Change Channels at Bedtime Reduces My Fall-Asleep Time

As a single person, I often turn to Youtube for entertainment especially when there is not a good book to engage me. 

I’ve watched the 1987 version of < The Dream of Red Mansion> for so many times that I remember every single line of the characters in the drama better than Professor, Lijuan Yang, at the National University of Taiwan who  makes a name by her lecture series on < the dream of red mansion>.  After watching the TV series, I turned to the various editions of this classic novel. 

Although reviewing Chinese classical literature is beneficial in many ways, the process gets me into the habit of turning to the YouTube for distraction the moment I get tired, bored, or stressed.  From <red mansion>, I take up other Chinese Classics.  In today’s internet age, I can always find them in various forms, visual, audio, e-printing or online version, or commentaries  on them by bloggers or vloggers.

No matter how much we may benefit from reading/watching classical literature, the fruit of brilliant minds, our brain has a limited capacity to take in and process information.  Just like healthy food, if you eat too much of it, it will become poisonous.

Soon after, I found myself having a hard time falling into asleep.  That came as no surprise because I often have either Macbook air, or iphone, or ipad pro or all of them by my pillow side.   I tend to consume these quality media by them at sleep time to call it a ight.   Soon I often tossed and turned until 4am the next morning.

 I got to do something about it. Food and sleep are the two foundations of a healthy body and mind.

One night, I decided to tune into Jon Kabaz Zin’s 20-minute meditation, which I used to follow regularly before being taken over by the good  educational stuff.  Following the lead of Zin’s calming voice, I turn inward by counting my own breath. Although I may still need to turn, I felt a renewed sense of calmness. Before I knew it, I fell into asleep. Now I was able to fall into asleep before midnight for several nights in a row.

Zin’s calming voice is like water for someone who has been drinking cocktails of all kinds for a long time.  Soon, I believe I can wean off even from Zin’s calming voice, the clutch of my sleep by just counting my breath. Ideally, the moment my head touches the pillow, I fall into asleep. That never happened to me even when I was a child.  I guess, genetically, my brain is overactive to let that happen.

Concentrating on breath or one’s heartbeat is a magical sleep aid. When I was child, I didn’t know that after getting into a bed, I was supposed to close eyes, but letting sleep naturally closed them. This changed till one day I observed  that my grandma closed her eyes right after she lied down for a noon nap.  

Noon nap–12pm to 1pm was mandatory  up to middle schools in the old times in China.  However, there were no beds/bunks, even chairs for kids to sleep on at napping time.  Two kids shared a desk and a bench in a classroom in the countryside; so desk and benches were kids’ sleeping bed.   Everyday, a kid would be selected to be on duty to make sure all other kids lie down to nap when the bell rung  for  nap time.   By middle school, desk and bench become too small for kids to sleep on, then all kids would have to sit napping on their folded forearms. 

However, kids were active and most reluctant to nap.  My way to kill the boring napping time was to sleep on my left side with my left earlobe pressed so that I could hear my own heartbeat.

Perhaps gradually, I should drive all my digital gadgets out of my bedroom, using my childhood trick to help me fall into asleep.