Meditation and Sleep Deprivation

turbolapp said:
So does that eyes glazed-staring off into space thing help? Or was that just bullshit that I read?

I like the idea of meditating with my eyes open...mostly so I don't fall asleep. :/
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I'm pretty sure Zen meditation is open-eyed, but it's definitely not 'eyes glazed-staring off into space', it's more about hyper-awareness.

I've linked to this before, but it's worth mentioning again:

Mindfulness In Plain English

I'm a secular atheist and I absolutely believe in practicing mindfulness. That is a different take on meditation that the rest ITT, though. Meditation is not something you do to get a result like better sleep, it's a practice like doing pushups or playing scales on an instrument.
 


Eckhart Tolle - Practicing the Power of Now is a good one to listen to.

but, meditation != sleep. Try getting more sleep.
 
Try to gather over 1000 of pewep's posts, print them out and read 5 minutes before sleep. It takes me usually 3 minutes to get into deep sleep phase that way. Please be aware that those posts might actually cause desire to die.
 
Meditation is awesome. Constant concentration is meditation. If you focus on one thing constantly that's a meditation. You can keep the eyes closed or opened but most of the people keep it closed since it's easy to control mind if the eyes were closed.

My method of meditation is I concentrate on my breath. There are so many methods and find the one that you like and you get good guidance.

Even, staring at stars/sky could be a meditation if you keep(or try to keep) your mind in star/sky only and nothing else. Meditation is all about keeping the mind focused constantly on only one thing.

Yes. It helps for better sleep.
 
Why not just have enough sleep? I can guarantee that you waste loads of time during the day. If you think you don't, you're probably doing thigns really inefficiently, or you should be outsourcing.
 
mattseh, I absolutely don't utilize my time effectively during the day. And I've noticed it even moreso since sleep has been lacking.

For those who say that meditation doesn't equate to sleep, I think I should've been more clear. I've been hearing that meditation helps in adding quality to the hours of sleep, and it also helps to combat other things like restlessness, motivation, and a plethora of other beneficial things.

For a while, I thought I could "catch up" on sleep. Go Sun-Fri at 4 hours of sleep, and catch up on Saturday with 8-12 hours. We had to do this on deployment, and it worked well out there, so I figured why not do it back home during the grind? For the first month or so, I felt like the exception to the rule. And now I don't. But now I've made it a habit, and it's not as easy to break as I would have thought.

For the last 4 nights, I've told myself I was going to rack out around 9-10PM, and each night I've ended up falling asleep at 1-2AM. Around 10-11PM, my mind starts to feel energized and motivated, and then I feel remorseful of staying up by the 1-2AM mark.

Damn it.
 
boatBurner said:
My goal is to break this habit, not to sustain it. I'll work, work, work and then shoot the shit, read a few blogs, skype a pal, then work again. It takes me into the wee hours. Family of six, military day job (on my way out). Time management is suffering. But I need to break this sleeping cycle, and a doc mentioned meditation. Also, our docs immediately point to PTSD, and Im confident this is not that.

Hack, got those links?
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Ok, this sounds like something that "I" went through a fews ago and didn't know how to "snap" out of it.


I would wind up most of my work and actually start to feel a little sleepy. Then LIKE A DAMN IDIOT, I would say to myself, "Check your emails & STATS one last time before going to sleep."


WRONG ANSWER!!!!! After reading a few emails and looking at STAT updates I would be WIRED again. Then I could be up for another damn 24 hours straight.


Once I discovered this Trend/Insanity I was able to NOT do anything on the computer once I felt sleepy.


Now I when I feel sleepy I STEP/RUN AWAY from the computer and either go lay down or turn on some Mind Numbing TV to knock me out for the night/day. (Never did try/use sleeping pills.)


Now, if I NEED to stay awake, I can do the reverse. I just start looking at my STATS and emails to keep my BRAIN WIRED UP.


I'm pretty sure the Meditation will help you. I use to do meditation years ago. Kinda got out of the habit though.


On a side note, my Fiancee' has been taking sleeping pills for years now. She says she's an Insomniac. But, I noticed that she is on Facebook, other forums and Skype quite a bit between her writing. (She's a Writer.)

I told her about what I found with my STATS & email checking before bed and then not being able to fall asleep.

When she's at my place I have her TURN OFF her Laptop when I get off my computers and we watch some mind numbing TV. Without fail she is OUT way before I am. Lulz

But, off course she says that it's just being with "me" (Awww) that relaxes her to sleep and it has NOTHING to do with her being away from the computer & NOT doing a billion things that keep her Mind Whirring.

ROFLMAO!!!

So, at her place she still has to take the damn sleeping pills. (She just won't get off the computer. lol)
 
boatBurner said:
mattseh, I absolutely don't utilize my time effectively during the day. And I've noticed it even moreso since sleep has been lacking.

For those who say that meditation doesn't equate to sleep, I think I should've been more clear. I've been hearing that meditation helps in adding quality to the hours of sleep, and it also helps to combat other things like restlessness, motivation, and a plethora of other beneficial things.

For a while, I thought I could "catch up" on sleep. Go Sun-Fri at 4 hours of sleep, and catch up on Saturday with 8-12 hours. We had to do this on deployment, and it worked well out there, so I figured why not do it back home during the grind? For the first month or so, I felt like the exception to the rule. And now I don't. But now I've made it a habit, and it's not as easy to break as I would have thought.

For the last 4 nights, I've told myself I was going to rack out around 9-10PM, and each night I've ended up falling asleep at 1-2AM. Around 10-11PM, my mind starts to feel energized and motivated, and then I feel remorseful of staying up by the 1-2AM mark.

Damn it.
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I was in the Marine Corp and both Mess Duty and Guard Duty would screw with your sleep.

Guard Duty of 8 hours on and 8 hours off really SUCKED ASS!!! This was 7 days a week for 30 days when I had to pull it. That 8 hours off is when you had to eat, shower, take care of things and then try to sleep. So, you rarely ever got even 4 hours sleep a day for that month.

Mess Duty was even worse for 30 days. You'd be at the mess hall by 4:00 a.m. and then didn't get out of there until around 9 or 10 that night.


Then you'd have to try and get back into your "regular" routine when the 30 days were up.

Then being in the Field caused all kinds of weird sleep hours as well.

After 4 years of that your sleep pattern is pretty messed up. I know.

As per my previous post, try to get AWAY from doing anything that has you really THINK about 2 hours before you want to lay down to sleep.

You might want to do the meditaion about a half hour before your decided bedtime.



So, for 2 hours before bedtime I suggest:

1.) NO COMPUTER
2.) No IMPORTANT discussions on anything.
3.) No THINKING of anything that will get your mind in Problem Solving Mode.
4.) No talking about, doing, thinking, or watching subjects that will or could get your adrenaline going. (The only exception to this would be having an ORGASM. This seems to help more than a glass of milk or Meditaion to Clear the Mind and Relax before bed. LULZ)


Good Luck with change.
 
I'm surprised so many people here meditate since I can't find anyone in real life who even knows what it is. I forget what dude said it but he said it's important to keep it up long term cause it won't work as a go to fix like aspirin or a "McMeditation" as he called it.

I have read several dozen books from different authors and teachers I think there is truth in most of it. Lots of people are off put my things like chanting but you really have to read into the origins of the practice and the actual reasons. Of course now matter how many books you read you still have to start with a basic practice since most of the other stuff you cannot do until you get a certain level of concentration / samadhi built up.

The improvement in concentration is definitely real and tangible. I have been practice, poorly, for several months and finally regimented and every single day when I read the right few books on life and time like Eat That Frog etc. There is a technique I have been trying to practice for lucid dreaming where you wake up then go back to bed but you count down in your mind 1....am I dreaming....2...am I dreaming so on and so on. For the last few months I would get to maybe 13 or 14 then forget where I was then have to start over. And...I would fall asleep and say god damnit.

Today I got to 86 without losing it and I began to fall asleep consciously. Now I totally failed once the hypnagogic imagery started happening, you guys know that feeling where you are half trying to fall asleep and you startle awake slightly because your mind saw something you and maybe you reacted to it and jumped a little. The imagery and stuff started to form so I thought if I opened my eyes I would be in the dream but I opened my eyes in real life and I had to sit there for a few minutes because my body was in sleep paralysis. It was pretty fun like when my leg goes numb from meditation and afterward I literally cannot move it for maybe 20 seconds.

No lucid dream this time but I'm pretty excited to think if I kept this up for 2 or 5 10, 20 years hell what might you be able to do really.

Your level of awareness will rise also an example being was I never noticed that in my dreams I still had thoughts and impulses like in real life.

Try staring at something without blinking and when you do blink you'll more than likely notice that you blinked because you jumped back into thought / autopilot.

I can see little improvements in everything - reading - I don't have to jump back and re-read over and over like I had A.D.D as much and listening to audiobooks I would find myself spacing out in thought and having to rewind constantly. It's getting better.

Shinzen Young said in his book that improving your base level of concentration - really no matter how you do it - will benefit every aspect of your life and I'm starting to see how that makes sense now.

The only thing I could compare it to is smoking marijuana and how you seem to notice more things. Your heartbeat, your mind racing, food seems to taste better, small details of the world. Well that shit is already there but our focus is all over the place.
 
pewep said:
Try mindfulness meditation (aka meditation for atheists). Same results as the real stuff, none of the bullshit jargon.
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I think this can be a little confusing to people saying that. Most people probably just want the concentration and don't want to be bothered with the rest. AFAIK Jon Kabat Zinn popularized Mindfulness which is not something he devised on his own but is just Vipasanna practice aka Insight meditation. You build concentration, to do mindfulness, to gain insight. Say for instance you keep doing your practice and then you start to notice when you aren't doing formal sitting practice that you are in a meditative state - or noticeably more aware in plain english - throughout the day. That might whet your interest just enough to start reading a bit more and once the things that are happening to you, you see these things clearly defined and laid out it starts to really get you interested.

I've read a ton of the books, did a little bit, then I have to go back and read books again because things that I passed over that made no sense started making more sense.

I don't think any meditation practice is a one way street.

Mindfulness Versus Concentration


See, religions do provide exquisite practices to get deeper into the spirit. The problem is that every practice is entrapping. I don't care whether it's meditation or Catholicism or the Torah or drugs or whatever, yoga or whatever it is. They're all traps. And the game of method is that you've got to use the trap and risk being entrapped, with the expectation that it will self-destruct if it really works. The problem is, if it self-destructs the whole priest class is out of business, in institutional religion, so that the game has a funny kind of top, a false top on it, because any institution that starts to have salaries and institutional structures and all that, immediately can't self-destruct. It's not designed that way. - Ram Dass (chill / crazy dude with crazy beard)
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I just try to keep it simple with a simple rule: Keep an open mind. I have read tons on just simple concentration practices all the way up to Kundalini which just reading the description is enough to make people say BULLSHIT. I thought yoga was just some fad invented recently and had no idea it has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years and the purpose is not to tone college girls asses. Bending and altering the way energy flows through the body. I don't know, I just don't know I can't say.

You don't have to believe any of it but I find it fascinating to learn and experiment.

"Take away what is useful, discard what is not" - Bruce Lee
 
Midas Touch said:
As per my previous post, try to get AWAY from doing anything that has you really THINK about 2 hours before you want to lay down to sleep.

You might want to do the meditaion about a half hour before your decided bedtime.



So, for 2 hours before bedtime I suggest:

1.) NO COMPUTER
2.) No IMPORTANT discussions on anything.
3.) No THINKING of anything that will get your mind in Problem Solving Mode.
4.) No talking about, doing, thinking, or watching subjects that will or could get your adrenaline going. (The only exception to this would be having an ORGASM. This seems to help more than a glass of milk or Meditaion to Clear the Mind and Relax before bed. LULZ)


Good Luck with change.
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When I was into gaming I had a hard time falling asleep being revved up until bedtime.

Then I started taking melatonin 1 hour before I wanted to go to sleep, and while I don't really get drowsy from it, about 45 minutes after taking it I feel as if I close my eyes I can fall asleep, and it helps a lot.

Lots of nurses use it when they work night shifts to get a good sleep following, when they have to sleep shitty hours. The pills come in 3 and 5mg form, I take 2x 5mg or 3x 3mg depending on what's on sale.

It also helped when I used to work from 5am-1:00pm shift and had to get to sleep early.

It's what your body naturally produces to make you tired, we're just so wired.
 
stack paper said:
Stay up for a week and a half then talk to me, sonny.
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Ooh, ooh look at my penis! During my first pump, was up for 5 days straight on a search and rescue mission ourside the wire trudging the mountains and helmand river.

/coolcombatstorybro.jpg

But thats exactly the reason my sleep is so fucked. And staying up that long feels surreal, and strangely depressing.
 
I try to look at it logically I mean we look at Michael Jordan and no doubt say he is awesome. He is but he still put in a ton tonnnnn of practice that we never saw. Millions of shots and practice over and over. I look at this little old man Thicht Nhat Hanh who is 85 and has been meditating since he was like 3 I think okay maybe he knows what he's talking about.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZKrl5n79hY"]Ram Dass interviews Thicht Nhat Hanh - YouTube[/ame]

I think he looks pretty damn good for 85 lol.
 
stack paper said:
Stay up for a week and a half then talk to me, sonny.
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I bought a bottle of ephedrine or whatever at a gas station on a road trip, drove from southern Texas to OH, hung out with my mom for a day, then cruised to Ocean city MD, and had to drink half a bottle of nightquil to fall asleep after several days.

Who needs meth.
 
Turbolapp said:
So does that eyes glazed-staring off into space thing help? Or was that just bullshit that I read?

I like the idea of meditating with my eyes open...mostly so I don't fall asleep. :/
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Moxie said:
It sounds like that would involve being in a more relaxed brain wave state, which is what meditation does. So I would say it could help, but probably not if you did it all day long.


brainwaves.jpg
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I think your eyes have to be closed for the alpha waves to kick in.

Alpha waves are reduced with open eyes, drowsiness and sleep. Historically, they were thought to represent the activity of the visual cortex in an idle state. More recent papers have argued that they inhibit areas of the cortex not in use, or alternatively that they play an active role in network coordination and communication.[1] Occipital alpha waves during periods of eyes closed are the strongest EEG brain signals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_wave

Arguably, the most popular one is the use of this training in meditation. Zen-trained meditation masters produce noticeably more alpha waves during meditation. This fact has led to a popular trend of biofeedback training programs for everyday stress relief.
 
Wicked Ice said:
You have adrenal glands fatigue. Google that.
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While you're at it, have a look at the wikipedia page. It's not at the top of page 1, because there's not a lot to say, but it doesn't make the information any less valuable. Adrenal fatigue - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(And no, I'm not gonna start up an argument about this, keep the thread on track, it's doing well)
pewep said:
f.lux: software to make your life better

You're welcome tools. For anyone working on the computer as much as me, this is an absolute

MUST!
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Been using this for ages. I can vouch, it's fucking awesome. (although it takes a day or two to get used to, and definitely don't make the first time you turn it on nighttime)
 
I haven't slept less than 6 hours in a night in years. Usually average 9-10 hours. I can't imagine being sleep deprived like that.
 
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