The Daily Shock to Your System: How Your Alarm Clock Is Slowly Destroying You.

Many of us begin our day with a jolt. We are in a deep, peaceful sleep, our entire body calm and resting, when suddenly, a loud, obnoxious sound forces us to wake up. This is the daily ritual of the alarm clock, a device we rely on but one that I believe is a source of immense harm.

If your sleep is violently interrupted by an alarm clock in this way, your body gets affected. It gets a kind of tension, a shock to the system. And I believe this tension will prevail in you throughout that entire day. For the sake of your health, my advice is to please stop using an alarm clock to wake up.

The Sleep You're Stealing from Yourself

Just think for a moment. What would have happened if the alarm clock had not sounded? You might have slept for about two more hours. What does this mean? It means that your body needed two more hours of sleep.

When our body needs more sleep, if we cut it short with an artificial sound, who will make up for that lost sleep? If we wake up every day using an alarm clock and cut two or three hours from our necessary sleeping time, day after day, I believe that after some time, we might be forced to go into a sleep from which we never wake up.

So please, do not use the alarm clock. I know some people will ask, “But we have to get up early! How can we do it without an alarm?” We get and give a lot of advice that we have to get up early in the morning. But nobody advises that we have to go to bed early every night.

We can get up early in the morning only if we go to bed early in the night. It is our mistake to do unnecessary things like watching television or movies until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. and then go to bed late. Why do you think that a person should get up early in the morning even if they go to bed at 2:00 a.m.? It makes no sense. If a person goes to bed late, they have to get up from the bed late only. According to the time you need to wake up, you have to go to bed about 8 hours in advance.

Therefore, we have to understand that using an alarm clock on a daily basis is dangerous. We should use it only occasionally, for true emergencies, not as a part of our daily routine.

Simple Techniques for When Sleep Is Elusive

For those who have a lot of confusion in their mind and do not get sleep for a long time at night, there is a simple solution. I've found that rest is obtained in a slow manner if we lie down, but if we sit and take rest, we will get rest fast.

• Try Sleeping While Sitting: Instead of lying down fully, try sleeping in a slanting position, giving some support to your back and head. You can calmly stretch your legs or fold them. If we try to sleep in a sitting posture, our mind and brain sort themselves out very quickly, and we will immediately get sleep.

If you are still worried that you are not getting sleep, here are a few simple massage techniques you can try.

• Massage the Crown of Your Head: The very top of your head is an incredibly powerful point. In acupuncture, it’s called DU-20. I believe this is the point where 72,000 nerves join. By simply applying pressure here, massaging it, touching it, or even just thinking about this point, we can pacify all 72,000 nerves. If you can't sleep at night, massage the crown of your head by yourself, and you will find sleep. When children are sick or crying and can't sleep, if we gently massage the crown of their head, they get calmed down and drift off to sleep.

• Massage Below Your Jaw: The glands in the body concerned with sleeping can be made to secrete by slightly massaging the bone below our jaw, using the tips of your three middle fingers.

• The "Student's Pose": You may have observed that children who are preparing for exams do not feel sleepy when they are walking or sitting up to study. But if they lie down on their stomach, using their two wrists as a support for their jaws, they often get sleepy within half an hour. Therefore, when you do not get sleep, if you lie down on your stomach, close your eyes, and keep your two wrists as support for your jaws, you will start sleeping very soon.

By using these simple, natural techniques, you can work with your body to find the rest and sleep it needs, without the violent, unhealthy shock of an alarm clock.