A stress-free existence

[1]

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev [1]

The person you are at night is not the same person you are in the morning? What is it that makes you two different people in a span on 24 hours? What brings about a change in your behaviour?
You sleep at night and wake up in the morning. That makes some difference. If you did not sleep well during the night, even at 9 am in the morning you will feel like it’s 4 pm. So if you did not get enough rest at night, your morning would be bad. Therefore, the level of relaxation makes a difference.
If you remain relaxed throughout the day, then you would be the same person you were in the morning. So if your morning state is good, that is a good beginning. Many people are not in this “good” state in the morning and, as a result, they start fuming.
So a good morning is a good beginning to the day. But often, as the day progresses, you start losing your cool — because of the nature of work and what you are doing, slowly your relaxation goes away and you start getting stressed.
It must be understood that stress is not really related to work. We often say: “Oh, we are in a hospital. That is why we are stressed.” This is not true. Everybody thinks that his or her job is stressful. The Prime Minister also thinks the same way and so does the guy on the street. But no job in the world is stressful. It is your inability to handle your own systems that cause stress. You don’t know how to keep your body, mind and emotions in control. That is why you get stressed.
So how can you keep your system free of stress so that during morning and evening, you achieve the same level of enthusiasm, relaxation and happiness? Let me explain in medical terms. If you take my pulse, on an empty stomach, I would be in the range of 35 to 40 heartbeats per minute. That means, physiologically, my body is in deep slumber, but I am awake to do any activity. When you are constantly sleeping, there is no question of stress. When there is no stress, why would you act differently at 9 am and 4 pm?
So what you need to learn is how to keep your system relaxed. Don’t think of the things, activities you can cut out from your life. Maybe they exhaust you physically, but that’s not what leads to stress. You cannot slow down your system at the cost of activity. If you are capable of being vibrantly active and still relaxed, then it is worthwhile. If you are so relaxed that you cannot do any activity, it’s of no good. There is a whole system of making this happen — yoga. If you start certain simple practices of yoga, in three to four months you will notice that your pulse rate has dropped at least eight to 20 counts. This means that the body is running much more efficiently at a relaxed pace.