Stillness for the Overactive Mind

Lately, I have been unable to sleep for hours on end. I just lie there in bed trying to fall asleep so that I can function for work the next day, but instead all I hear are my own jumbled stream of consciousness. “I need to do this and that tomorrow. If I go to the bank tomorrow morning rather than after work, I can get this done much faster. I need to finish reading at least one more chapter prior to the end of the week,” and so forth.

I remember reading an article somewhere about activities that you should not do prior to going to sleep, activities such as exercising, eating a lot prior to bed, and drinking caffeine. I had done all of these hours before bedtime to heed the advice, unfortunately, I remained awake.

After a couple of days of sleepless nights, of tossing and turning, willing myself to go to sleep, I decided to take a different approach. I decided to pop in a yoga DVD to try it out.

I put in AM/PM Yoga. Even though it was close to 3:00am, I decided to do the PM section. It took a while for me to get into the “yoga zone,” as I call it. Although the movements were fairly simple, it took a while for me to let go of any thought process that I had and to focus on what I was doing at that particular moment.

Did it help?
Simple fluid movements and yoga breaths helped a lot to calm me. I did not find this to be a “work out” at all but more of a way to release the stress and the tension that had built up through the course of the day. Though my mind did not completely quiet itself, I noticed that it didn’t take very long before I was able to go to sleep – not just lay there staring at the ceiling. 
[tags]releasing stress, workout, releasing tension, sleepless night, restless mind, overactive mind, Insomnia[/tags]