Meditation Questions: Why does meditation make me feel so tired?

Every time I teach Mind Calm, whether in a group or one-to-one, in person or via Skype, I talk first of all about the tiredness that will come up. I can see my students thinking, ‘I’ve had a good night’s sleep, I’ve paid for this workshop, I’m going to stay wide awake and make the most of it.’ An hour or so later they are usually yawning and fighting drooping eyelids. They have begun to relax properly and deep-seated tiredness is rising to the surface.

It is not meditation that causes this tiredness, however. Meditation, and especially reducing the stimulation provided by constant thinking, allows the tiredness that was already there to arise.

Most of us are operating on unacceptable levels of tiredness. Modern life becomes busier and more demanding every year and there is more and more to think about.

We are asking more and more of ourselves and many of us don’t take enough time to rest.

Even if we get eight hours of sleep a night, we still need to rest while we are awake. Real rest is not just relaxing on the sofa at the end of the day in front of the TV, reading a book or going on a spa break. Real rest means doing absolutely nothing including not thinking.

Not thinking? How is that possible? I understand the question because just a few years ago that would have been my reaction, too. I had no idea that it would be possible to rest my mind, to let go of the need to think all the time.

Then I learned, gradually, how to choose my thoughts and then how to rest my mind completely. It wasn’t hard; it just took faith and practice. And learning to rest properly, profoundly, allowed the tiredness that I had buried deep within me to come to the surface.

Because tiredness is something we should take notice of. It is a message to us that we are depleted, mentally, physically, emotionally or spiritually (or perhaps a combination of these) and we need to rest. But if we keep ourselves constantly stimulated whenever we are awake, we will avoid experiencing the tiredness and may not know how much we need to rest.

So when you begin to learn to meditate, tiredness arises because you are reducing the stimuli that keep it buried. Finally, the messages are getting through that you are depleted and you need to rest.

A meditation practice, especially one that allows you to let go of thinking and sit in awareness, will provide the rest you need. You may well feel tired to begin with and you will become used to some meditation sessions being sleepier than others. It’s ok. Your real self knows what it needs from a period of rest; it just needs you to let go enough so that it can take care of you.

So if you find yourself yawning and doing an impression of a nodding dog when you sit to meditate, don’t despair or think that the meditation itself is making you feel tired. Instead, congratulate yourself that you are practising real rest and allowing the release of latent tiredness. Rest into the experience of the moment and allow whatever-wants-to-happen to occur.