It can be said that for many, especially if you’ve been struggling with chronic stress & fatigue, their first step into intuitive health is being able to rest effectively, both actively (throughout your wakeful day) and in restorative sleep.
This is an increasingly collective issue we are or will experience at one stage or another. If the unconscious process of excessive mental activity goes unchecked throughout your day you will experience a lack of wakeful restfulness, being at ease with yourself. Also, the natural unfolding of sleep can be disrupted, by various factors including: unconscious eating, unbalanced environmental stimulus, unconscious movement (lack of inner body awareness) and unobserved dysfunctional mental-emotional patterns. In combining the two you have a dangerous scenario of being stuck in a state of brain-fog, emotional instability and progressive physical degeneration. In extreme cases even death. In Japan, Karoshi literally translates to “overwork death”. Extreme work demands without balanced rest is killing you slowly! It can be said that if your daily experience of life ins’t accompanied with adequate psychological space and restorative sleep (enjoyable sleep where upon waking up feeling vibrant and ready to embrace the day) your on your way to Karaoshi! This is not to scare you but rather highlight how you may be neglecting or simple overlooking how you are aligned with your own experience of rest: recovery: recharge.
The simplest of things are easiest to ignore, that does not mean you need to ignore it even if your not experiencing restful or sleep disturbance as the benefit can be seen from “noraml” sleep to “optimal” and not just “dysfunctional” to “normal”. Before investing $$$ on unnecessary health or fitness products try observing or/and journaling your level restfulness at stages in the day, what sets you off? What drains you? Someone could point it out for you but its most important you see yourself. Also have you wondered why sometimes you can have sense of restorative sleep and other times there is no sleep? You might have already made adjustments to sleep better, some things might have helped and some things may have been a hindrance or only worked temporarily.
Experiment with the way your of eating especially later at night, how does being in nature (sunlight/ cold exposure) feel for you the day? Try various nightly rituals that aid the experience of restfulness prior to sleep: decreased artificial light-media, aromatherapy, light (nature) walk, Tai Chi, Yin Yoga, breath mediation, light music (sound healing), self massage, star-gaze (when possible – an awe glimpse of the universe whilst sitting next to your small backyard fire pit can be just like camping), journaling your inner experiences of the day and more.
Some avenues can be more helpful than others but until you play around you won’t experiential know for yourself. Furthermore if a particular practice or ritual has help you great! Share it with me. However don’t get attached to the practice or ritual! See how the practice or ritual operated as a catalyst for arising awareness that created the opening for rest and you’ll be able to drop your practice once you directly experience the subtle internal shifts. Many practices and rituals can be helpful only as s stepping stones to learning about yourself because if you learn nothing introspectively the practice that was once helpful may now become a obstacle.
Rest well!
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