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I love napping. I love napping in the summer, when rhythms are more relaxed and the guilt of taking a break less intense (if only slightly). But I also love napping in the winter, when it’s cold outside, and burying myself under a warm blanket makes me feel like I’m hibernating. No matter the season, when lying in bed, I luxuriate in the feeling of my body relaxing, waiting for the moment when odd images start forming somewhere in that space between my closed lids and my corneas – or, most likely, somewhere in my mind. I love drifting into unconsciousness without worrying about the next item on my to-do list. I’m not a sound sleeper or someone who falls asleep easily at night, but napping comes easily and sweetly. I treasure the days in which I can nap. And I treasure even more the nights in which I sleep long and well.
Yet our culture prizes efficiency and productivity, often seeing sleep as a waste of time. ‘Tech bros’ boast about regularly working more than 70 hours a week, and aim to reduce their sleep time as much as possible. Elon Musk suggested even more intense work schedules for government workers during his time at the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). His approach resonated with many adherents of the Silicon Valley grind culture, which has sought to ‘hack’ sleep for a long time. As one CEO of a cost-cutting firm told the news site Business Insider this year: ‘While a 120-hour workweek isn’t a practical or sustainable solution for most, the principle behind it resonates. Companies that prioritise efficiency, automation and proactive cost management will always outperform those weighed down by bureaucracy.’
This approach is mirrored in a seemingly contradictory trend in the tech industry: a number of years ago, tech companies such as Apple and Google started introducing nap time for their workers. However, this approach was less a gesture of care than a response to exhaustion and sleep deprivation induced by their grind mentality, providing ‘recharging time’ to boost creativity and sustain the long hours required for work. Workers in less high-paying careers, who need to work multiple jobs, rarely have time to nap, and often have to resort to drugs such as modafinil, a stimulant prescribed for narcolepsy and used, often illegally, by students cramming for exams. This substance has gained the attention of the military. The US defence research agency DARPA has funded pharmaceutical companies and researchers to reduce sleep deprivation, with the long-term ambitious goal of operating without any need for sleep in the field. And the US isn’t alone: militaries worldwide are exploring how to keep their soldiers awake and functioning when sleep is in short supply.
That could be a dream. For now, sleep remains necessary for humans. We spend roughly a third of our lives sleeping. Even though the exact biological reason remains surprisingly elusive, it is scientifically uncontroversial that getting seven to eight hours a night, on average, is vital: prolonged total sleep deprivation causes severe psychological harm, including depression and psychosis, and physical harm, including brain degeneration. Chronic sleep restriction may not be fatal, but its effects accumulate: foggy thinking and memory lapses, mood swings and irritability, weakened immunity, weight gain and metabolic dysfunction, even increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
But is the value of sleeping reducible to its health benefits? Years ago, one of my philosophy professors declared that sleeping was a waste of time, and that, if there were a pill that could make us skip sleeping, he would take it in a heartbeat. I responded: ‘But I love sleeping!’ He replied that, surely, what I loved must be the rest that sleep brings, but how could I love sleeping itself?! We are unconscious when we sleep, after all.
I’ve turned over that question in my mind ever since. When I was nursing my children, so exhausted I would have swallowed that magical pill without hesitation, sleep felt like a luxury I’d never taste again. Once they began sleeping through the night, I returned to the pleasure of it. Or did I? If I’m unconscious, am I really enjoying anything at all? And if not, does that make sleep worthless? I’ve come to believe the opposite: sleep has a value that reaches far beyond health – it is woven into what makes a life feel rich, grounded and fully lived.
Falling asleep is a natural biological process. Children, especially young ones, often fall asleep without intending to, and some adults do, too, which is more common especially when particularly tired or intoxicated. But most of the time people prepare for sleep. Most children and many adults engage in bedtime routines, which can be very basic (going to the bathroom and brushing teeth; reading a book or scrolling on their phone; changing into looser clothes) or more elaborate (taking a bubble bath; following a multi-step skincare treatment; meditating). Even when people keep it short and simple, they tend to follow a pattern, because habits help us transition from a diurnal mindset of activity to a nocturnal one of rest. Sleep routines relax us, reducing physical and mental energy.
These habits are not just functional – they are also replete with pleasure and what philosophers such as Yuriko Saito and Katya Mandoki call the value of everyday aesthetics. This type of experience is rooted in the day-to-day when performing prosaic activities. Think of enjoying the taste of your morning tea; hanging clothes on the clothes line in your sunny yard; sorting your spices in the kitchen; smelling the flowers you encounter on your walk through a park.
Here is one of my fondest childhood memories. My mother is calling me to bed, which she has made with newly purchased linen. I am beyond excited because of their mesmerising design – bright lilac flowers with emerald-green leaves (to this day, my favourite colour combination). I inhale the lingering scent of the laundry detergent. As I slide my slender body into the tightly tucked bed, I shudder with pleasure at the texture of the ironed cotton. It is a synaesthesia of tiny pleasures, an inundation of simple joys. I can now close my eyes in the dark room, feeling safe and loved.
Sleeping rituals are particularly conducive to the pleasures of everyday aesthetics
Sadly, no one makes my bed for me anymore, let alone irons my linen. But I still enjoy the moment in which my body touches the bed and I inhale a lavender scent that I spray in my bedroom in a pale imitation of my childhood experience. Recently, I have restarted a much-neglected bedtime yoga practice: I always do the same poses, welcoming the muscular looseness that they induce. Toward the end of it, when I perceive a familiar sleepiness, I turn off my phone, take off my glasses, put in ear plugs, turn off the light, and slide under the covers. I find pleasure and comfort in respecting the same sequence of actions each night. I suspect that you, my reader, can easily recall your own sleeping routines, and the sensorial and mental pleasures you associate with bedtime.
Sleeping rituals are particularly conducive to the pleasures of everyday aesthetics. They happen every single day, and slow us down just enough to see the familiar anew – to notice the small, ordinary details of our lives and discover the beauty tucked inside them.
There is also aesthetic pleasure in the moments before and after we fall asleep: several people have told me they deeply enjoy the sensation of slipping out of consciousness – that interstitial space between wakefulness and sleep, with its peculiar perceptual phenomena – the fleeting images, sounds and dreamlike fragments that appear in the moments just before sleep. Others revel in the aesthetic experience of waking up, of re-emerging into the world, such as opening one’s eyes to the familiar contours of a bedroom, appreciating the texture and warmth of a blanket, or smelling the coffee brewing in the pot.
Some people even swear that they find sleeping itself pleasurable, and this is not as implausible as my professor made it sound, since sleep is composed of stages that vary in muscle tone, brain-wave patterns and eye movements, and thus are likely to have distinct types of sensory experience – although, in the deepest stage, we cannot feel anything.
Sleep can be a deeply personal pleasure, but it’s rarely a solitary one. When you picture yourself asleep, who’s there with you? At some point in your life, you are likely to have slept with someone. Your mother or father, your sibling, your romantic partner, your pet.
Many sleeping rituals are shared, and many bedtime routines are bonding experiences
Most humans (and many nonhuman animals) don’t sleep alone. As infants, in all traditional cultures, we sleep with our mothers, and often with other relatives. In fact, for most of history, entire families slept in the same bed for warmth, lack of space, and protection from intruders. Bed-sharing was common even for strangers, when travelling. Now, in most cultures, bed-sharing is conceived of as an intimate practice, but it is still common: most people sleep with their small children, and children often sleep with their siblings; romantic partners usually share a bed; it’s also not uncommon to sleep with one’s dogs or cats. While some people prefer to sleep alone (which can be joyful and liberating especially when one is freed of care duties, or a snoring companion), many of us value sleeping with others.
The scholars Anu Valtonen and Elina Närvänen speak of sensual everyday intimacy in a beautiful study that discusses co-sleeping. They talk about the bed as a key artefact that organises, articulates and reinforces intimate social relations, and observe how the sleeping body ‘invites us to notice how involved transitional moments – falling asleep, having dreams, and waking up – are central in understanding everyday intimate dynamics.’ Many sleeping rituals are shared, and many bedtime routines are bonding experiences, especially, albeit not only, those we have with children (think of bathing a baby, or telling bedtime stories). But some of the most intimate pleasures of sleeping come from bed-sharing. Valtonen and Närvänen highlight the sensorially unique experiences that characterise co-sleeping, such as being familiar with the breathing of one’s bedmate, or the haptic pleasure of ‘spooning’.
Interestingly, I think that there is value in co-sleeping even when it is not experienced as pleasurable. My children have gone through various phases of sleeping together and separately. For the past year, they’ve been back to sleeping in the same room and they love to cuddle, chat and share their secrets until they fall asleep. It’s pretty adorable. But they went through an earlier phase in which they constantly complained about the other not letting them sleep very well – yet they insisted on sleeping together. As for myself, I sleep much better alone, but I do care about sleeping with my partner at least sometimes, and not just due to the bonding rituals, including sex, that take place before and after we fall asleep. I value the idea of my life partner being in bed with me when I sleep, even if I’m not conscious when that happens, and, again, even if my sleep is more restful when I am alone. I don’t think my preference is completely idiosyncratic or unusual. For instance, a subject in Valtonen and Närvänen’s study talks about how she needs her husband in bed to fall asleep, even though he wants to stay up longer to watch TV or play computer games. As a compromise, sometimes he ‘pretends’ to go to bed, but when she’s asleep he resumes his activities. She says: ‘The idea that he is awake when I am sleeping creates a feeling of safety to me.’ Bed-sharing and co-sleeping, then, sustain our intimacy and provide a sense of safety and comfort. And that’s why, even in times of relative sexual promiscuity, ‘staying the night’ retains a special meaning in a relationship: we share ourselves in a moment in which we are unconscious, and thus utterly vulnerable and defenceless.
In the utter vulnerability that is intrinsic to sleeping lies a third feature that makes it irreplaceable by a magical rest pill. Sleeping itself (as opposed to what precedes and follows it) is indeed, for the most part, a state of being in the absence of consciousness. This essential nature of sleep also makes sense of the ways in which rituals and routines are structured. For instance, we brush our teeth, clean our face, apply moisturiser, and wear loose clothing either to prevent issues arising from prolonged lack of consciousness, as with tooth decay or tight outfits, or to take advantage from it, as with skin products that need time to act. Furthermore, sleeping rituals are most pleasurable and valuable when they themselves take time and slow you down: going to sleep is about winding down, shifting to a different rhythm, moving away from the mindset of doing, and toward the mindset of simply existing. When we go to sleep, we retreat from wakefulness, and withdraw from a demanding reality. Being awake and conscious means facing a lot of stimuli, being constantly exposed to a flurry of thoughts, emotions, desires, anxieties. It means being always present to oneself, as Helena, a character in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, tells us: ‘And, sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.’
When I talked to a friend about this particular advantage that sleep brings, she exclaimed excitedly: ‘Yes, not having to deal with people is so nice!’ She is no misanthrope: she likes to hang out with friends and is quite sociable; but she also needs recharging alone time. She can choose to stay at home, of course, but she told me that what she likes about having to sleep is that she doesn’t need to choose between going out and staying home. Choices themselves can be tiresome, at times even exhausting or paralysing. She went on to tell me how much she values the ‘nestling’ involved in sleeping, and the possibility of putting her brain to rest completely. Her husband, who was listening in, commented: ‘There’s value in oblivion.’ Both of them are intellectuals who relish mental and physical activity and who engage in many meaningful enterprises. Yet both of them find value in completely refraining as well.
Many articles in praise of sleeping end up reducing it to a tool for higher productivity
This celebration of sleep evokes recent critiques of unbridled capitalism – a rejection of hyper-productivity, often associated with exploitative labour practices. In his Aeon essay, the political theorist Jonathan White has shown that sleeping in sync with our natural circadian rhythms is a matter of political justice. Not only does poor sleep often accompany socioeconomic inequality, it also detracts from the capacity to cope with difficult life circumstances. ‘Poor sleep is a corrosive disadvantage – one that yields more of the same,’ he writes. White advocates for what he calls ‘circadian justice’, which would require a radical, but not impossible, restructuring of society so that everyone’s circadian rhythms are respected, and people are free to choose work schedules that suit their needs.
But, like a lot of current discussion on the importance of sleep, White’s analysis too ends up viewing sleeping as a form of rest – something that a magical rest pill could hypothetically provide. As Benjamin Reiss writes in Wild Nights (2017), a book devoted to the history of sleep and its cultural importance:
For much of human history, sleep had profound spiritual meanings, many of which have been snuffed out as sleep was tamed in the modern world … our society seems to have radically restricted its meanings to the realm of medicine, hygiene, economics, and psychology: we need sleep – and we need to do it the right way – to be healthy, productive, and well-adjusted.
So many articles in praise of sleeping end up reducing it to a tool for higher productivity, and this is not a new trend; a medically oriented New York Times article, entitled ‘In Defense of the Nap: Productivity, from A to Zzzzzzzzz’ was published back in 1986.
I am actually a big believer in ‘power naps’, which are meant to be restorative, without making one sluggish or groggy; I have mastered the art of sleeping for 10 or 15 minutes at the most, which seem to be enough to ‘recharge’ me. But it is important to remember that humans aren’t batteries.
The poet David Whyte writes:
Rest is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be … To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we are there to put it right; to rest is to fall back literally or figuratively from outer targets and shift the goal not to an inner static bull’s eye, an imagined state of perfect stillness, but to an inner state of natural exchange.
I discovered Whyte’s poetry thanks to one of my yoga teachers, who often reads passages from his books in the final phase of class, when students lie down in śavāsana (corpse pose). There is a non-coincidental resonance between my praise of sleep and the emphasis put on sheer being in the context of Buddhist mindfulness meditation practice. Yet, Whyte talks about rest as an overall active state, and one that aims at preparing the self for a more authentic and engaged life: ‘rested, we care again for the right things and the right people in the right way.’ Similarly, the authors Octavia Raheem and Tricia Hersey poignantly defend the importance of rest and self-care practices as instrumental to dismantling oppressive structures and rebuilding a society that is more just, compassionate and humane.
Sleeping is intrinsically valuable because it involves the experience of radical vulnerability
I share their aims and try to follow their strategies, but I am making a slightly different point, one that shifts our perspective from valuing sleeping and rest instrumentally, for what they can do for us, to valuing them for their own sake. The very fact that we need sleep is valuable in itself, insofar as it is a testimony to our nature as human beings: embodied beings, animal beings, imperfect beings, vulnerable beings.
Contemporary philosophers have provided an ethical framework in which to situate this type of appreciation of sleep. In The Case Against Perfection (2007), Michael Sandel argues that accepting and even embracing our imperfections by refusing various forms of enhancement may increase our humility and social solidarity. And there are other reasons to be sceptical of enhancements as radical as getting rid of the need for sleeping. Remember that all animals (or at least all animals who have brains) sleep. Some of us are tempted by the idea of distancing ourselves from the animal condition: of getting physically stronger and younger, of preventing all disease, degeneration and, ultimately, even death, as proponents of transhumanism would have it.
But philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum have argued that it is precisely because of our physical and emotional vulnerability that we value the things we value. It’s because our loved ones can reject us, or die, that human love is so valuable (and the reason why gods look for love among mortals!) In The Fragility of Goodness (1986), she writes that the most central human values ‘cannot be found in a life without shortage, risk, need, and limitation. Their nature and their goodness are constituted by the fragile nature of human life.’
In this sense, sleeping is intrinsically valuable because it involves the experience of radical vulnerability. When we sleep, we are first and foremost living beings – we are not, and ought not to be, machines in perpetual motion, constantly recharging and plugged in. We are animals inhabiting a planet in a solar system, with lives shaped by natural rhythms that stem from its particular characteristics: alternating seasons, days and nights. We find beauty in the in-between moments of sunset and dawn; we appreciate the differences between seasons. Sleeping’s underlying biological need is not a weakness to be remedied, or a limitation to overcome, but a fact of our nature that gives rise to valuable interpersonal and aesthetic activities and is also valuable in itself. If we never slept, our lives would be deprived of an important source of meaning and goodness.
