The relaxed Roger Federer present with the ball
I just came across one of the great Roger Federer’s secrets of success. Drum roll…in a word: sleep. Sleep? That’s right. The greatest tennis player ever, attributes success not just to his gorgeous array of shots, but to getting 10 hours of sleep per night.
So what’s this got to do with you? Plenty. Federer demonstrates an important principle of the Universe that you can take advantage of without having to get all those extra hours of Zs. The Swiss net star stays cool because that extra shut-eye releases daily stress and strain.
You can release fatigue and deeper-rooted stress in a deeper way than sleep. The best way I know of is meditation. As a former Transcendental Meditation (TM) practitioner and teacher since the ‘70s, who recently launched Higher Self Meditation, I’ve experienced so many times just how profound this phenomenon is.
Deprive a person of sleep long enough and that person becomes unable to function properly. He’ll be irritable, he’ll be unable to concentrate, and he’ll perform poorly. Nature lives by the law of rest as the basis of activity. The more you align with this natural law, the more you thrive; the more you fight it (burn the candle at both ends, for example) the more you suffer.
The orange ball that rises majestically from over the Atlantic Ocean every morning, while I sip hot water and lemon (Ayurvedic) rather than coffee (Colombian) demonstrates the point. With the exception of nocturnal creatures, most of Nature sleeps after the sun goes down. We’re told to make hay while the sun shines. The related maxim: make Z’s after the sun sets.
The daily rest and activity cycle that Nature observes, and that we practice is mirrored by seasonal cycles of rest and activity, as well: much of Nature rests during the Winter, and then comes alive for a rebirth come Spring. Bears hibernate for months—their deep rest enlivens them for vigorous activity when the weather gets warmer.
Scientific research on stress management indicates a myriad of benefits accruing from deep rest. The research on TM I’m familiar with shows that a level of rest reached that’s twice as deep as the deepest point in a night’s sleep as measured by oxygen consumption. A night’s sleep removes daily fatigue, the deeper rest gained during meditation releases deeper-rooted stress that’s accumulated over the years.
So the next time you’re about to step out onto the tennis court, the basketball court, or a court of law, make sure you’ve gotten in your good night’s sleep—or better yet, your daily meditation. It works for Federer, it works for the yogis, and it can work for you.
