What Does Ayurveda Say About Restless Sleep?

 What does Ayurvedic say about Restless Sleep?

Ayurveda says that restless sleep is usually a vata-pitta disturbance.

Vata is the energy of movement and if vata is increased, that zippy energy can keep us awake and amped when we should be sleeping.

Pitta energy is the energy of transformation and that also has a mobile quality in it because when something transforms, it changes from one to the other.

Between these two energies the root cause of the sleep problem could be weighing more on a vata side, or a pitta side or a combination of both. Because of this interplay between vata and pitta, we can get insomnia, and there's actually two different kinds of insomnia.

#1 Vata-Type insomnia. This type of insomnia is when we can easily fall asleep but around 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM, we *wake up!* and we're not able to fall back to sleep (until the sun is about to come up...and then we get drowsy). If hat happens to you, that points to vata type insomnia.

#2 Pitta-Type insomnia. The other kind of insomnia is governed by pitta, which is when you can't fall asleep and that's often caused by staying up too late. 

If you're having restless sleep, which one sounds most like you? 

Some of the causes of restless sleep could be:

• Eating too late.
• Eating too much.
• Or eating too late and too much!
• Lack of exercise or over-exercise
• Alcohol
• Not de-stressing on a regular basis
• Staying up past 10pm
• Not having a regular bedtime routine
• Too much screen time (especially late at night) including TV, the computer, smartphone, tablet or reading a book on a screen. It's different than reading an actual book! 

I review some ways to remedy these things in the video so be sure to check it out!

Overall, if we don't take time to de-stress regularly, keep a good schedule and create a bookend at the end of the day, our body is going to want to keep going. Our mind is going to want to keep going. We're still fully engaged and it's actually time to rest. So! We have to train ourselves to slow down and take that time before bed and make a nice little bedtime routine. Anything that is racing, is constantly moving, is that energy of vata, which creates the increase in us.

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And keep bringing Ayurveda to life!
XO!
Monica B.