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The Pillar of Sleep

In the Ayurvedic teachings they talk about the 3 Pillars of Health: Food, Sleep and Sex.  In the Fall of 2020 Ayurveda & Yoga Series we focused on one of the pillars-Sleep.  What follows are stories of three soul sisters who have struggled with sleep.  Accompanying the stories are recordings of the teachings I shared--teachings from an Ayurvedic perspective.  They are about what causes sleep disturbances and what we can do to improve our sleep.

Soul Sister #1

Soul Sister #2

Soul Sister #3
My story goes something like this: When I first bought my house, I had our bedroom up on the third floor. The first year I slept beautifully. I don’t think I had dreams. I was in deep sleep all the time. It was just amazing! The energy of the house was fantastic. I slept.
And then something changed. All of a sudden, I couldn’t sleep at all. I would be laying in bed and have to wait until Grant came to bed before I could fall asleep for one thing. And then he would be fast asleep and I’d be laying there going, ‘What the heck! I can’t sleep.’ And I’d be laying there for hours, and hours, and hours. Then I would fall asleep for a short period of time and wake up at 2:30, 3:00, 4:00 in the morning. So, my sleep was non-existent.
It was probably about a year of that kind of suffering before someone brought something to my awareness that I had never even thought about.  I had been telling her about my insomnia. She asked me, “Do you have any noxious lines in your home?” I went, “I don’t even know what a noxious line is. What is that?” She said they are created by man-made energies--through cell towers, electrical energy and radio-active energy, microwave energy. She said you can’t see them but they are lines that go through your home.
She came over one day with her dousing sticks—the sticks you use to find water. She came upstairs and she walked with those sticks in line, going across. It ended up that there were four of these lines going through the bed. It was the worst-case scenario. I put two and two together: My insomnia and the neighbor's new internet tower.
I have had insomnia for about 20 years.  That’s no word of a lie. I would say that it started right when I had my first child. So, right from the time that I was pregnant. So, you know, nauseated, vomiting, that whole morning sickness…everything. Like for nine months straight I was not well. I didn’t sleep. Uncomfortable. And then, when I had the baby, then there were sleepless nights for an entire year, with changing and feeding. And then with her being quite sick, I was having to test her blood sugars through the night, like seven-eight times and feed. There was no time for sleep. Sleep was not an option. I would actually have respite come in the middle of the afternoon just so that I could have a shower for an hour. So that went on for those first two or three years. Then it continued because it was just on the same treadmill, that cycle you know. And now, listening to my kids, one of them who has really, really bad nightmares and up-and-down blood sugars, to the point where they are screaming in the middle of the night, for me—and I hear that, too—so I don’t… I’m always with one ear open you know. So that’s kind of like where I’m at. You know out here; I would get maybe four- or five-hours sleep. Yah, so I could literally benefit from a better sleep. Absolutely! Yah. It affects every part of my being. Right? The clarity of my brain. My health, my weight. Blood pressure. Eating habits. Stress. Anxiety. All of it stems down to a rest, a good sleep.
I have had a serious issue with sleeping. I had insomnia for the month, for instance to fall asleep. So, once I’m asleep I’m fine. And wake up again in the middle of the night and I can fall back to sleep then. But I just couldn’t get to sleep. So, I was kind of on three or four hours of sleep for the month. Till it crashed my immune system and adrenals. So, I’m working on that.  Things are improving, though. Yes, with the children here, actually I’m needing to take a sleeping pill every night for two weeks. Cause I don’t use them at home normally; only for travel. But I go back on the journey and fix it again once everybody is gone. So, I’m doing a variety of things. I have a good book on adrenal fatigue. It does suggest the regular get in bed by 10:30 at night. But your best sleep is from 7:00 to 9:00 am when you have severe adrenal fatigue. You know that’s a really long time in bed. I’m forcing myself to be a little bit more regulated as to when I go to bed.

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