Question:
Answer:
Managing sleep requires managing both body and spirit. When the quality of sleep improves, the amount needed decreases.
Suggested regimen:
Follow a regular diet.
Avoid overburdening the body and its limbs by paying attention to the type, quality, and quantity of food. Avoid unnecessary and excessive physical or mental activity, and so on.
Set and observe regular times for going to sleep and staying awake. For example, going to bed at the right time makes sleep more restorative; it is best to go to bed about three hours after the evening call to prayer.
Sleep in a suitable position and facing the right direction: on your right side, facing the qibla, while allowing the body to turn naturally during the night.
Avoid sleeping in an unsuitable position or at an inappropriate time. Poorly timed sleep is not merely unhelpful; it also adds to fatigue, sluggishness, lethargy, and wasted time.
It is best to wake before dawn and remain awake during the period between the two dawns.
Sleeping from late afternoon until the evening prayer is discouraged except when necessary; this kind of sleep adds to strain and fatigue.
The midday nap is a deeply restorative and beneficial sleep. Though brief, it can have the effects of several hours of deep sleep. It is taken between noon and late afternoon.
The mind should be cleared of pointless concerns to improve the quality of rest and sleep.
Supplication before sleep, repentance before sleep, and taking account of oneself before sleep calm the heart and enhance the quality of sleep!
If we have harmed someone or something, or spent too much time caught up in worldly, frivolous, and idle pursuits, these open the way to negative forces and affect our sleep, making it difficult, troubled by illusions, and full of nightmares. Such sleep brings neither peace nor ease; instead, it increases anxiety and distress.
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A gift from *Tuḥfat al-Darmān*
Manage your waking and sleeping.
Unnecessary sleep deprivation causes the brain to age, while well-managed sleep helps rejuvenate it. Too much sleep makes the brain sluggish and debilitated. Remember: regulating sleep means bringing order to life.
Staying awake for God lends dignity to your sleep and makes the sleep that follows a night spent in worship as precious as a ruby. This is the most sacred and beneficial kind of sleep.
Staying awake for amusement and frivolity turns the sleep that follows into a plaything of the devils; and when wakefulness is spent in sin, sleep becomes a cesspool of the spirit.
Good sleep is possible only at the right time and in the right way. Sleeping in an unsuitable position, at an unsuitable time, or in an unsuitable environment harms both body and spirit.
The darkness of night is essential to its tranquillity. Unnecessary light at night deprives us of peace.
Neglecting the daylight and the darkness of night disrupts the body’s biological clock and can lead to depression and illness.
A person burns more calories while sleeping than while watching a scene, so do not forget the energy your body uses during sleep.
Death caused by lack of sleep comes sooner than death caused by hunger. It is generally held that a person dies after ten days without sleep, whereas death from starvation may take several weeks.
Let us remember that by sleep we mean proper, complete sleep. A person may lie down, yet only part of the body may actually be in a state of sleep. Someone may appear to sleep for six hours but experience only one hour of true sleep. Sleep, then, must be revitalised. Human sleep, too, can become weak and unhealthy.