that people vary in how they react to it. An example is women who are pregnant may suddenly react very badly to having caffeine, and then after can drink it again. It probably impacts mainly on the wakefulness promoting system. It doesn’t actually prevent sleep by switching sleep off; it just makes us more alert.
Medicines
Most medicines have an impact on sleep, particularly if they’re psycho active. So those that are used in psychiatry, say for depression will have an impact on sleep. Medicines normally relax our reflexes so they make the person sleep.
Smoking
Smokers can have quite a hard time of sleeping. Time for which nicotine is actually active in the bloodstream is quite low. So as soon as they’ve stopped smoking the reaction of not having nicotine around that time can disturb sleep. Generally their circulatory systems are quite poor so their breathing is disturbed during sleep. The two add up together to not having a good night sleep. For more please visit Post Pregnancy Low Back Pain
Exercise
It’s a myth that people think that if they really Exercise hard prior to going to bed, they’re going to get a better night’s sleep. But in fact, the exercise itself at that point can both be a stress and can raise body temperature and can create a problem. But Exercising regularly leads to good health, and that experimentally has been shown to generally improve sleep. For more please visit Post Pregnancy Low Back Pain and Hip Pain
