I first began thinking about sleep by watching my mother struggle with it. There were nights when I would notice that she was awake long after everyone else had gone to bed. At the time, I did not think too deeply about it. Sleep was simply something I assumed would happen when the day was over.
Years later, I started noticing the same struggle around me. Friends, people my age, and even younger people would talk about lying in bed with a tired body but a mind that refused to slow down. The more I heard these conversations, the more familiar they began to feel.
It made me wonder whether our problem with sleep was only about sleep.
Because when I looked at our days, I realised how rarely we stop.
We Are Tired, But Are We Ever Still?
Our phones come with us everywhere. We check messages while waiting, watch something while eating, listen to something while walking, and scroll when there is nothing else happening. Even moments that could naturally be quiet are often filled.
I began noticing this in myself too. Whenever there was a small gap in my day, I would instinctively reach for something. A phone. A conversation. Something to read. Something to listen to.
None of these things seemed harmful on their own. But together, they are left very little space in which the mind was simply allowed to be.
And then came bedtime.
After an entire day of activity and stimulation, I would expect the mind to suddenly become quiet because it was time to sleep. Looking back, that expectation seems almost strange.
Perhaps the mind also needs a transition.
Yoga Made Me Question What “Switching Off” Really Means
My understanding of this began changing through yoga.
One idea that stayed with me was pratyahara, often described as turning the senses inward. I had understood the concept intellectually before, but over time I started experiencing it differently.
I began to see that turning inward was not necessarily about escaping the world. It was about becoming less dependent on everything outside me to keep my attention occupied.
That made me think about how often I was looking outward without even realising it.
A sound would catch my attention. A notification would interrupt me. A thought would lead to another thought. I would follow each one without asking whether I needed to.
Yoga made me more curious about this movement of attention.
Patanjali’s idea of citta vritti-the fluctuations or movements of the mind-started feeling less like something I was reading about and more like something I could observe in everyday life.
I began noticing that my mind did not always need to be controlled. Sometimes, it simply needed fewer things to react to.
That was a very different way of thinking about rest.
Maybe Rest Begins Before Bedtime
I started experimenting with small things rather than trying to completely change my routine.
Sometimes, I would take a walk without my phone. I would eat without automatically reaching for a screen. I would sit quietly for a few minutes instead of immediately filling the silence.
At first, these moments felt surprisingly uncomfortable.
That discomfort itself taught me something.
I realised how accustomed I had become to stimulation. Silence had not disappeared from my life; I had simply stopped allowing much room for it.
Slowly, those small pauses began to feel less uncomfortable.
I started seeing rest differently too. Rest was not necessarily something that happened when I finally fell asleep. It could begin in the middle of the day, in those brief moments when I stopped asking my mind to process one more thing.
What Yoga Taught Me About Letting Go
There is another reason I think yoga has something meaningful to say about sleep.
We cannot force ourselves to fall asleep in the same way we force ourselves to finish a task. The harder we try to make sleep happen, the more aware we can become of being awake.
There is a certain amount of letting go involved.
Yoga has taught me that not everything needs to be controlled. Sometimes we observe the breath instead of changing it. We notice a sensation without immediately reacting. We allow a thought to come and go without following it.
That way of practising slowly changed how I understood rest.
Perhaps switching off does not mean making the mind completely empty. Perhaps it means becoming less compelled to follow every thought, every notification, and every impulse for stimulation.
I Am Still Learning to Be Still
When I think about my mother’s struggles with sleep now, I understand them differently. And when I look at my own generation, I see a strange contradiction. We have more convenience than ever yet being still can sometimes feel surprisingly difficult.
I do not think technology is the enemy, and I do not think we need to escape modern life. What I think we need is a better relationship with stimulation.
To know when to engage and when to step back. When to consume and when to observe. When to keep going and when to allow we to stop.
Yoga has taught me that rest is not simply something that happens to us at night. In some ways, it is a relationship we build with ourselves throughout the day.
I am still learning that.
But perhaps that is the point.
Maybe the ability to switch off is not something we suddenly discover when our head reaches the pillow.
Maybe it is something we practise, little by little, every time we choose to leave a moment empty.
And perhaps sometimes, the most important thing we can give a tired mind is not another answer, another activity, or another distraction.
Just a little space to be still.
