Because losing sleep is not a badge of honour — it’s a mental health crisis.

Put  your hand up you’ve ever said — or heard someone — ‘Main toh raat ko 1-2 baje tak kaam karta hoon’ like it’s something to be proud of. We live in a culture that glorifies hustle and silently punishes rest.

Sleeping 8 – 9 hours is seen as laziness. Pulling an all-nighter is seen as dedication. And somewhere in that upside-down thinking, millions of us have quietly broken our relationship with sleep.

Today, on World Sleep Day, I want to gently challenge that narrative. As a psychologist, I see every single day how profoundly sleep — or the lack of it — shapes mental health. And the numbers from our own country are deeply worrying.

“India is the second most sleep-deprived country in the world right after Japan.”

That’s not a statistic from some distant land. That’s us. That’s you, your colleague, your mother who wakes up at 5 AM after sleeping at midnight, and the teenager in your home who’s scrolling till 2 AM.

The Real Picture: How India is (Not) Sleeping

A large national survey called ‘How India Sleeps’ studied over 41,000 Indians across 309 districts. Here’s what they found:

• 61% of Indians get less than 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep — and this number has risen every year since 2022
• 26% say their sleep quality has gotten worse since COVID and has not recovered
• 72% of Indians wake up one to three times a night
• 55% of Indians are sleeping past midnight — up sharply from earlier years
• 1 in 3 Indians suspects they have insomnia but has never consulted a doctor about it

NIMHANS, Bengaluru — one of our most respected mental health institutions — found that one-third of Indians suffer from severe insomnia

And yet, most of us would say we’re ‘fine’. That’s the real problem — we have normalised exhaustion so completely that we no longer recognise it as a problem.

What Sleeplessness Does to Your Mind

Sleep isn’t just a time for your body to rest. It is when your brain does its most important work: putting away the day’s feelings, getting rid of harmful waste, and restoring the delicate chemical balance that keeps you mentally healthy.
During REM sleep, your brain literally processes emotional experiences and helps you “make sense” of stress, grief, and other hard feelings. Think of it as a way to reset your emotions every night. If you don’t deal with your feelings, they just keep piling up.

In simple terms, this is what not getting enough sleep for a long time does to your mental health: • Your anxiety goes up because the amygdala, which is the brain’s alarm system, works too hard. This makes you more reactive, more scared, and more easily overwhelmed.
• You are more likely to get depressed. Studies show that chronic insomnia can make you up to 10 times more likely to get clinical depression.
• Your memory, focus, and ability to make decisions suffer. 58% of Indians who don’t get enough sleep say their work is noticeably less productive. • You become less emotionally strong; little things that wouldn’t normally bother you now do, and you react strongly to them.
• Sleep quality is closely linked to conditions like anxiety disorders, PTSD, ADHD, and bipolar disorder.

And here’s something that really worries me about Indian women: a government survey from 2024 found that working women sleep a lot less than men because they have to do more chores after work. Sleep deprivation in India is not merely an individual health concern. It is a social one.

The first thing I look into when my clients come to me tired, burned out, or anxious is their sleep. It’s almost always the missing piece.

Your Sleep Hygiene Routine — Practical & India-Friendly

Good sleep hygiene doesn’t mean buying expensive gadgets or following some Western routine that doesn’t fit your life. It means small, consistent habits that work with your biology. Here’s what actually helps:

  2–3 Hours Before Bed: Start Winding Down

• Fix a sleep time and stick to it — yes, even on Sundays. Your body clock (circadian rhythm) loves consistency above everything else
• Dim your lights after dinner. Bright lights tell your brain ‘it’s still daytime’, blocking melatonin — your natural sleep hormone
• Avoid chai or coffee after 3 PM. Caffeine has a half-life of 5–6 hours — that evening cup is still in your system at midnight
• Don’t eat heavy meals close to bedtime. Your body is trying to cool down to sleep — digesting a full meal works against that

  30 Minutes Before Bed: Create a Signal to Your Brain

• Keep your phone away — not just face-down, away. The blue light suppresses melatonin and the content (news, reels, WhatsApp) activates your nervous system
• Try the 4-7-8 breathing: breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 7, breathe out slowly for 8. This activates your body’s rest response in minutes
• Write a ‘tomorrow list’ — jot down whatever is on your mind and any small actions for the next day. This helps your brain stop ruminating and ‘let go’
• A warm shower before bed helps — as your body cools down afterwards, it mimics the natural temperature drop that triggers sleep

 Your Sleep Environment Matters More Than You Think

• Keep your room as dark as possible. Even small lights from chargers or streetlamps disrupt sleep quality
• Cool, quiet, and dark — this is the ideal sleep environment. If heat is an issue, a fan or cool shower before bed helps enormously
• Use your bed only for sleeping. Not for work, not for scrolling, not for watching shows. Train your brain to associate your bed with rest

  Morning Rituals That Protect Tonight’s Sleep

• Step into sunlight within 30 minutes of waking — natural morning light resets your circadian clock and boosts serotonin for the day
• Resist checking your phone the moment you wake up. Give yourself even 5–10 quiet minutes before the world rushes in
• Avoid napping after 3 PM if you struggle with night-time sleep — it reduces your ‘sleep pressure’ and makes it harder to fall asleep at night.

When to Get Help : Please see a mental health professional if you’ve been having trouble sleeping for more than three weeks, waking up tired after being in bed for hours, or noticing that not getting enough sleep is affecting your mood, relationships, or work. You can get help for your insomnia. You don’t have to “make do” with less sleep.
There are fewer than 500 trained sleep specialists in India for 1.4 billion people. But a good psychologist or psychiatrist can make a big difference, and you are worth the money.

A Note to You, From Me

Sleep is not lazy. Sleep is not a waste of time. Sleep is the foundation of your mental health — and honestly, it may be the most loving thing you can do for yourself tonight.

You don’t have to overhaul your entire life. Start small. Pick one thing from this list — just one. Put your phone in another room tonight. Breathe slowly before you close your eyes. Step into sunlight tomorrow morning.

Small shifts, done consistently, can change everything.

Rest is not the opposite of productivity. Rest is what makes everything else possible.