How to sleep less and stay awake

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Autogenic training can help you reduce your sleep hours without compromising your health. The life hacker figured out how to practice it and how else such auto-training is useful.

What is Autogenic Training

One of the most effective techniques for rapid recovery of strength and improvement of well-being is autogenous training (AT).

The autogenous training method was invented by the German physician Johann Schulz, who suggested using it as a therapeutic therapy. The peculiarity of his approach is that the patient is assigned an active role: in order to achieve a result, it is necessary to work on his own thoughts and, as a result, feelings.

Schultz found that when muscles relax, a person experiences a feeling of heaviness, and when the vessels fill with blood, a feeling of warmth. Full concentration of attention on such sensations leads to the fact that a person is able to deeply relax the muscles and cause blood flow to the capillaries.

Over time, autogenous training has come to be used as a successful relaxation technique that helps to cope with stress, relieve physical and mental stress, regulate breathing, blood circulation, and heart rate.

It is believed that all of these factors are usually impossible to influence without the use of medications. However, one of the indisputable advantages of AT is the ability to quickly recuperate and return to a state of vigor.

If a person needs 7-8 hours of normal sleep to feel refreshed and collected again, then with the help of autogenous training, he can achieve this in just 4-5 hours.

Autogenic training is easy enough to do anywhere and anytime: after work, at lunchtime, or before bed, it can help you quickly release tension and relax.

Execution technique

For autogenous training, you need to take a comfortable position, for example, lying down. Hands should lie relaxed along the body, without touching it. The palms are facing up. The feet are slightly apart, the toes are directed in different directions. AT can also be performed while sitting in the so-called coachman pose: you need to sit on the edge of a chair, put your feet shoulder-width apart, rest your hands on your hips so that your hands and fingers remain free, tilt your head forward, and relax your neck.

You can also sit upright if you can lean your back and head on the back of a chair so that your spine is straight and your legs and torso form a right angle. Make sure that the position is comfortable for you and that you are able to relax your muscles.

Six stages of autogenous training

1. Severity

In the first stage, it is necessary to concentrate on the feeling of heaviness in the arms and legs. To create a feeling of heaviness, for example, repeating to yourself: “My right arm is heavy … My left arm is heavy … My arms became heavy. My right leg is heavy … My left leg is heavy … My legs are heavy. My arms and legs became heavy."

It is important to feel the real weight of each part of the body. You should not try to make the body heavier by volitional effort, to make the sensations even. There is also no right outline for where to start.

Try not to turn your practice into self-hypnosis. The severity is already present, it only needs to be felt and strengthened.

Gradually, the feeling of heaviness can be replaced by lightness in certain parts of the body, for example, in the hands.

Repeat the statements at least three times. When you feel a change in sensation, move on to the next stage.

2. Heat

Blood in the body is redistributed from large vessels to capillaries. For this exercise, it is important to remain calm and continue to focus on the gravity. Try to feel the warmth spreading through your body. Repeat the settings from the first stage to yourself, replacing the heaviness with heat. If your hands or feet are initially cold, try to warm them up to normal so that you can feel the warmth.

3. Heart

Now, feeling calm, heavy and warm, move on to the third stage. Concentrate on where and how you feel the pulsation in your body, and focus on that feeling. It may take a while to feel the pulsation in your arms and torso, but this will be a sign for you that it is time to move on to the next stage. If you are mentally distracted, try saying to yourself: "My heart beats evenly and calmly."

4. Breathing

The fourth exercise will help you calm your breathing. If you have ever meditated, then you know that concentrated observation of inhalation and exhalation slows down your breathing. Try to achieve such a state that this process is completely independent of you. That is, you follow the breath, but at the same time do not interfere with this process.

5. Solar plexus

Without ceasing to feel calm, heaviness, warmth, throbbing and breathing, focus on the feeling of warmth in the upper abdomen, where the solar plexus is.

6. Forehead

During the practice of AT, the blood in the body is redistributed, its flow to the head decreases. The forehead becomes slightly cool. Concentration on this sensation helps to relieve fatigue and increase efficiency. You may feel cool in other parts of your face, but you don't have to.

It is important to remember that it is worth moving to the next stage only after mastering the previous one.

Even six basic stages of autogenic training will be enough to experience significant changes in well-being and daily routine. You will notice how much easier it will be to wake up and fall asleep, sleep time will be shortened, and efficiency will increase.

It is possible to learn basic autogenic training in 3-4 months of daily practice. It doesn't matter if you study from a book or use only video and audio lessons - rely on your inner feelings. After all, no one but you knows at what point you feel enough heaviness, warmth, or relaxation in yourself to move on to the next level.

Auto-training can help get rid of neuroses, functional disorders and a number of psychosomatic diseases, it is used in the treatment of diseases based on emotional stress and tension of smooth muscles. However, autogenous training should be practiced with caution by those suffering from severe mental disorders.

How do you make up for lack of sleep and restore strength? Share in the comments.