The Healing Power of Sleep
The Healing Power of Sleep
Did you ever wonder why you need to spend a third of your life asleep?
Amazing things happen while your body rests, amazing things that have a profound impact on your waking life.
While your body is at rest healing occurs in multiple ways and on multiple levels.
Just because you are not conscious and aware during sleep does not make your sleep time irrelevant. What happens when you are asleep is healing and restorative on a physical level, integrative and calming on an emotional level and stimulates both insight and intuition on a cognitive level.
Sleep is a critical time for your being, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
The third of your life that you spend sleeping is an active and vital part of your life. It is a time to activate and synthesize thousands of decisions and directions you have generated in your waking hours. It is the time to set into motion your thoughts and desires.
It is a creative time of manifestation for your consciousness. The directions of your thoughts throughout the day become the blueprint for your sleep. During sleep, it is important to harness the power of your mind generated throughout your waking hours. I believe your life force listens to your dream thoughts and resolves to create in your life what you have directed it to do.
This directing of your life through the power of your thought happens on a very diverse field. It includes your glands and your organs and even works on an atomic level, shifting your subtle energies to bring them into harmony and alignment with your desires. For this reason, it is best to reach a state of peace as you enter into sleep.
Sleep is not a time of unconsciousness, but rather is the fertile time in which your mind, your emotions, can align with your Higher Consciousness (your Soul). Sleep creates a productive and creative time. While you sleep, as your physical body rests and restores, the autonomic parts of your body are engaged in healing and balancing your hormones which activate a whole host of factors that were created by your emotions and glandular secretions in the day that has just passed.
It is a process of healing your, mind, your emotions, and your body that is a subtle yet powerful part of healing sleep. Sleep as a healing balm is understood in our collective awareness since the time of Shakespeare. Sleep is a vital and dynamic part of your day.
For this reason; it is important to learn how to sleep.
The vital and important role of sleep in your consciousness physically, emotionally and spiritual is why I created my guided “Sleep in Heavenly Peace Meditation.”
Because sleep is such a difficult issue for so many people, and the failure to get a restful and restorative sleep has such far reaching implications in life, sleep was one of the very first challenges I addressed when I started publishing my guided meditations. My Sleep In Heavenly Peace meditation CD remains one of my most successful, widely distributed, and reviewed products I have ever created. Click learn more here to check out this MP3 download and glide effortlessly into sleep. USE COUPON CODE sleep5 and get the digital mp3 download for only $5 until Sunday May 13th 2018.
In addition to what is happening to you physically during sleep is the emotional processing of what you have experienced throughout your day. This often occurs in the creation of your dreams. Dreams are certainly the assurance that when your body sleeps your consciousness remains actively engaged.
At times your dreams may seem random or strange. On other occasions through dreaming, it is clear that you have come to a resolution of a significant life issue. In your dreams, you may gain insight into something you have been striving to understand and gain mastery over.
Dreams can leave you feeling empowered. It is often beneficial to record your dreams in a journal to bring into your conscious awareness the insights and information that may have come to you as you sleep. When you do this as a part of your spiritual and psychological development, many report that their intuition is enhanced and awareness is increased in a dynamic way. To keep a journal next to your bed and then spend a few moments recording your dreams is a simple morning meditation. Try it tonight.
It is hard to talk about the process of dreams, especially the healing power of resolution, without mentioning the less than pleasant part of dreaming, nightmares. I believe nightmares are a way of working through and resolving fears.
I have found throughout my life that the more I have consciously worked to transmute, transform and transcend my fears as an integral part of my spiritual and life lessons, the fewer nightmares have plagued me.
I have also found that there is a direct relationship between what I have focused my conscious attention on during the day and the creation of nightmares in my sleep. For this reason, I discourage people from watching violent or dark movies or television shows or even reading horrifying novels right before bed.
In sleep, your mind processes all of the input of your day that pertains to your positive thoughts and your fears. Somehow it all goes into the consciousness mixing bowl of your dreams.
A well-spent day brings happy sleep.
– Leonardo da Vinci
That is why before sleep is a particularly valuable and vital time to say affirmations, especially affirmations that begin with the magic words of “I Am.” Meditating before you sleep is also something that many people find beneficial and empowering. And, of course praying just before sleep is a tradition many learned from their early childhood that remains an effective and valuable ritual with which to transition into sleep.
While you sleep your consciousness is often growing and expanding your awareness. Sleep is a particularly fertile time for incorporating and synthesizing insights you have received in meditation. In fact, I have often found that after a particularly insightful and profound meditation, it is beneficial to take a nap to incorporate your experience.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends the following levels of sleep.
| Age and condition | Sleep Needs |
| Newborns (0–3 months) | 14 to 17 hours |
| Infants (4–11 months) | 12 to 15 hours |
| Toddlers (1–2 years) | 11 to 14 hours |
| Preschoolers (3–4 years) | 10 to 13 hours |
| School-age children (5–12 years) | 9 to 11 hours |
| Teenagers (13–17 years) | 8 to 10 hours |
| Adults (18–64 years) | 7 to 9 hours |
| Older Adults (65 years and over) | 7 to 8 hours |
Many traditions consider sleep as a spiritually enlightening time because your Soul is free from the constraints of your ego and personality. Using your dreams as a portal to wisdom is common among the teachings of many of the world’s people. It is particularly valued by indigenous and spiritual teachings across the world.
Sleep is the best meditation.
– Dalai Lama
Consciously considering what you do to prepare for sleep helps this part of your life to be valuable beyond just an opportunity to restore your ability to keep going. If you consider the times in your life that you have, by necessity, been sleep deprived and how that affects your overall efficiency and sense of well-being, you can realize the significant opportunity for healing and empowerment sleep is.
It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
– John Steinbeck
Each day is divided into a time for doing and a time for sleep. We all strive to use our doing time wisely and efficiently. Now empower your sleeping time to be the blessing that it can be. Sleep time is valuable to your success and your happiness. You want to make it a productive part of the fabric of your life.
When you awaken with the light of the new day, you can place the past behind you and open your life to the promise and unlimited possibilities of a new day brimming with new opportunities!
Sweet Dreams and Rest Well.
Namaste,
Genevieve
The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!
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Last updated 5-9-2018
Copyright © 2016-2018 Genevieve Gerard and Touch of the Soul LLC, All Rights Reserved.
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