Goodnight: Sound Sleep, Sweet Dreams!

What about sleeping a little longer and forgetting all this nonsense? - Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis.

Almost twenty-eight fortnights ago, that dinner discussion changed how I viewed sleep. Amid the murmur of clinking glasses and laughter in one of Lutyens' Delhi’s renowned hotels, my former manager began to talk about sleep—not as some passive part of life, but as a vital, active force. He was convinced that Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep would open my eyes, and he wasn’t wrong. A week later, I found myself in possession of Walker’s book. It was a tome heavy with mysteries, one that became my companion over a year of ceaseless travel across ten states. Through the hum of trains and the solitary hush of late-night flights, it stayed with me. Page after page, I was drawn into a world where sleep was no longer a passive state but a realm unto itself—one where hidden alchemies danced behind closed eyes, repairing, strengthening, and transforming.

Sleeplessness is a curse

We live; it seems, under a strange curse: a world that robs itself of sleep. We pride ourselves on “beating the clock,” branding rest as a thief of our waking potential. Jo sota hai, woh khota hai, I’d heard so often—the one who sleeps loses. In this kingdom of wakefulness, we’ve come to regard sleep as an inconvenience, a rival to ambition, and a delay to the world’s demands.

Yet, I discovered within Walker’s book an ancient wisdom buried under mountains of research—a revelation. Sleep, it turned out, wasn’t the idle thief of time we’d imagined. Far from it. It was a healer, a guard, a vigilant sentinel of our mind, body, and soul. Those who lost sleep, I learned, were in fact the ones who truly lost: their health, their memories, even fragments of themselves.

Night after night, as the rest of the world sank into silence, I would let the words of the book seep into me, telling of how two-thirds of adults, trapped in a wakeful curse, deprived themselves of a full eight hours. This wasn’t just a loss; it was a betrayal of something sacred.

The Nightly Alchemy

It was only when I closed my own eyes each night that I began to feel it: the alchemy that sleep performed within. Sleep was not mere slumber; it was a world within the world, a place where the brain worked its magic—cleansing, storing, preserving. Within the labyrinth of the brain lay the hippocampus, the keeper of memories, an “inbox” of sorts. The way Walker described it; I could almost see the hippocampus at work, organizing memories as a librarian would, moving thoughts into the mind’s secret vaults, ensuring they would survive the tests of time.

It was like seeing a silent movie unfold behind my eyelids. I pictured warriors within my body, natural killer cells they were called, sweeping through the body, searching for threats. Yet these warriors weren’t activated by will or effort—they needed the gentle cloak of sleep to thrive. When deprived, they weakened, and so did I. I found myself waking each morning feeling as if the guardians of my health had dwindled to mere shadows.

The Clock Within

I was beginning to realise that my body was ruled by a clock of its own, an internal timekeeper with secrets I had only begun to glimpse. The more I read, the more it seemed that my every heartbeat, every breath, followed this rhythm, attuned to the rise and fall of the sun, to a song as old as life itself. I learned that this inner clock, a tiny structure buried deep within, was the suprachiasmatic nucleus, master of all our waking and resting hours. Even plants, I found, followed this primal song, bending toward the sun at dawn and retreating at dusk, as if they too dreamt beneath their leaves.

As I read, I could feel this rhythm within me; an ancient force guiding me to rest as dusk fell, coaxing my mind to roam as dawn broke. I came to understand that I, too, was like the earth—a creature of cycles, of tides.

Debt of the Sleepless

But sleep was a fragile gift, one I’d neglected in my past. I remembered years of late nights, trading sleep for endless work and restlessness, a debt accumulating with each passing hour. The fog of wakefulness stole into my mind, slowing my thoughts, dulling my senses. I was, in truth, haunted by this debt, a ghost of my sleepless past trailing me into every new day. I felt slower, less myself, weighed down by a burden I couldn’t see but felt in every part of my being.

In Walker’s words, I found a warning, and I could no longer ignore it: sleep was my memory, my immunity, my creativity, my very life force. Sleep was my quiet protector, a guardian I had ignored at my own peril.

Rewards of the Rest

There are places only sleep could take me. I thought of all the creations born in the dreams of artists and inventors—the periodic table, woven together in Mendeleev’s sleep, or the song Yesterday that visited Paul McCartney in a dream. Every night’s sleep was a portal, leading us into realms of insight and intuition, unseen worlds of wisdom, hidden within us all.

Yet this power was not boundless. We were living in a time when sleep itself was threatened by the lights and screens of modern life. Even sleep aids were no substitute; they offered only imitation sleep, an illusion that mimicked rest but lacked the true gifts that natural sleep bestowed. Walker’s book felt like an urgent call from another time—a reminder of the gift we’d been given and the peril of letting it slip through our fingers.

Karo ab Soyi Soyi!

Solutions seem effortless when the brain is bathed by the afterglow of sleep. Little wonder, then, that you are not instructed to “stay awake on a problem” but to “sleep on it.” Modern gadgets have eroded our freedom of sleep. As Netflix founder recently remarked that their only competitor is sleep. We, the Gen Next, with the proverbial flick of a switch, have light the night, a blessing otherwise meant for sleep. Sleep in modern humans is delayed from taking off due to stretched artificial evening runway.

It is clear that tired, under-slept brain is little more than a leaky memory sieve, in no state to receive, absorb or efficiently retain. Create a bedtime routine. Our body craves predictability. Optimise your sleep environment. Avoid screens before bed. Blue light is a snooze saboteur! Swap your phone for a good book. Watch what you eat and drink. Lastly, relax and unwind. Try meditation and gentle stretching. Your mind needs to chill before your body can too. Once you are done checking with your loved ones: mele babu ne thana thaya? Tell them to go to bed a little earlier and have a good night sleep. Shabbakhair.