Thu, 28 Mar, 2024

Trying To Sleep

By Prakriti Shree Tuladhar

Let us start with three points:

  1. A day has 24 hours; half of which is 12 hours.

  2. Each 24 hours has a day and a night.

  3. Any living thing has 2 basic states; asleep and awake.

So then, using the basic concepts of discrete structure, a human must have been designed for 12 hours of wake time at day and 12 hours of sleep time at night.

Simple reasoning.

But it is not to be.

Why?

The answer lies in the following few lines.

The earth is said to be round. But actually, it’s a sphere with flatten poles. So, with the rotation and revolution of the earth and a lot of other science bits mixed in, we do not get 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark. The day and night varies from region to region of the earth. (It seems even mother earth is not so into equality)

So, the conclusion to the article up till now, what the writer has been trying to reach for ages it seems, is that people need to be awake as equally as people need to be asleep. That’s all every living thing does. They either spent their time awake or asleep.

Wake up.

Sleep.

Repeat.

Now, imagine a scenario. It’s past midnight. You have a test early in the morning. But before that you have puja at 5.30 in the am. And you just can’t fall asleep.

You try counting sleep. You try prayers. You even try.

Breathing in.

Breathing out.

Repeat.

But you still can’t sleep. Then what?

Then like any other person, you give up. You let wakefulness win for a while. (Yes, wakefulness a word...apparently)

So, you get out of bed. Use your phone. Put on earplugs. Listen to some slow sleepy music. Read a book (preferably Nepali) and try to feel sleepy. But someone’s online, the playlist is not shuffle and starts playing a dance number, the book turns out to be very interesting and sleep is now a distant friend.

When that happens, the universe kicks it.

It gives you a sign. It may switch off the lights (with a little help from Nepal Electricity Authority). It may switch off your phone (you’ve used to too long so the battery is finished). It may drop a big twist in the story, so that your favorite character dies (as in the trend nowadays).

The universe is kind. It’s telling you to go to bed now because sleep is on its way.

If you take the sign and go to bed, congratulations. You’re asleep now.

If you don’t, there are two options:

  1. You don’t get any sleep at all. Congratulations. You are going to have a hard time all day tomorrow.

  2. You get a second sign. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP SO LATE? CAN’T SLEEP RE? IF YOU DON’T EVEN TRY TO SLEEP, HOW WILL YOU BE ABLE TO SLEEP?!”

After that, you go to bed and stay in bed. Congratulations. You’re asleep now.