Day 52: Counting & Sleeping
- Jan 19, 2018
- 2 min read
Day 50 (Wednesday)
Mysore #30
Day 51 (Thursday)
Mysore #31
Day 52 (Friday)
Mysore #32
Summary
No. of days: 50
Total no. of practices (mysore, led, mysore self-practice): 42
No. of Mysore practices: 32
No. of Led practices: 3
No. of self-practices at home: 7
New postures
Pasasana: 21 Dec 2017
Krounchasana: 19 Jan 2018
Yoga & Sleep
One of the observations I had was the effect of sleep on yoga practice, vice versa.
There are many accounts that practicing intermediate series, backbends and heart-opening postures lead to energizing effects on the body, even sleeplessness, especially when practiced during the later part of the day. For me, I've found that yoga increases my energy level, even with primary series done on a regular basis.
To prove that further, in December, I was fortunate enough to go through 4 - 5 hour sleep days for 22 days and experienced how that affected the quality of my practice.
The first 30 days were an outright burn out, which was mainly due to the body trying to reset and acclimatize to the demands of the practice. Reason why I slept so little: I was working my day job and bartending at night.
Following that hectic period, my energy level became restored and had significant improvement. It felt as though I found a new lease of life and had vast amounts of concentration, focus, awareness, sharpness, consciousness, etc. during practice, that I had never experienced before.
Once my stint as a bartender had ended, I continued with the daily 5 hour sleep cycle as that meant I could stretch my active and awake hours, accomplishing and doing more, bidding goodbye to the 7 - 8 hour standard. In fact, on two occasions I tried sleeping in, during the weekends, and it only left me feeling terrible and cranky.
I had my worst sleep ever for the longest time today, sleeping only 3 hours on a couch and a sickening nightmare. I was sleepy and all on the way to the studio that following morning. I wasn't even sure how that was going to turn out but my practiced turned out strong and fine. I was counting my breaths, regulating them and completed my practice 15 minutes earlier than usual, with precious minutes saved from reduced recovery time and number of backbends I needed to feel comfortable.
The other observation I had was that if one had troubled sleep, distress, anxiety, faced some crisis in life, or felt oppressed, these things usually conjured one's resolve in dealing with them on the mat. In my personal experience, practicing under these negative circumstances, bad energy, were generally better than the normal days. On another perspective, it could be seen as the presence of energy - in this case, negative energy - that was available, was converted into positive energy that created a higher quality practice.
We should practice everyday regardless of how we are feeling. Yoga practice enables us to draw the strength within ourselves to face our challenges and obstacles on the mat and in real life, and helps you to look inward and realise what you are truly capable of -- and weakness is not one of them.
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