The 3 Pillars of Life: A Good Night’s Sleep
“There are three supports (pillars) of life. They are food, sleep and observance of brahmacharya. Being supported by these the body is endowed with strength, complexion and growth and this continues up till the full span of life provided a person does not indulge in regimens detrimental to health.”
Caraka Samhita
Previously, I wrote about the first pillar of life and spoke to the importance of discovering the foods that are right for you and how to maintain your digestive fire in order to absorb the prana (life energy) and useful nutrients from your food. If you didn’t read the previous article, you might go back and review that before jumping into part two.
For this article, I will take you into the second pillar of life, which is sleep! Sleep is an essential part of life and has a strong influence on your physical and mental health and ultimately helps you age more gracefully. Since everyone is unique, you will all need different amounts of sleep in order to thrive, so please note that what I am offering is general support based on my experience as a nutritionist and Ayurveda Health Educator.
When sleep gets compromised due to improper diet, heat, young children, full moons, or stress, it can make everything in life feel like an uphill battle. Sleep is so important that missing even a single night of sleep can create an adverse effect on your immune system, increase your blood pressure, make it more challenging to deal with “normal” daily stress, decrease your motor skills, disrupt your appetite-depressing hormones and affect your ability to relax at night. Can you see why it is one of life’s three pillars? Basically, without sleep we quickly fall apart!
After teaching several yoga classes this week, I had numerous students mention that they were currently struggling with insomnia. In Ayurveda we look at insomnia as vata dosha (air + space imbalance). It’s not uncommon to see more insomnia in the fall as it is also considered a vata time where the air outside may be getting more active, cool, and/or dry, and more space opens in nature as the leave all fall from the trees. The new space in seasonal transition can create a surge of excess upward moving energy in a vata imbalanced person and can contribute to someone experiencing insomnia.
If you or someone you know is struggling with sleep imbalances, here are a few general suggestions that may reduce the vata condition and help restore your sense of well-being. For a more individualized version of this vata-reducing program, considering booking a private with me or your local Ayurvedic practitioner.
Vata-Reducing Routine to Decrease Insomnia
- Avoid any caffeine after 10:00 a.m. or all together until your sleep is back to normal.
- Eat your largest meal in the afternoon and eat a bowl of warm broth-based soup for dinner. It’s best if your bowl in no larger than your two palms put together and is free of spicy chili peppers or garlic, both of which are considered rajasic (stimulating).
- Avoid alcohol late in the evening. If you are going to drink alcohol, it is best to do it around happy hour time with plenty of room temperature water to help you stay hydrated and clear-headed before bed.
- Establish a healthy, warm whole foods diet for a couple of weeks, reducing all processed foods. Heated foods are an important part of a vata-reducing diet, so until your sleep pattern is back to normal, considering warming each meal and being very generous with your oils like ghee, coconut, sesame, and safflower when cooking and olive oil or flax seed when your food is done being cooked.
- Skip dessert as sugar can also be stimulating and affect your ability to drop deep into sleep.
- Exercise daily. I recommend forms of movement that get your heart rate up for 20 minutes each day and some yoga poses that emphasis forward bends, squats, and twists to encourage energy (prana) to move away from the head.
- Evening routine: Keep your computer turned off, especially one hour before bed.
- Practice moderation with electricity and embrace candlelight in your home during the evening to help slow you down.
- Treat yourself to a warm oil massage before an evening shower or bath. I recommend raw organic sesame oil or a vata blend from your favorite store that sells Ayurvedic products. Be sure to give your focused attention to rubbing the oil into your skin! Your nervous system is close to the skin so when you rub your limbs and torso with warm oil, it begins to calm the nervous system, which is essential for good sleep. A follow-up warm shower or bath will help the skin absorb the oil. Avoid washing off the oil with soap. Lastly, if you take baths at night, be sure to avoid super hot bath water or soaking too long as too much heat can be stimulating.
- There are so many herbs out there that have can have a positive effect on your sleep, the most common being chamomile, valerian, skullcap, and ashwagandha. I highly recommend taking one of them as a tea or in the tincture form before bedtime. Also, you could try abhyanga, an Ayurvedic sleep aid massage oil.
- Drink a warm cup of cow’s milk (non-homogenized vat pasteurized, chemical/antibiotic/hormone-free) or almond milk with spices before bed. Milk has special peptides and proteins that activate the brain’s receptors related to deep sleep cycles.
- For a couple of weeks, see if you can establish a sleep, exercise, eat, work, and then unwind routine that matches the natural rhythm of the day. For example, going to bed by 10:00 pm in the fall, waking up around 6:00 am, meditation followed by some yoga, breakfast, work, hydrate, lunch, hydrate, work or creative time, evening exercise outside, soup for dinner, oil massage before shower, and then read or write before bed.
Consider what might be at the root of your sleep disturbance and spend time getting the support you need to unwind from the stressor.
About the Author
How to Remember Your Past Lives: 3 Ways to Access Past Life Memories
Sometimes life feels familiar in ways that are hard to explain. You meet someone and feel you’ve known them forever. Or you travel somewhere new and something deep inside stirs, like a memory you can’t quite place. Maybe these are traces of memories of past lives, or maybe they’re just intuition. Either way, they’re worth paying attention to.
Patterns often repeat themselves. Unexplained fears. Sudden talents. Relationships that circle back to the same lessons. These moments might be echoes from a previous life still influencing your present life.
Exploring past life experiences is not only about curiosity. It can be about understanding how your soul’s history continues to shape who you are. You might not find clear answers at first. Insights rarely arrive as complete stories. They show up in fragments, symbols, and emotions. Sometimes they make sense only later.
Table of Contents
- Can You Access Past Life Memories?
- How Past Lives Might Shape Your Present Life
- Signs You Might Have Lived Before
- Three Ways to Explore Past Life Memories
- Making Sense of What You Find
- The Story of Matías De Stefano
- Living With Past Life Insights
Can You Access Past Life Memories?
The idea of reincarnation suggests that human beings live more than one lifetime, each one leaving behind energetic and emotional imprints. Most people don’t consciously recall memories of previous lives, but certain practices can help open the door to them. Techniques like deep meditation, past life regression, or exploring the Akashic Records can reveal glimpses that feel older than this lifetime.
For some, these insights appear as flashbacks, vivid dreams, or waves of emotion. For others, it’s just a subtle pull toward a person, a place, or even a time period. In my experience, it’s unpredictable. You can’t force it, and that’s often what makes it meaningful.
The process takes patience. Sometimes fragments come together slowly, piece by piece. You might feel a sensation before you see an image, or recognize a lesson before you know its origin.
How Past Lives Might Shape Your Present Life
Emotional patterns often carry forward from former lives. Dr. Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist who studied young children recalling memories of past lives, documented cases where birthmarks matched fatal injuries described in these memories. Whether you see this as scientific or spiritual, it’s hard to ignore the consistency of such reports.
These imprints may not prove anything, but they do suggest continuity between lives. A certain fear, gift, or attraction could reflect something unresolved or unfinished from a previous life. Recognizing these connections can bring clarity and healing in current life.
I once worked with someone who had a deep fear of the ocean. Through past life regression therapy, guided by a trained hypnotist, she recalled a drowning incident from what felt like another lifetime. The memory came in pieces, more feeling than image. Still, acknowledging that connection helped her let go of the fear over time. Experiences like this show how understanding past life experiences can release something held deep in the subconscious.
Signs You Might Have Lived Before
Even if you never access vivid memories, signs of former lives can appear in subtle ways:
- A powerful connection with someone you’ve just met
- Fascination with a specific era or culture
- Unexplained fears or emotional triggers
- Skills or talents that seem to come naturally
- Dreams or visions that feel oddly specific
Most people notice just one or two of these patterns. Others find the signs everywhere once they start paying attention. Sometimes a single clue opens a path toward remembering more.
In my experience, recognizing a familiar emotion or attraction can be just as revealing as a full flashback. It’s less about proving a past and more about noticing what the soul is trying to show you now.
Three Ways to Explore Past Life Memories
1. Deep Meditation
Deep meditation is one of the simplest ways to open the mind to memories of past lives. The key is to relax and observe whatever comes up without judgment. Images, sensations, or feelings may surface. Some might seem random. Others might carry a weight that feels ancient.
Before beginning, it can help to set a quiet intention, such as:
“I’m open to seeing what my soul wants me to understand.”
Then you simply allow the experience. Don’t chase it or analyze too soon. In my experience, the most authentic insights from former lives come gently, not dramatically. Even a fleeting moment of recognition can hold meaning.
2. Past Life Regression Therapy
Past life regression therapy uses relaxation and visualization to uncover memories of previous lives stored in the subconscious. A trained hypnotist guides you into a meditative state, helping you move beyond surface thoughts. Some people experience vivid scenes or sensations that feel like a flashback to another existence.
Whether these experiences are literal or symbolic, they often reveal emotional truths. They can explain patterns that don’t make sense in your present life or help resolve fears that seem to have no origin.
I once met someone who had always struggled to speak publicly. During past life regression, she recalled a lifetime where her voice had been silenced by strict authority. That realization gave her the courage to use her voice more freely in her current life. Even if symbolic, the experience carried emotional truth.
3. Exploring the Akashic Records
The Akashic Records are said to contain every thought, action, and experience the soul has ever had. Accessing them, either independently or through a reader, allows you to explore lessons across past lives and recurring patterns of growth.
When people tap into these records, they often describe sensations of recognition more than visual imagery. Insights come as feelings, intuitive words, or brief impressions. You might discover why certain people or challenges keep reappearing, or how your soul’s history is guiding your spiritual awakening.
Even a few minutes of connection can shift how you see your current life. These insights don’t have to be dramatic to be meaningful.
Integrating What You Discover
Exploring past life memories is not about getting lost in the past. It’s about using what you find to better understand your choices now. A glimpse into a previous life might explain an ongoing struggle or illuminate a hidden strength.
In some cases, the lesson might be an emotional release. In others, it could be creative inspiration or reconciliation. What matters most is how the experience influences your perspective in the present life.
It helps to write down what you recall after meditation or regression. Don’t try to label everything as fact or fiction. Treat it as information from your inner world, something your soul is offering for reflection.
The Story of Matías De Stefano
Spiritual teacher Matías De Stefano has captivated audiences with his extraordinary ability to recall multiple past lives since childhood. Unlike those who access memories through regression, Matías’ recollections emerged naturally and in vivid detail, spanning ancient civilizations, planetary histories, and metaphysical dimensions.
Through his Gaia podcast and original series The Journey of Remembering, Matías shares how his memories shaped his understanding of the universe and his role in the collective spiritual awakening. His story offers profound insight into how connecting with the memories of past lives can guide us toward purpose, unity, and a deeper remembrance of who we truly are.
Just as with Matías’s experience, remembering past lives invites us to explore the continuity of consciousness and to see life as an unfolding journey rather than a single chapter. Whether through meditation, past life regression, or the Akashic Records, these methods can open the door to self-discovery and healing.
Ultimately, the value of these experiences lies not in proving their accuracy but in how they help us grow, evolve, and live our present life with peace, clarity, and a renewed sense of purpose.
Living With Past Life Awareness
Understanding past life experiences and exploring the soul’s history is not about proof or persuasion. It’s about awareness. Insights from past lives can explain repeating patterns, clarify emotional attachments, or simply remind you that growth is continuous.
Whether through deep meditation, past life regression, or the Akashic Records, each method opens a doorway to reflection. Sometimes that reflection is subtle, almost imperceptible. Other times it feels profound, as if you’ve remembered something essential about who you are.
Ultimately, remembering past lives isn’t about living in the past. It’s about carrying forward what matters most into the present life. Each glimpse, each small understanding, becomes part of how you live more consciously now.
