How to have a good sleep – My personal experience

I was invited by steemit.com to join this forum yesterday. That is the first time I heard steemit. I am not active in any other social networks. Today is Sunday, after I scanned through some internet news and bet on horse racing in Hong Kong, I decided to take some time to write this article.

I research on how to have a good sleep for a long time and practicing it until today. Many years ago, when I was at school in the United States, I had not slept for 3 months. How I knew that? I counted the clock every hour until the sun rose in the morning. Then, I need to get out of bed to attend classes and work to pay off my bills. I knew that is not going to work for a long time. The only thing I could do was to force myself to stay in bed even though I could not sleep. After a while, I thought I could sleep well. It was because I forgot about this case.

Some years ago, I could not sleep again. The doctor gave me some sleeping bills to try. It was good. It worked. First, I took one sleeping bill, then, two, and then three. Lastly, four. I decided not to take sleeping bills any more. However, I forgot how I got through this sleeping problem at that time.

I do not know why humans need to sleep. I trust that human body needs to rest in the night time. According to traditional Chinese medicine practice, humans need to rest especially between 23:00 PM to 01:00 AM. I followed this practice. If occasionally you could not sleep for a night or two. Just forget about it. No big deal. Two years ago, I got home at 05:30 AM in the morning after having gone to bar. I slept for 2 hours. Then, I went to meet a customer in China. How I compensate for the loss of the sleep. I took a nap about 5 - 15 minutes in the noon time (12:00 noon). According to traditional Chinese medicine practice, 5 - 15 minutes in the noon time is enough. Don’t take more than that.

Some people may argue they don’t need to sleep or sleep just a few hours and in the day time they are energetic. Human body is an autonomous machine. It needs to be shut down for repairing. If you are awake, some parts of an organ cannot be repaired. For example, when you stay in bed and go to sleep, more blood is flowing into your liver instead of flowing out of your liver. The liver cell is not working hard. It does not need to produce good and healthy blood to support other organs when compared in the day time activity. I am not a doctor or an expert. Here I just give you some clue what I learned. It may not apply to your body.

Human body is a biochemical body. It is not a mechanical body. If human body is a mechanical body, you can go to sleep by just hitting a “sleeping” switch. A biochemical body consists of 2 parts: physical body and spiritual body. If you want to sleep well, both of their activities need to rest well. Human body is designed to sleep in the night time and work in the day time. I am not going to explain this part in detail. If you’d like to work in the night time and sleep in the day time. It is up to you.

Concerning about the physical body, it is easy. Just don’t do heavy exercise or work before you go to sleep. Take one or two hours rest of your body before you go to bed.

The hard part and the most important part is the spiritual body. Many things bothering you that makes you could not go to sleep well. What are those things? You name it. I am not going to repeat them here in order to save my time. You will also find many methods taught on the Internet how to help you sleep well. The most important point is YOU. If you are in an agitated state, you cannot go to sleep. It is under your control. Outside help is always temporarily. I cannot make you sit like a monk for a few hours. I cannot solve your problems such as financial, health, relationships, …etc. Live for today, leave those worries or excitement for tomorrow. Don’t buy a jackpot in the night time. The main point is to calm yourself one or two hours before you go to bed. You can count ducks, try meditation, taking several deep breath, empty your thinking and plan for tomorrow, staying in a quiet place, and the most important point is always feel comfortable and satisfaction no matter what happens. Another saying is just think in another way. Always think in the positive side. No need to fight back. Let it go.

According to Chinese culture, “yin” takes over in the day time. “yan” takes over in the night time. Then, you will have a healthy body. That can solve your sleep problem automatically. Lastly, make it a habit.

Past is past. You only live for today. Tomorrow is just another dream.