Federer, Meditation and You

 Recently, my wife, a freelance writer and editor, while researching an article for the column on tennis that she pens, came across one of the great Roger Federer’s secrets of success. Drum roll…in a word: sleep. Sleep? That’s right. The superstar tennis player, widely regarded as the greatest singles player in the history of the game with 16 Grand Slam singles titles, attributes much of his greatness not just to his gorgeous one-hand backhand, scary serves, victorious volleys, and terrific topspin forehand, quickness and extraordinary shot-making, but to getting 10 hours of sleep per night.

What has this got to do with you?

Well, in a word: plenty. Federer’s commitment to deep rest demonstrates an important principle of the Universe that you can take advantage of without having to get all those extra hours of Z’s. The ever-cool Swiss net star stays so cool because he gets all that extra shut-eye that releases the stresses and tensions of the day.

You, too, can release your daily fatigue and eliminate your deeper-rooted stresses in a deeper way than sleep. The best way that I know of to do that is meditation. As a Transcendental Meditation (TM) practitioner and teacher since the ‘70s, who recently launched Higher Self Meditation, I’ve experienced so many times first hand just how profound this phenomenon truly is. Namely, that deep rest can make all the difference in the world. Deprive a person of sleep for a long enough period of time and that person will soon be unable to function properly. He’ll be irritable, he’ll be unable to concentrate, and he’ll perform poorly. All of Nature lives by this law, that rest is the basis of activity. The more you align with this law of Nature, 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 I see rising ever so majestically from over the Atlantic Ocean every morning, while I sip hot water and lemon (Ayurvedic) rather than coffee (Colombian) demonstrates the point. Most of Nature, with the exception of nocturnal creatures, sleeps after the sun has gone down. We’re told to make hay while the sun shines. The related maxim might be make Z’s after the sun sets.

The daily rest and activity cycle that Nature observes, and that we practice, too, 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 in the Spring. Bears hibernate for months at a time—their deep rest enlivens them for the vigorous activity that awaits them when the weather gets warmer.

Scientific research on stress management methods has indicated that there are a great deal of benefits that accrue from deep rest. The research on TM that I’m familiar with, for example, has shown that a level of rest is reached that’s twice as deep as the deepest point in a night’s sleep. This is measured by oxygen consumption. Oxygen, the fuel for the cells of the body, flows more abundantly during exercise when the whole system requires more energy, and drops during states of rest when it does not. A night’s sleep usually removes daily fatigue, the deeper rest gained during meditation releases deeper-rooted stress that has 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 that 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.