HE A LTH & HEA L ING
chi cycle lifestyle aligns your life with the stars. This holds you in place and on track to your destiny. We want to encourage our inner astral sat nav in everything we do, especially sleep. So use ‘silent night, holy night’ as your mantra for the evening! Ever practical, Chinese medicine has
identified the most beneficial amount of sleep you need and the most beneficial sleeping position. The recommended levels of sleep are:
in bed. You address it at heart time, in the middle of the day, by consciously switching from yang over to yin (as described in article 5 in this series). These days after lunch I make myself wind down and aim to be home by six. My work is not finished; it never will be; and neither will yours. You will never ‘get everything done’, you will never have enough money, security, control or whatever it is that keeps you going past the point when you should stop. As discussed in my previous article, I consciously encourage yin to develop through meditation and losing myself in music. And I have to say, this is a much more pleasant experience than working late into the night in a frenzy, plus I get to drink my wine out of a glass in a civilsed manner. By 9.30 I’m in bed and, most evenings, I fall easily into sleep. The bedroom now has a ‘welcome traveller’ sign hanging over the door and sleep is my friend! I honour this relationship and do all I can to support the astral journey of my soul. I will never, ever, ever take sleep for granted again. They say that Heaven’s only vested
interest is that the unique aspect of the Dao, which is within each of us, be fully expressed in the world, and heaven will do all it can to nurture this seed in everyone. But they also say that Heaven is prepared to sacrifice individuals for the overall good. It sounds brutal but it’s up to us whether we live in harmony with the cosmic forces or march on up to the sacrificial altar, and insomnia is a fast track to that altar. Sleep is so important we should all do everything possible to assist ourselves in falling asleep and staying that way. I’ve treated a lot of people over the years who don’t have insomnia or sleep disorders but actually choose to stay awake and work late at night. They tell me that they feel they have the space or peace to be productive then, but what they are doing is tapping into and exploiting astral chi. This is the chi that enters earth’s atmosphere around 9pm. It has a dreamlike quality which we experience as supportive and mystical, and this feeling intensifies, peaking at midnight, the most yin time of the cycle. Wanting to be awake and working at
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this time is an indicator of an unaligned lifestyle. You miss out on mystical connections throughout the day, are cut off from Dao, feel incomplete and, desperately hungry for chi, you seek connection and support from astral chi. But astral chi is there to nurture our sleep, to rebuild us, and working at night is a ‘robber of harmony’ as the Daoists would say. Trying to be physically productive when we are supposed to be alseep is spiritually counterproductive. Your orbs can’t carry out their mystical tasks; you’ll drift away from knowing who you are or what you are here for. It’s the road to misery, confusion and emotional reactivity. Productivity is the job of your spleen. The idea is to realign your daily activities so that you get that feeling of connection and support for productivity between spleen and heart time (9am -1pm). This feels way more satisfying too because, if your spleen is powering product, it is doing its job – so it feels chuffed instead of abandoned and outcast, and it’s going to cheer up all the other organs too. I also mentioned in an earlier article
how many people I treat for lifestyle- induced disorders who wake up and start their day by checking their mobile phones before they even get out of bed. Well I also treat people who will wake up during the night, check their phone and answer texts or emails. This is serious mystical self-sabotage. My advice is to check all devices at the door before entering the bedroom; no TV, phones, laptops or tablets. Communication devices are awesome inventions – I’ve got them all – but they are yang tools; they belong to the productive hours of the day. So, as you head off to bed, imagine that you first have to pass through a mystical airport security gate, and put all that stuff in a tray to be held for you overnight so that you can travel unencumbered to the stars. And in Chinese medicine, this is where you are going. We come from the stars and we are connected to the stars (each acupuncture point in your body aligns with a star). Doing a daily chi practice aligns your body with the stars, and the
• from birth to 6 months: 16 hours • from 6 months to 2 years: 13 hours • from 2 to 12 years: 10 to 12 hours • from 12 to 18 years: 9 to 10 hours • young adult: 7 to 8 hours • over 60 years: 5 to 7 hours
And the most beneficial position is lying on your right side, with your legs slightly bent and resting in front of the pillow, and your left arm resting on your left thigh. Your heart is in a high position so that blood can circulate freely; your liver is in a low position so that blood can collect there and your soul will feel cosy and nurtured (your liver cleanses your blood overnight too); and your stomach is in a position that facilitates the downward movement of food. In the mystical chi cycle, we also want
mystical alignment. To achieve this begin with a brief standing chi gung posture by your bed to align your body (meridians and acupuncture points) with the stars, and try to move from perceiving with the senses to perceiving with chi. Activation of the senses is what keeps you awake, keeps you acquired, and what transcends the senses is chi. Once you are in a chi state at bedtime the san jiao will naturally switch your operating system over from day chi to astral chi. Next, sit down on the side of the bed and immerse yourself in the amazing feeling of infinity opening up as astral chi surrounds you. Then lie down on your back mometarily, with your arms crossed over your chest, over your heart chakra, and once you feel the drift sensation, move into the recommended sleep posture. If you go to sleep like this, the universe and the orbs happily take over and carry your soul home. Sleep is the grand finale of the mystical chi cycle, the most cosmic, mysterious and magical part of the entire 24 hours, and the part where you get to effortlessly return to your cosmic self. So tonight go to bed, lie back, shut your eyes and think of the cosmos!
Jost Sauer is a registered acupuncturist, seminar presenter, specialist in the mystical application of Chinese medicine and author of Higher and Higher, Drug Repair That Works and The Perfect Day Plan (published by Allen and Unwin).
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