How to Induce Sleep Naturally on The Bed
This article describes basic and effectual techniques for inducing sleep naturally on the bed—without relying on external stimuli. You will create a relaxed environment in your body to improve the circulation of blood, nutrients and oxygen in your body.
When we sleep there is a possibility that some of our muscles tighten, it can happen due to: stress, the body’s response to foreign substances or wrong sleeping posture. Tight muscles put pressure on the nerve pathways of the circulatory system. This condition prevents nutrients, oxygen and other chemical elements from circulating your body perfectly, and then interferes with the homeostatic process that takes place while you sleep.
Sleeping with a liberated circulatory system will make you refreshed when you wake up. In contrast, if you sleep with your circulatory system moving weakly, even though you sleep for hours—you will wake up feeling tired, you may find your head like getting a brain fog,… or you may get discomfort in a certain part of your body.
2 Effective Procedures on the bed to make you fall asleep quickly
Below I propose two types of procedures that you can practice depending on the level of sleep problems you have at any given moment.
In the first procedure, you create a relaxed environment inside your body and find out which of your muscles are giving you problems. They are the muscles that contribute to making it hard for you to sleep. I call it Stress Responsive Muscles. These are your muscles that respond whenever you are stressed, and they follow when you go to sleep.
The second procedure is a sleep initiation technique that you can do every day, when there is no specific muscle tension in your body.
I. First procedure — Releasing your muscle tension on the bed
Here are the steps you need to take when you start sleeping:
1. Start your sleep by lying in a supine position on your bed, spread your legs shoulder width apart. Place each of your hands on the mattress, 5 inches next to your waist.
The important position is in your hands: set your palms facing the ceiling. This position means, you place the opposite side of your palm on the mattress and align with it, not tilted.
Some people may not be comfortable keeping their palms facing the ceiling, perhaps due to habit or body factors. If you are one of them then you can tilt your arm slightly (with a maximum inclination of 45 degrees from the perfect position).
Feel your palms, this is the inducement to relax your fingers and all the muscles in your hand. Pay attention, you will feel a subtle tickling in your palm, and afterwards you will notice a little warmth there
The palm position utilizes the force of gravity to relax tense muscles in your fingers, palms, forearms, upper arms and shoulders. This position then like a chain reaction would facilitate the relaxation of muscles in other parts of your body.
The first time doing this position may make your upper arms shake a little, it’s the tense muscles in your shoulders and upper arms that loosens inch by inch. Once fully relaxed the shaking will stop, then you will get the comfort.
2. The second step is about calming your breathing and reducing your heart work.
Sense the aroma of the air entering your nasal cavity, do not count the air going in and out of your nose. The key is to sense the freshness of the air in your nasal cavity. This technique differs from maintaining attention on the spot in the middle of the nostrils, which serves a different purpose.
Alternately you can turn your attention to your palms for a moment, to make sure your palms and fingers remain relaxed.
The act of feeling the freshness of the air in your nasal cavity would promote your brain to release relaxing hormones. Let this sensing happen like when you enjoying the perfume you love (but this is not imagining). If you do it correctly then the calming process would continue automatically, your breathing would be relaxed and steady on its own, your heart would also gradually reduce its hard work.
In this relaxation process, some of you may experience a mild jolt in your body. It is the response of some nerves in your body being liberated, after the smooth muscles pressing on them relax. This state releases signals that have been held for a while—which then causes a cluster of signals to rush as they enter the open channel. Generally, this happens when you have not fallen asleep, and it gives an indication that there is a relaxation of tension in the area of the incident.
If you can feel the freshness in your nasal cavity when you inhale, then your body and mind would get the same feeling, as if they are absorbing more oxygen.
Consider not listening to music while you sleep, as this would create a new dependence in your subconscious as a condition for sleeping. If you want to relax your mind with music, you can do it before your bedtime.
3. As your breathing rhythm slows down do the following. Scan your body from head to toe—to find tense muscles. If you are under stress, it is very likely that you’ll find noticeable tension in the facial muscles between your eyebrows, the muscles under your eyes and lips, the jaw muscles, then the muscles in your neck, shoulders, muscles in the solar plexus, your arms and legs.
Loosen the muscles that you find tightening. Do not rush when doing the scan, and when you loosen the tense muscles you find. This process gives you a different comfort.
After you do steps 1-3 above, you would feel the cluster of energy; they are signals in your nerves, oxygen, blood and other liquid elements flowing smoothly in your body.
Have you ever felt the sensation of the unimpeded circulation of energy in your body? You would feel lightness in your body, there is a sensation like a gentle static electricity, it is slightly warm and moves slowly under your flesh. You would feel slightly brighter in your mind. If you have SPIREL then you will gain results like that in an instant.
Enjoy the comfort you experience at that time for about 10-30 minutes, this moment stimulates sleepiness and has the potential to make you fall asleep. However, do not linger too long because your concentrated mind on the comforts will delay you from falling asleep.
If you have not fallen asleep and feel hot on your back, then you can change your sleeping position by slightly tilting your body (use a small pillow to prop one side of your pelvis, and use a bolster to support the leg underneath), but keep one of your palms facing the ceiling. This new position would create a second round of sleepiness. Proceed to step 5 and I expect you can fall asleep with this change.
4. This fourth step is an additional step, this would help you when you get depressed (a state that is stronger than ordinary stress). The key is in your eyeball muscles and their supporting muscles, you probably have not heard of this.
When you have been under intense stress for some time, accompanied by feelings of anger or anxiety, then you may find your eyeball muscles tighten. You can tell this type of stress by the signs of tiredness in your eyes and the muscles around them. At that time you feel sleepy but the discomfort in the eye area keeps you from falling asleep. There is a way to deal with it, here is how you do it (or you can try this way) :
Do steps 1-3 above, once you are done with relaxing your body muscles then you focus on your eyeballs. Feel them, take your time until you can feel the tension there.
The way to relax the eyeballs is using a little imagination:
Imagine your eyeball like a cue ball placed on a cloth that is pulled tight, when the pull is loosened then the ball would be lower than its previous position. Now imagine the support of your eyeballs sagging at a snail’s pace. Observe the process, you will actually feel your eyeball muscles slacken, and then gradually your eyeballs sink into your head.
Your effort at that point is not due to you contracting the muscles around your eyes, but from the loosening and the contribution of gravity. Note: Only if you are experiencing eye muscle strain would you feel a noticeable loosening process.
The loosening response of the eye muscles usually occurs shortly after you “trigger” it. As soon as you feel your eye muscles relax, proceed to step 5.
5. Once your body relaxes—gradually release your attention from the comfort you sense in your body. Cut off all the imaginative thoughts you had at that time to initiate your sleep.
6. As the closing, just feel the freshness in your nasal cavity, and gradually afterwards get a good night’s sleep.
II - Second procedure — Relating to Mind
This is a lighter version of the first procedure, with a more flexible position. You can do this way to start a night’s sleep, or when you want to continue sleeping after waking up in the middle of the night.
The second procedure emphasizes attention control to induce sleep naturally.
Attentional Control
In the absence of medical conditions, the cause of sleeping difficulty from mental factors is a challenging thing to tame, and this requires persistence and repetition. One way to stop a wandering mind is to use attention control.
Attentional control is the means you use to divert your wandering mind to a particular object in your body as a concentration.
The process of stimulating sleep naturally in this topic uses a combination of sensing the aroma of the air in the nasal cavity and feeling the wrists. This combination will reinforce each other in creating a relaxed state. You do this method by alternating the two controls. Sensing the freshness in the nasal cavity is the main control, while feeling the wrist is only a momentary transition.
In the second procedure, you may place both of your palms facing down, or you may set only one facing the ceiling. If you place both of your palms facing the bed, then you are free to choose one that becomes your attention control. However, if you choose one palm facing the ceiling, then this palm is better for the attentional control.
When the palms face the ceiling I recommend using the wrists for attentional control. You can try it on your palm, but when the muscles there weaken, it will emit warmth and a slight itch, and this can delay the onset of sleepiness. So wrist is better.
This is what you do on the bed:
■ If you sleep with both hands facing the bed:
Lie on your bed in a position that relaxes you, either you sleep on your back or side. Start by loosening your your hand and arm muscles by paying attention to your palms and wrists. After those muscles relax, choose one of your wrists to be your attentional control. Feeling the palms and wrists is to initiate the relaxation of tense muscles, but once your hand and arm muscles relax you simply use the wrist as your attentional control.
■ If you sleep with one palm facing the ceiling:
One example of a relaxed posture is to prop up one of your pelvis with a small pillow, and use a bolster to support the leg underneath, this will make your body tilt slightly to the opposite position. Then, place your palm from the opposite side of your body that is propped up—facing the ceiling. You can place the other hand on the supporting pillow or onto your propped up body.
There are a lot of nerves in the hand, and they—the median nerve, the ulnar nerve, the radial nerve are connected to the central nervous system. The nerves in the hand contribute to creating relaxation, the more you relax the better your chance of getting sleep. Therefore I share my experience with you that: a supporting pillow is useful to prevent your hand from being pressed by your body when sleeping on your side. You can however, create your own sleeping positions, but be mindful, arrange sleeping positions that do not put pressure on your hands, so that your nerves do not get poked.
After you set your sleeping position, then feel the fresh air in your nasal cavity while occasionally shifting your attention to your wrist which facing the ceiling. When your mind starts thinking about something else, then immediately switch your mind back to your control. This distraction can appear several times when starting to sleep. A few moments after you maintain your control, gradually drowsiness will replace your attention—and, there it is. Have a good night’s sleep tonight, the next day and the following days.
Lingering Thoughts
It is normal if when starting to sleep your mind is occupied by ideas of what you will do tomorrow, or other imaginations. If you do not immediately cut off your imaginations then they will continue for several minutes or even hours. This prolonged imagination gives the brain extra work, and then it heats up.
Lingering thoughts not only happens when you sleep, but also in the waking hours. It can increase stress and make sleep problems more difficult to overcome. I sense that when the brain does this extra work, the frontal lobe warms up prominently. This is difficult to subdue in a simple way as above. People who have recurring symptoms of this case may turn to drugs to treat it.
I will reveal how to overcome this particular problem in my second book. The heated part of the brain can be cooled down in less than five minutes with SPIREL method, effectively, using only the neuro-transmission features you have. Take your time training the skills in the first book, as it will facilitate all the health treatments in the second book.
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The image illustrates the sleeping positions I suggest in this topic for people with sleep problems. That is side sleeping with a tilt of about 25-35 degrees. The position is simply the starting position when you are trying to induce sleep. After falling asleep, you may stick with that position or you will instinctively create your own comfortable position.
I have been sleeping in this position for over 5 years. As I recall, I had no trouble adapting to this sleeping position. From day one starting this position I have been able to get to sleep without any problems. The position in the image is tilted to the right, you can alternately switch to the tilted position to the left.
Image description:
- The Body facing to the right at an angle of about 25-35 degrees, to get this position put a medium pillow supporting the left side of the pelvis to your lumbar.
- The advantage of this position is that your back gets air circulation, at the same time your body does not press your right hand, and your right cheek does not press the pillow. Hands and cheeks are free from pressure to make blood and lymph circulation run smoothly.
- This semi-sided sleep position frees your heart and lungs from excessive pressure. Your pelvis and lumbar curve get support as well as air circulation, this is good for treating tiredness in your waist and back.
- The left hand can be placed on the body as in the picture, or on a pelvic support pillow. The position of one palm is facing down normally. Use a small or medium-sized support pillow so it does not take up too much space. I put support pillows on both sides of my body although only one is in use at a time. This way when I switch to the opposite position I don’t have to move the pillow.
- Right hand, the palm facing the ceiling. Hand to body distance according to your comfort.
- Legs: you only need one support cushion for this, but it should slide easily, so that you can easily shift it to your other leg when you turn the other way. Supported legs are good for reducing fatigue due to the pressure of body fluids on them. If I sleep flat on my back I set the bolster under my groin, when facing right I put my left leg on the bolster. If I change direction to face left, my right leg moves over the bolster, it’s that easy.