Does yoga make you sleep better?

One of my yoga teachers said he needs only four hours of sleep because he is re-energized from his yoga practice. For me, yoga makes me feel so relaxed I always feel sleepy after class.

When I was in my early 20s which was ages ago, I used to think sleep is a waste of time. There was so much to life (friends, school, parties, learning new stuff) that sleep was not a priority then.

More than a decade has passed and now I treasure any opportunity to sleep. With the responsibilities of a full-time job and a family, I crave for uninterrupted sleep. The one where your head hit the pillow and you open your eyes to a new day.  I hate the kind of sleep where I wake up in cold sweat in the middle of the night, I end up feeling lethargic the next day.

Since I started yoga, I sleep better. I still need at least eight hours of sleep to get me to fully function the next day. But gone are those nights where I  toss in bed counting sheep. And I tend to sleep through the night. On evenings where work or social obligations take the lead, I compensate the following night with a good sleep. The best nights are those when I come home fully relaxed after yoga practice. Those are the nights I sleep like a baby.

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