Sleep feeds the body: what the old book says
Charaka Samhita, Sutra Sthana, chapter 21, verses 36–38: good sleep gives happiness, nourishment (food for the body), strength, manliness, knowledge and long life. Bad sleep, or no sleep, gives sadness, a starved body, weakness, dullness and death.
Verses 11–12, the causes of a thin body: among them, "too little sleep", along with dry food, eating too little, sadness and anger.
Verse 29, the cure for the thin person starts with: "Sleep, cheerfulness, a comfortable bed, a happy and relaxed mind, no worry." The milk, ghee, rice and urad come after that.
Look at what bad sleep gives: a starved body. Two thousand years ago, the link between poor sleep and a thin body was already written down. A thin person who sleeps five hours is skipping the first item on his own cure.
Day sleep in Ayurveda: who may nap, who may not
Card: who may nap in the day (summer, the thin, the old, children, the tired traveller, the student) and who should not (the heavy, the oily eater)
The same nap is medicine for one body and harm for another.
People get this wrong both ways. "Ayurveda says no day sleep" is only half the rule.
Who may sleep in the day (verses 39–42): everyone in summer, because the nights are short. And in any season: people tired out by singing, study, hard work or walking; people with a weak stomach, injuries, a very thin body, great thirst, loose motions, stomach pain or breathing trouble; people tired after a long journey; people upset in the mind; and old people and children.
Who should not (verses 44–47): fat people, people who eat a lot of oily food every day, people whose body or illness is of the heavy, slow, cold-and-cough kind, and people whose stomach is full of undigested food. For them, day sleep brings headache, body pain, heaviness and loss of hunger.
So the rule is not "no naps". It is "no naps for the fat, naps allowed for the thin". The "very thin body" in the first list is you. A short nap after lunch is on your side. For your heavier cousin, the same nap works against him.
Sleep and weight gain: less sleep, more junk food
Here is the twist. New science says less sleep makes people gain weight. That sounds like good news for a thin person. It is not. Here is why.
A study on 12 healthy young men (USA, 2004). They spent two nights with only 4 hours in bed, and two nights with 10 hours. After the short nights, the body's "I am full" signal fell 18%, the "I am hungry" signal rose 28%, and hunger rose 24%. And what they wanted was not dal-roti. It was "candy, cookies and cake", "chips", "bread and pasta". Sweets, namkeen, maida.
The US health agency (CDC) says sleeping under 7 hours is linked to more obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure.
So yes, less sleep adds weight. But it adds a soft belly from sugar and chips eaten at midnight, on a body that stays thin everywhere else. That is the "thin arms, big belly" result we warned about in how to gain weight without belly fat. A body without sleep is hungry for the wrong things, and has no rest in which to build the right ones.
The old books on lost sleep: yawning, body ache, heavy head and eyes, stiffness, tiredness, dizziness and weak digestion. A thin person with weak digestion cannot use the food he eats. Sleep comes before the plate.
How many hours of sleep to gain weight
American sleep doctors (the American Academy of Sleep Medicine), quoted by the US health agency, say adults aged 18 to 60 should "sleep at least 7 hours each night".
For a thin person doing the strength exercise in this series, aim for 7 to 8 hours at night. Add a short nap after lunch if you can. The nap is not laziness. For the thin, the old books order it.
Sleep and weight gain: a bedtime routine
Time | Do this | Why |
|---|---|---|
By 8 pm | Dinner, warm and soft: rice, dal, ghee, or khichdi | In a small study, a late heavy dinner raised the night-time sugar peak by 18% and cut fat burning by 10%. The old books also want the stomach settled before sleep. |
After dinner | Sit a while, then a short slow walk | Sushruta: sit like a king, then walk a little |
9:30 pm | Warm oil massage on the feet and head, twice a week the whole body | Oil massage is on the old books' list for the thin person |
10 pm | A glass of warm full-cream milk | Milk is first on the old books' list for the thin. No honey in hot milk (honey is never heated) |
10:15 pm | Phone out of the room | The old book asks for a "relaxed mind" and "no worry". The phone gives the opposite. |
10:30 pm | Lights off, 7 to 8 hours | Sleep doctors say at least 7 |
How to take the afternoon nap
- After lunch, not instead of it. Eat the full plate, sit a few minutes, then lie down.
- Short. 20 to 30 minutes. Set an alarm. A two-hour sleep in the afternoon steals the night.
- Only if you are on the allowed list. Thin, tired, old, young, getting better after an illness, or in summer. If your weight is already normal and the belly is growing, you have moved to the other list. Stop the nap.
- Stop the nap when the weight has come. The old books allow it for the very thin. When you are no longer very thin, the rule changes. That is the whole point.
Sleep and weight gain: seven hours at night, a short nap after lunch, and the food you eat finally gets time to become a body.
Pair it with five meals a day. If appetite is what fails you, Ayuvya's i-Gain is made from Ayurvedic herbs for appetite and nourishment, with a diet chart that already has the bedtime milk and the early dinner in it. See i-Gain, or read the Indian diet chart for weight gain.
This article is for general information. It is not medical advice. If you cannot sleep for weeks, or feel sleepy all day despite a full night, see a doctor; both can be signs of illness. The day-nap advice is for underweight adults who are otherwise healthy.
Sources
- Charaka Samhita Online, "Nidra" (sleep): Charaka Sutra Sthana 21/36–38 (benefits of sleep), 21/39–42 (who may sleep in the day), 21/44–47 (who should not), 7/23 and Ashtanga Sangraha Sutra 9/37 (effects of lost sleep). carakasamhitaonline.com
- Charaka Samhita, Sutra Sthana 21 (Ashtauninditiya Adhyaya): 21/11–12 causes of thinness; 21/29–34 treatment of the thin, including sleep, bed, oil massage, milk. carakasamhitaonline.com
- University of Chicago Medicine. Sleep loss boosts appetite, may encourage weight gain (Spiegel K and colleagues, Annals of Internal Medicine, 7 December 2004; 12 men; leptin −18%, ghrelin +28%, appetite +24%). uchicagomedicine.org
- US CDC press release, 2016: 1 in 3 adults don't get enough sleep (AASM and Sleep Research Society: at least 7 hours for adults 18–60; short sleep linked to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure). archive.cdc.gov
- Gu C and colleagues. Metabolic effects of late dinner in healthy volunteers, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2020 (20 adults; 10 pm vs 6 pm; peak glucose +18%, fat oxidation −10%), as reported by the Endocrine Society. endocrine.org
- Sushruta Samhita, on sitting comfortably after meals and then walking a little (as quoted in the Journal of Ethnic Foods, 2019). link.springer.com
