Stop Hitting the Snooze Button and Start your day as a Winner
It is said that one’s greatest enemy is the mind itself. In Uddhava Gita, Prayers of Avanti Brahmana, Lord Krishna explains that the Brahmana says that the cause of his suffering is not due to his fate, time,place, circumstances, Horoscope, Demigods,forefathers or any other living entities but, due to the uncontrollable enemy called Mind.That’s why in Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna say to Krishna it, it seems
impossible to control unsteady mind which is obstinate and powerful which is more difficult than that of trying to control the wind.And, Lord Krishna acknowledges the fact and informs that it is possible by practice and detachment. Again in Bhagavad Gita, 6.6, it is said that for one who conquered his mind will act like a great friend and for one whose mind is uncontrolled, it acts like a greatest enemy.
So what does hitting the Snooze Button on your Mobile or Alarm got to do with Mind and trying to control it?.
Let’s try to understand this from the perspective of the modern science.
It’s all too tempting to hit the snooze button when the alarm goes off in the morning. Don’t do it: You might think the extra few minutes will give you time to wake up, but it does more harm than good.
While you might think that hitting snooze will give you a chance to finish your natural sleep cycle and wake up feeling rested, that’s not what happens. After you hit snooze and drift off, your brain starts its sleep cycle all over again. When the alarm goes off a second time, you’re likely at an even deeper, earlier part of your sleep cycle, which results in you feeling even worse than you did the first time.
If you regularly wake up feeling groggy, they explain the trouble may be that your alarm is going off at the wrong part of your sleep cycle. Try setting your alarm a few minutes later (or getting up a little earlier) and sticking to a regular sleep schedule to get a nice rhythm going.
And from the point of Vedic scriptures of India, as previously explained, it is quite important to control the mind. The very first thing the mind starts playing with you the time, when Alarm rings in the morning. You hear the sound and the mind says – C’mon, you had such a terrible night, you hardly had a couple of hours of good sleep, Actually you can start getting up on time from tomorrow, what is more important than having a good sleep and rest for life, The job that you want to do can wait, you can make up the time by doing some work faster like a bath or a quick breakfast and so on..
The moment you hit the snooze button, you are falling to the temptation and trick of the mind. Basically, you are starting your day as a looser. And, imagine the whole day working in a looser consciousness.
So, what is the solution.? Be realistic, before you go to sleep, make sure the time you want to get up is mentally and physically possible. If you think, you can’t get up say at 5:30AM, set the Alarm to 5:40 or 5:50 but, never snooze. And, once you make that first Win, you will have that self-confidence to further control the restless mind for the rest of the day and you are working in a positive, Winner Consciousness.
This principle applies in every sphere of life, both day to day work situations and even more for a person aspiring success in spiritual life.
There is a nice verse from Katha Upanishad 1.3.14,
uttisthata jāgrata prāpya varān nibodhata:
ksurasya dhārā niśitā duratyayā;
durgam pathas tat kavayo vadanti.
Arise! Awake! Approach the great and learn.
Like the sharp edge of a razor is that path,
so the wise say−hard to tread and difficult to cross.
This was one of my new year resolutions to get up on the first ring of Alarm for which, I started doing from a week before 1st of Jan 2016 and it is working out well for me.
