In Praise of Sleep

Man Ray: Sleeping Woman (1929) 

Museum of Modern Art, New York

What can one do, asks Nietzsche, when one succumbs to ennui and feels sick and tired of everything and everyone, including oneself -?

Some recommend drugs; others a stroll in the park. Still others say you should turn to Jesus.

Nietzsche, however, believes the best thing to counteract that awful mixture of boredom, fatigue, and depression is plenty of sleep – both real and metaphorical. Philosophy, a discipline born of idleness, teaches the importance of knowing how to nod off, in either sense, at the right time and in the right way.

Speaking as someone who has regularly compromised their sleep over the years, let me also affirm the vital necessity of a good night’s rest - and, indeed, of daytime naps. Sleep not only sharpens the mind and the senses, as neuroscientists confirm, but it makes happier, healthier, and more creative.

I was once rather disparaging about Tom Hodgkinson (click here), but I agree entirely with him that it’s an absolute certainty that in paradise, everyone naps.

Notes 

Nietzsche, Daybreak, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Cambridge University Press, 1982), IV. 376.

Tom Hodgkinson, How to be Idle, (Penguin Books, 2005); see in particular the sections on morning lie-ins, afternoon naps, and the joy of finally retiring to bed at the end of each day.