The making of a Sarvodaya Sannyasin

“Sound and quick sleep” technique. This post describes an amazing (zero cost) technique for inducing sound and quick sleep.

Before we go to technique, please find links to some other, related post:

• To know more facts about sleep, please read 3.1. Develop a daily routine with a fixed schedule for sleep, exercises, bathroom and meals in my post on “time-management skill“.
  

First, let us have some definitions: Sound sleep means a sleep which leaves us quite fresh and light-headed in our entire waking up time, whereas quick sleep means a sleep which comes to us within 5-10 min (and at most 15 min of lying on bed).

Both are very rare these days because of stress caused by competitive environment all around, relationship problems, anxiety about future, negative memories from past and excitation produced due to any happy event. Excitation about any future event, even if it is in a positive sense, also disturbs the sleep: even people like Gandhi and Lincoln used to have great difficulty in falling asleep in case of excitation about some future event. But, the problem is: if you toss on bed for 30-60 minutes waiting for sleep, you hardly get a good quality sleep: without quick sleep, quality of sleep suffers greatly. The result – you feel heaviness, dullness and lethargy of both body and  mind next day and are not able to work well. Some people get caught up in the cycle  of lack of sound and quick sleep on a regular basis – this is known as insomnia in medical science language.

Theory behind the technique:

So, the question arises: is there a simple, zero cost technique which will induce sound and quick sleep within 5-10 min (in the worst case, 15 min) of falling asleep so that when we wake up, our body and mind are light, clear and full of energy?

YES: and the best thing about it is – it comes at zero cost, can be done by anyone and is based on a universal method used by mothers all across the world since ancient-most time in order to induce sound and quick sleep in babies. What do mothers do to make the baby fall asleep soundly and quickly: they sing a song, drawing the attention of baby and the baby keeps on listening to the sound of song and falls asleep soon enjoying a sound sleep. We can do the same thing to ourselves now. The exact technique is described below:

Technique 1:

1. When it is time to sleep, instead of going to bed first sit on bed/ground or chair with your spine straight. Give 5 round auto-suggestions (if possible accompanied with visualization). The auto-suggestion should be in the present tense and given with a slow speed and a confident attitude. One auto-suggestion can be: “I always live in the present and do every work with full attention”. Other auto-suggestions can be related to removing undesirable habits or developing some desirable habits. This time auto-suggestion works more on the level of conscious mind.
2. Now, start continuous, rhythmic/musical chanting of a mantra at a slow pace and mentally or verbally in the sitting position. (Please note that first practising the technique in sitting position till some extent of sleepiness comes, is our strong recommendation as mind starts feeling a bit anxious when lying on bed regarding when the sleep will come. So, lie down only after you start feeling some extent of sleepiness while practising the technique in sitting position.) You can pick any sentence as a mantra depending on your religious beliefs. For example, Hindus can pick up Gayatri mantra, “Om namah sivah” and so many other mantras available in Hinduism. And Muslims can pick “La Illah Ill Allah, Mohammed Rasool Ul Allah” or other inspiring sentences from Quran or Hadiths. Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains can also pick one such sentence from their scriptures. And those who are atheists, can pick up 1-2 sentences from some inspiring song (like “We shall overcome, One Day!”) The only criteria is – the sentence picked up should be so interesting to the person that he/she can chant it musically/rhythmically, because only musical/rhythmic chanting produces relaxing effects on mind, inducing a sleep. Once you pick a mantra, keep using it everyday. Also, focus your mind on listening to the sound of chanting throughout this chanting process. If the mind wanders, stop the chanting for a while and bring the mind back by saying 2-3 times “Listen to this sound/chanting” and then, start the chanting again.
3. After some time, you will start feeling some extent of sleepiness. When that happens, again give 5 round auto-suggestions (use the same auto-suggestion as you used just before starting the technique). This time auto-suggestion works more on the level of subconscious mind as mind is in semi-conscious state – neither fully conscious nor fully unconscious. In fact, when the mind is in the semi-conscious state – that is the best time to give auto-suggestion to influence subconscious mind because subconscious mind receives the message of auto-suggestion most effectively in this state.
4. Now, lie down on bed (with light off), on the left side and with head in East or South direction. The reasons for doing all these have been described in appendix A2. Now, even while lying on bed, keep on chanting the mantra slowly, mentally (without producing any sound from mouth) or verbally (producing sound from mouth) and musically and, keep on listening to the sound of that chanting inside your head, just like you would listen a song playing on CD-player: the only difference is that now, the sound is getting produced inside the head rather than in a CD-player outside.  If the mind wanders, stop the chanting for a while and bring the mind back by saying 2-3 times “Listen to this sound/chanting” and then, start the chanting again.
5. If you keep on doing so as told above, in next few min, your chanting will keep on slowing down in speed and your mind (and body as well) will keep on getting relaxed more and more by listening to the sound of chanting. Eventually, the chanting drops and simultaneously you fall asleep deeply. When you will wake up you will realize how deep your sleep was because of use of this technique, because you will feel a very pleasant level of lightness and freshness of mind whole day.

Technique 2:

1. Put off the light. Lie on back with hands kept on side in a relaxed position. Close your eyes.
2. Give 5 round auto-suggestions (if possible accompanied with visualization). The auto-suggestion should be in the present tense and given with a slow speed and a confident attitude. Other auto-suggestions can be related to removing undesirable habits or developing some desirable habits. This time auto-suggestion works more on the level of conscious mind.
3. Now, start the body-relaxation:
   1. Mentally watch your whole body and say to yourself with feelings: “My whole body is very relaxed.” After doing this 4-5 times, now practise relaxation of individual parts.
   2. We have total 8 parts to relax in our body – two legs, portion of thighs and buttocks, trunk (starting from waist till the shoulder), two hands, neck and head. For each of these 8 parts (you can use whatever sequence you like for these parts), do the following:
      1. Focus on that specific part of the body and say to yourself with feelings 4-5 times: “My this part is very relaxed.” (For example, for right leg, say: “My right leg is very relaxed.”).
      2. After this, focus on various subparts of that part one-by-one and say to yourself with feelings: “This subpart is very relaxed.” For example, for right hand, you can say one-by-one: “My fingers are very relaxed. My wrist is very relaxed. My upper portion of right hand is very relaxed.” You may not need to use any name of subpart; you may simply focus on that subpart and say this: “This is very relaxed.” 4-5 times.
      3. At the end, again say 4-5 times for the whole specific part: “This part is very relaxed.”
   3. Now, again, mentally watch your whole body and say to yourself with feelings: “My whole body is very relaxed.”
4. Now, again give 5 round auto-suggestions (use the same auto-suggestion as you used just before starting the technique). This time auto-suggestion works more on the level of subconscious mind as mind is in semi-conscious state – neither fully conscious nor fully unconscious. In fact, when the mind is in the semi-conscious state – that is the best time to give auto-suggestion to influence subconscious mind because subconscious mind receives the message of auto-suggestion most effectively in this state.
5. Now, lie down on bed (with light off), on the left side and with head in East or South direction. The reasons for doing all these have been described in appendix A2. Now, even while lying on bed, keep on chanting the mantra slowly, mentally (without producing any sound from mouth) or verbally (producing sound from mouth) and musically and, keep on listening to the sound of that chanting inside your head, just like you would listen a song playing on CD-player: the only difference is that now, the sound is getting produced inside the head rather than in a CD-player outside.  If the mind wanders, stop the chanting for a while and bring the mind back by saying 2-3 times “Listen to this sound/chanting” and then, start the chanting again.
6. If you keep on doing so as told above, in next few min, your chanting will keep on slowing down in speed and your mind (and body as well) will keep on getting relaxed more and more by listening to the sound of chanting. Eventually, the chanting drops and simultaneously you fall asleep deeply. When you will wake up you will realize how deep your sleep was because of use of this technique, because you will feel a very pleasant level of lightness and freshness of mind whole day.

Technique 1 is recommended more for those who do more mental work and hence, needs more mental relaxation. Technique 2 is recommended for those who do more physical work and hence, need physical relaxation also.

These 2 techniques will work for one and all. Some real stories from my family on use of this technique:

1. My mothers’ insomnia problem solved: Before trying this technique, my mother had insomnia problem – she used to sometimes keep awake for even 1-2 hrs (of course, she had to sleep in time because she needed to wake up in time to reach office, but she did not used to get sleep soon.). I explained this technique to her – she used this technique with the mantra “Aum Namah Shivay” and lo and behold – her problem vanished for ever.  She is able to get a quick and deep sleep within 5-15 min everyday.
2. My niece’s problem got solved: My niece, who is right now (March 2009) giving board exam for class XII in New Delhi, used to sleep after 1 or 2 am daily, sometimes sleeping at even 4 or 5 am. Of course, she is working so hard in her academics because of her dreams to create a good career, but her habit of studying so late got so firm that even during board exams, she had trouble sleeping at 12 am. During her physics exam, she tried to sleep at 12 am, but could not sleep despite lying for 30 min in bed; so she ended up waking up and studying again. Finally, she fell asleep at 2:30 am, but had to wake up at around 7-8 am to reach examination hall at 10 am. This lack of complete 6-7 hrs sleep, led her to experience some problem of freshness and mind not operating at peak efficiency, during exam hours. She shared this with me when I called her. I instructed her about this technique: she started practising this technique using “Gayatri mantra” and now has no problem in falling asleep soundly and quickly. In her next exam of English, she was able to sleep at 11:30 pm itself and woke up at right time – thus, her exam went much better than Physics exam. She uses this daily now to induce a sound and quick sleep.
3. My own case: My own sleep used to be a bit disturbed sometimes due to some stress of past and sometimes due to some excitation about future. Even after doing meditation (thoughtless awareness) for 30 min just before sleep, I was not able to fall asleep soundly and quickly on daily basis. This shocked me beyond all measure, because meditation (thoughtless awareness) for 30 min before sleep is expected to lead to such a relaxation that falling asleep soundly and quickly should not be a problem even for a single day. But, it was a problem for me. The result: many days, I used to have difficulty in falling asleep – waiting for as many as 45 minutes to fall asleep and then having a disturbed sleep, which used to lead heaviness, dullness, lethargy and a bit of frustration also next day. But, even since I started practising this technique (with Gayatri mantra) since last 3 weeks, lo and behold – where is the problem gone? Now, I am not only able to fall asleep within 5-10 minutes, my sleep is so deep that whole day, I feel a great lightness in both body and mind. Like my mother and niece, I also practise this technique daily and everyday get a sound and quick sleep.

Friends! 3 real stories should be enough for you to give this zero-cost technique a try. Before I end this post, let me emphasize some points:

1. Chant the mantra slowly, mentally/verbally and musically/rhythmically. If someone chants the mantra fast, then he/she will not derive the benefit as fast chanting produces so much vital energy (prana) in body that falling asleep will become more difficult, because sleep requires less vital energy (prana) in body. Doing mental chanting is recommended because it is more relaxing than verbal chanting. And of course, the more musically/rhythmically one chants the mantra, the more soothing relaxation, one experiences.
2. Listen to the sound of mantra – do not just go on chanting without listening to sound, otherwise the technique will not give fully satisfactory results. Please note that the babies fall asleep by listening to the sound of song sung by mother. It is this listening which relaxes the mind so much, eventually making us fall asleep soundly and quickly.
3. Some people have difficulty understanding the concept that mental chanting (or, for that matter, any thought in mind) produces a subtle sound in mind because they have never experienced well the state of complete silence of thoughtless awareness. So, they cannot understand how mentally chanting (or any type of thought) can produce any sound in the mind which we can internally listen to and get relaxed. For such people, verbal chanting (producing sound using mouth) is recommended because verbal chanting will also work.

What if I fail to sleep using this technique in even 10-15 min?

This technique will work almost every day giving us an exceptional quality of deep sleep. But, it may fail to induce sleep in 5-15 min sometime even if we go to the bed at our regular time in the following case:

• When our mind is in too tense or excited state due to worries, brooding over negative events from past or fantasies about some positive future events. In such states so many thoughts keep on rushing to mind that even this powerful technique might fail.

So what to do?

• If you use the alarm, set up it 30 min advance. Because, today you will need around 30-40 min more to fall asleep. And then, use below technique -
• In lying position (on left side), first start counting with breath (if you don’t know counting, use a mantra like OM, chanting OM with every inhalation and do not chant anything with exhalation) from 50 to 1 – use one count with every inhalation and do not count anything with exhalation. Once you reach 1 or you forget the counting, then again start the counting from 50 to 1. Keep on doing this without bothering about sleep. After doing this for 10-20 min, the rush of thoughts in your mind will subside greatly. Once that happens, revert back to using the mantra technique and then sleep in another 5-10 min (or 15 min). Please notice the instruction – revert back to using the mantra technique and using the mantra technique, sleep.
• Why it works – due to below reasons
  • Counting with breath brings evenness of breath in left and right nostril, which activates some subtle energy channel in our body. This, in turn, leads to a peaceful and relaxed state of mind.
  • It also brings mind into present, checking the rush of excessive thoughts which made the mantra technique fail in the beginning.
  • Counting with breath is a very boring thing for mind to do when we want to sleep. This boredom automatically creates some drowsiness.

And please do share this technique with one and all – this is for even a person who does not have any problem in falling asleep, because even such a person will get much deeper sleep by using this technique than he/she is getting now without using it. And of course, for those who have the problem of insomnia, this technique is like nector – so sweet and always infallible.

One common variant of using relaxing music to fall asleep is based on the same principle as this technique. But, for people who live in villages without electricity or just want to avoid buying audios, this technique is equally effective. And there is one more thing in this technique, which is not present in technique of listening to relaxing music. And that is: since the chanting process is done by us, chanting continues at subconscious level also even during sleep phase, leading to less dreams and better effect than music technique. The chanting which continues in subconscious mind during sleep also cleans subconscious mind of many old-seated tensions. Thus, this technique is definitely better than using relaxing music for inducing sleep.

More comments from my family members:

1. My cousin, Bhavesh, commented, “This technique is amazing. It started working from the first day itself. The sleep quality has increased much and I feel much light and clear-headed whole day.”
2. My nephew, Rahul, commented, “I rate this as 4/4 (exceptional) level technique. Ever since I have started using this technique, I not only fall asleep quickly, but also so deeply that the mind feels very light after waking up in the morning. It is an incredible experience. I don’t think, anyone would need more than 6-7 hr sleep a day if one starts using this technique. People sleep more because they do not have a sound sleep and make up for the lack of that by more quantity of sleep.”
3. My sister commented, “I don’t feel any heaviness when I wake up at 4 am now as I used to do in the past before using this technique. No doubt this has happened because this technique is inducing a deep sleep.”
4. My sister-in-law commented, “Both me and my daughter use the technique now and sleep quality is very deep ever since. I do not even know when sleep comes. Apart from that, I chant the mantra slowly and verbally and make my 5-year old son listen to the sound and he also falls asleep deeply. Ever since I have started this, my son has become very peaceful in contrast to the past when he used to become angry very soon. It has definitely happened because his mood is very fresh and light due to deep sleep induced by this technique.”

After reading so many real-life experiences, do you not think, you should give this free technique one try?

Last but not the least; the same technique can be used in normal, waking up time also to remove anger/fantasies or negative memories from mind so that we can bring mind back to present work:

• Whenever useless anger/fantasies or negative memories start harming your peace and focus on present task, start chanting the mantra, but unlike the case of “just before sleep”, now chant the mantra mentally or verbally (whichever works better for you) at the maximum possible speed and at the same time keep on listening to the sound of chanting. When the mind goes again to those ‘angry thoughts/fantasies or negative memories, bring it back again by saying 2-3 times, “Listen to this sound/chanting.” and resume the chanting again, with as fast speed as you can. Keep on doing this and within few minutes, your mind will get pulled away from those ‘angry thoughts’/fantasies or negative memories, back to the present task. When the mind becomes somewhat free from negative thoughts, do this technique at a slow pace (rather than at maximum possible phase) and induce deeper relaxation. Now, keep on your focus on your present task.

The only difference between above technique and “sound and quick sleep” technique is – in the “sound and quick sleep” technique, the speed of chanting must be slow, rhythmic and preferably mental (you should use verbal chanting only if you are using it to make a child fall asleep or when mental chanting does not suit you), whereas in the above technique, the speed of chanting must be as fast as possible. But, this difference is so important that if it is not kept in mind, neither of the two techniques may produce desired result.

The difference exists because for sleep, relaxation without high energy is needed, so slow chanting is a must for this to produce desired results of a sound and quick sleep. Whereas for doing away with ‘angry thoughts’/fantasies or negative memories, relaxation along with high energy (prana) is required – so, fast chanting at a speed as fast as possible is a must for it to work as per desired. There are 2 more subtle reasons behind the need for high speed:

1. ‘Angry thoughts’/fantasies or negative memories often arise with high intensity. By fast chanting of mantra and simultaneous listening to the sound of chanting, most of our attention gets diverted to the mantra-chanting. As per the law of attention, the less attention a particular thought gets, the weaker it becomes. So, as a result of fast chanting and simultaneous listening to the sound, our attention to  ‘angry thoughts’/fantasies or negative memories, gets reduced greatly and they become weaker and eventually vanishes within few minutes.’
2. Once ‘angry thoughts’/fantasies or negative memories arise in us, they deplete our energy (prana) a lot. Due to this reason, our mind becomes exhausted and irritated. So, to rid the mind of this exhaustion and irritation, we need to increase the energy (prana) level in our system – and chanting at as fast speed as possible, does exactly that by producing high level of energy (prana) in our body.

So, when you feel disturbed by fantasies, anger or other kind of negativities, use this technique in exactly described manner and see for yourself the result of using it within few minutes.

Lastly, sorry for a bit disorganized post. If you are confused at any point, read the post a couple of times and everything will be come crystal clear.

Best regards & best wishes,

Gopal