Today, oil and coffee are among the most traded products in the world. We are a society of energy addicts dependent on food, liquids, information, entertainment, and light—all highly stimulating even during nighttime hours. We live within an ecosystem that encourages and perpetuates this lifestyle.
There was a time when we thought sleep was a gift we gave ourselves at the end of the day, as a reward for our efforts.
Today we see sleep as a physiological necessity we must submit to in order to live our day, but sleep is often viewed as a waste of time, and the more it can be optimized (reduced), the better.
Among college students, there's a myth that there are three options in life: good grades, social life, and good sleep—and you can only choose two. Of course, sleep is usually the one most often sacrificed.
This view isn't shared only by students. In the business world, CEOs are admired for sleeping only 4 or 5 hours, as if they were productivity superheroes. And if these successful people do it, why shouldn't we do the same?
One of the most common questions we receive at Vigilantes do Sono is: "How much sleep do I need?"—with the goal of finding out the minimum they need to optimize the time they'll be awake.
Can you imagine restricting other natural human needs? Imagine stopping eating or drinking to avoid going to the bathroom, or imagine having a time limit for making love with someone you care about. Many people, if they could, would never remove food and sex from their lives, because they see these acts as something to be savored, something that's part of the pleasure of living. Why can't sleep be viewed the same way?
From the perspective of our waking state, falling asleep is an accident, something we don't want, something to be avoided. However, treating sleep as a problem is the ultimate trap. Just as we don't want to cause accidents in our daily lives, if we continue to see sleep as an accident, then we'll never want to sleep. Letting go of the waking state is an act of humility—it's recognizing that there are other things as important or more important than ourselves.
This act of humility helps us fall in love with the act of sleeping, instead of viewing it as an obligation, a necessary evil, a problem, or a worry.
Love for sleep isn't rooted in the desperation of chronic insomnia or accumulated sleep deprivation. Quite the opposite. It's about understanding that sleep is a nightly encounter with ourselves. Approaching sleep with worry is risky. Being open to receiving it as a gift makes us vulnerable to falling in love with sleep.
In conclusion, I'd like to say that unlike what we usually write, nothing in this post is scientific, but it's a motto we live by here at Vigilantes do Sono:
What we don't enjoy, we do poorly; what we enjoy, we do better. We know that a person who has a bad relationship with their bed doesn't sleep or sleeps poorly. But does the person who has admiration and passion for sleep sleep better? We like to believe so!
But if you're a very scientific person and think this is all nonsense, we'll leave you with this thought.
Many of us live to work, to study, to improve ourselves.
Did you know that sleep is one of the times when we learn the most? Sleep is when our memory consolidates information. Sometimes sleeping may be the best way to pass the exam or deliver better work.