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As we age, our sleep needs change. The nights when we sleep more than we are awake become as precious as they are elusive.

How did you sleep last night? Did you sleep lavishly, temperature and temperament aligned, waking up with the sun? Or was it one of those stormy sea nights, dreams indistinguishable from the cares of waking life, matted blankets, eyes on the clock?

Sleep is mysterious, even if we try mightily to make it less. We use metaphors to describe it, newspapers to track it, pharmaceuticals to manipulate it. I spent a good decade trying to find the perfect pillow.

As we age, our sleep needs change. The forces working against our quiet seven to nine hours are multiplying. In my twenties, I decided that if I was going to lead a full and exciting life, I had to be comfortable going to work exhausted. It seemed, at the time, like a workable model. I didn't think too much about sleep. I thought about waking life, how to make the most of it, with only brief pit stops to refuel. Stayed out late, barely slept, woke up with the alarm a few hours later.

"By definition, if you use an alarm clock to wake you, then you're chronically sleep deprived," Penn Medicine sleep specialist Dr. Indira Gurubhagavatula told Dani Blum of The Times. If you get enough sleep, you'll wake up naturally when you're rested.

Now, in middle age, I'm determined to only rely on an alarm when I catch an early morning flight. Bedtime is sacred, and violating it requires a PowerPoint presentation outlining the risks and rewards and the return on investment. I'm still doing math now, talking about sleep like it's currency, always feeling lacking, hungry for more." The Sleep Debt Collectors are coming,” Oliver Whang wrote in The Times last year. “They want you to know there is no forgiveness, only a changing expectation of how and when you will repay them.”

I've recently asked people how well they sleep. Their answers are complicated. Even though we know we need to practice good sleep hygiene to be healthy and effective, I still sense a wicked stab of pride when people tell me they don't sleep well, as if they were the noble sentinels. of society, up all night. scanning the darkness for predators. Those who say they sleep well are a bit shy, as if their easy rest testifies to a mind that is too pampered, to a life that is too simple. One person said of sleep as an adult, “I just love sleeping more than ever. Does that make sense?"

I knew exactly what they meant. The older I get, the more grateful I am for all I can sleep I crave the overnight cleanup, the "taking out the trash" that happens in the brain while the body is out. A little nap works like restarting a computer; my system is out of whack, so I pass out, then wake a moment later, drained of useless data. I crave what Walt Whitman called "free flight into the wordless, / Far from books, far from art, day cleared, lesson over."

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