I recently began teaching ESL classes online to Chinese children. I work from home, and I finally said goodbye to the overwhelming bustle of the food service industry. The catch: I work from 12AM-6AM. I didn’t truly understand what this meant until I noticed a decline in my physical and mental health.
Until about a month ago, I was working two jobs from home. Now, I work 40 hours per week outside of the home. I went from getting about nine hours of sleep per night to about six and a half; transitioning from waking up at 10:30 A.M. to 6:45 A.M. can be somewhat tough. Truthfully, I’ve never really been a “morning person,” especially now that we’ve sprung forward. Thanks, daylight savings time.
If you’re not getting sleep that is arguably the best of your life, on a nightly basis, you’re just not snoozin’ like you could, and should, be. Falling asleep, and staying asleep, can be much more difficult than it sounds. We all know that, no matter how much we want to get plenty of beauty rest, actually achieving it is often up in the air; let’s face it—sleep, like that one relative we all seem to have, is a temperamental subject. However, due to its notoriously unpredictable reputation, it’s easy to overlook the little things that may be causing us to not sleep in the first place.
Anyone concerned about their well-being knows sleep is important for the body and mind. Knowing you’re sleep deprived, too busy to get enough rest or suffering from insomnia can be a catalyst to do something about it.
Sleep is one of the basic necessities of the body. Happiness, nourishment, strength, knowledge, life – all of these depend upon sleep. If sleep is disrupted long enough, it can lead to a lack of balance in the body, manifesting itself in several areas of one’s life, such as unhappiness, dietary misalignment, mental fog, and manifestation or aggravation of various physical ailments. Ayurveda emphasizes the importance of sleep for total balance, but has different recommendations based on the dominant dosha.