Getting a Good Night’s Sleep with Constructive Rest

We have been looking into getting a new mattress. Our current one is about fifteen years old and has withstood my wife and me and a couple of years of each of our kids. We are open to anything but shocked at how much mattresses cost. 

Getting a good night’s sleep is a relative proposition. One person can be in bed for five hours and get better quality sleep than another person who is in bed for ten hours.

My daughter ostensibly sleeps better than my son. She is out from 8 to 7 and doesn’t move in between. My son goes to sleep at the same time, revolves around the bed constantly, gets up at least once in the night and then wakes up before his sister every day.

When I took them to a Chinese medicine doctor last year he unequivocally stated that she was exhausted and he was fine. And from empirical evidence I believed him.

There are many factors involved in sleeping well. Diet and nutrition play a big part. Consumption of electronic light can have an influence as well. Using your body—via exercise or because the work you do makes you move— over the course of the day is essential also.  What’s the point of recharging a battery that hasn’t been drained?

Another piece we can add to the puzzle is relaxation to facilitate a better night’s sleep. This might seem counter intuitive but creating the right space for your body and mind to fall asleep is of optimum value.

Enter Constructive Rest, my favorite catch-all pose for all that ails us. At its heart Constructive Rest is a gravitational release of the psoas, my favorite muscle. The psoas is a powerful core muscle that is often involved with back, hip and groin pain usually due to unprocessed energy or trauma that is stuck in the body.

When it comes to sleep Constructive Rest has a great deal to offer outside of the psoas. It is relaxing for both the mind and the muscles. Some people can simply lie down on the bed, put their head on the pillow and fall asleep instantly. For others, there is an unwinding period that comes before any thought of falling asleep.

Even if you have no trouble falling asleep, I recommend doing fifteen to thirty minutes of Constructive Rest before bed. You can even do it on your mattress if need be. It is simple and effortless with no downside and the possibility of a lot of upside.