Why i sleep on my left side

This position stops acid reflux, helps your body filter toxins more efficiently and is easier on your whole lymphatic system.

Sleep is crucially important. If you want to be physically, mentally and psychologically balanced, you need it. Sleep deprivation can really take its toll on you. I listened to a talk last year in Sydney by Arianna Huffington, publisher of Huffington Post, about sleep deprivation. It almost cost her her life. One day, she just fainted from exhaustion, had a bad fall and broke her jaw.

I am so lucky I almost have no problem going to sleep. In fact, even with many nights of good sleep in a week, I can still take naps during the day.

Meanwhile, my roommate has major sleeping problems. In a week, Lydia is lucky to get two to three nights of full eight-hour sleep.

After we switch the lights off, I quickly drift off into Neverland. She tries to sleep but after a few minutes, she is up again looking at her phone and playing games. When I tell her to turn it off so she can sleep, she says the reason why she is playing games is precisely because she cannot sleep.

She often falls asleep between 3 and 5 a.m. through sheer exhaustion.

She takes steps to be able to sleep well at night but to no avail. She takes her coffee only in the morning. When she feels sleepy in the daytime, she forces herself to stay awake so the she does not have trouble sleeping in the evening. And yet she still has difficulty sleeping at night.

I have thought patterns I engage in when I want to sleep. When I lie down on my bed, I try to imagine that my body is melting like butter in a hot pan. Every muscle or cell is being pulled down. It is futile to resist. If there is any part of my body that is resisting, it will soon stop and just go with the flow. The melting imagery is too hard to resist. I readily give in. Physically, I am shutting down. It works most of the time.

I also sleep on my left side. It makes a big difference. I read an article about the benefits of this, and I have confirmed it from experience that it stops acid reflux among other things. I used to often wake up with discomfort because of it. This position is also easier on your organs overall. It helps your body filter toxins more efficiently and is easier on your whole lymphatic system. It works for me.

Another thought I entertain when I am ready to sleep is the sport of skiing. I am on skis speeding downward on a ski slide. The momentum is so strong it powers me way up in the sky. Then I ski down again. I do loops and land on the slide flawlessly. The pattern repeats a few times. The time is late afternoon and getting close to dark. At the very end of the ski slide, I jump and fly out of the slide into complete darkness and I am in mid-air so high I never touch the ground even if I am falling. That’s how high it is. Not too long after, I fall asleep.

Sometimes, I sit on my Zen meditation pillows in the dark facing a wall and just watching my thoughts pass by. I do not cling to them nor have any interest in entertaining them. They are like clouds passing by. They don’t linger. My mind becomes silent. There is no screaming, or wanting, or clinging to anything. The inner conversation is down to a minimum. My body does not move. I even notice my heartbeat slow down a lot. I finish the 25-minute sitting meditations, feeling calm and stress-free. Soon after, I am ready for bed.

One thing I have a hard time doing is sleeping during a flight. Unless I have the whole row to myself and am able to put up the seat handles and lie down, I find it almost impossible to sleep. I can get a few hours’ rest in this setup. When I am confined to just my seat alone, I doze off only for a few seconds. My body is tired and it needs to really lie down on a flat surface. Otherwise, I wake up the moment my head slumps.

Sleeping beside the ocean on a lounging chair under a shady tree is something I love to do. I put on sunglasses to filter the light. The wind and the sound of the waves make me relax and get restful sleep.

I also notice that while sleeping is the best rest you can get, the mind does not really rest completely. Dreams can be very engaging sometimes. Certain dreams can make you wake up tired and agitated.

But here’s something interesting I’ve noticed. Sometimes, I sleep with problems or questions on my mind. Often in the morning, the solutions and answers are there when I wake up. I am amazed at how clearly they are presented to me. We probably process a lot more than we think when we are sleeping.

Modern life deprives us of sleep. Gadgets keep us connected 24/7. It takes some discipline to turn them off so we can obey our body’s need to rest, sleep and rejuvenate itself.

Sleep is always transformative. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”

To end, let me slightly digress from the topic. I have friends whose fathers have died quietly in their sleep. I do not wish to sound morbid but I wouldn’t mind if that happens to me. That would be a good, restful, peaceful way to leave this life and be reborn and live the next one.