Sleepiness While Meditating

[Seeker_of_truth]

I feel sleepy during my meditation sessions. I meditate once during the morning soon after taking a shower and sometime in the evening. The meditation that I do is Isha Kriya. I've found that I also feel sleepy when doing the Do Nothing meditation with eyes open ! In 5-10 minutes I get sleepy and my eyes will start closing. I read that somewhere in this forum Leo said naps can be useful to combat sleepiness. But as I said I meditate in the morning after 8 hrs of sleep and right after taking a shower in cold water. So I don't think naps will be helpful... What's going wrong or is it normal at the beginning days of starting a routine ? Its been 2 weeks since I started this routine, I've never done any meditation this consistently ever before but I feel bad when instead of meditating with full alertness I'm trying not to fall asleep.

[nightrider1435]

What body position do you use when you mediate? Are you keeping your posture straight or do you tend to slouch? Maybe try drinking some caffeine before you start.

[Max_V]

If you just started meditating your conscious is still finding it's way to develop. There will be times when you get sleepy.

I have had this a lot when I started too. For now, try to notice when you get sleepy. How the sensations feel and what kind of thoughts your mind is producing.

As soon as you can accept the fact that you get sleepy, it may occur that the sleepiness just disappears. But don't make it into a goal to stay awake, that will only make you neurotic and frustrated when you fail.

Good luck with your practise!

[Seeker_of_truth]

@nightrider1435 I sit cross legged on the floor with my spine erect (to be exact in sukhasana without keeping one leg on top of the other). But as I get drowsy, I slouch. I found that sitting in padmasana ensured my back was erect without any effort but  the problem with that pose is that my legs hurt in that posture because of the pressure the leg above exerts on the leg below. I've stopped drinking caffeine for 6 months and I don't plan to drink it unless there is no other way.

If I don't find any other way then ultimately I'll have to put in some more practices to the routine to improve my flexibility so that I can sit in padmasana. Thanks for your suggestions.

@Max_V Thanks for the suggestions.

22 minutes ago, Max_V said:

As soon as you can accept the fact that you get sleepy, it may occur that the sleepiness just disappears.

I realize it a lot of times during the session but sleepiness doesn't disappear. I correct my posture and sit erect and in a few minutes I'm back again slouching a feeling drowsy. Its goes on till my session is over.

 

[Max_V]

@Seeker_of_truth That's the thing. You stilll want it to dissappear like it's a bad thing. Completely own all your sensations including you sleepiness. You get sleepy because you get caught up in thought, you get caught up in thought because your are still working out how conscious works.

Keep looking at thought and then ask yourself "Who is observing this thought?" This will create distance between your thoughts and your awareness. Over time you will improve at this and then you will naturaly become awake and alert. Just keep practising

[Seeker_of_truth]

@Max_V The problem wasn't getting caught up in thoughts, the problem was that I sleep. When I'm sleeping how can I think or be aware ? Every series of thoughts looks like a dream and my awareness level during such sleeping sessions is lower than normal waking awareness. I wasn't able to ask things like "Who is observing this thought?". My body probably thought cessation of physical activity as a sign to go to sleep.

But anyway I think I've found the solution. If I'm able to keep my spine erect I wouldn't sleep. Now I've found a posture (other than padmasana) that allows me to sit with my spine erect with zero effort. Its called siddhasana. I've used it for 10 sessions and sleepiness is now not at all a problem. Now I can meditate whenever I want and not fall asleep. Now I don't think I have to worry about trying to do my meditation when I'm most awake. And only now I'm able to even see that I'm getting carried away by thoughts. Getting carried away by thoughts doesn't cause me sleepiness they just make me unaware. So now I'm letting whatever happen to happen and putting back my awareness into the meditation whenever I see that my mind has wandered off.

[Max_V]

@Seeker_of_truth

Alright I'm happy you found the cause of your sleepiness, a tip for if you still experience sleepiness at any point, is to look at how long the time was between your last meal and the meditation session.  It is important (for me atleast) that one hour is imbetween my meal and meditationsession. If I don't do this, I experience heaviness of my stomach and I fall asleep very easily.

Make sure that you don't get neurotic when you can't stay aware. Give yourself space and acceptance when you can't seem to focus during your practise

Good luck with your sessions!

[Seeker_of_truth]

@Max_V Okay thanks. 

[heisenburger]

Just sit in the lotus position. That's it. No more sleepiness.

[Seeker_of_truth]

@heisenburger Yup. But the problem I have with lotus pose is that I don't have enough flexibility to sit in that pose without my legs hurting. So recently I found this posture called accomplished pose which does the same thing - it keeps your back straight without any effort and so there'll be no sleepiness.

[Max_V]

@heisenburger I can't sit in Lotus too, burmese is what I do.