---
title: "How to sleep well and fall asleep fast: life hacks from Zarathustra"
author: "Stan Voo"
url: https://www.99rabbits.com/blog/how-to-sleep-well-life-hacks-from-zarathustra
published: 2011-08-17
summary: "Overcome yourself ten times a day, and don't call for sleep at night. Nietzsche's guide to sleeping well, which I thought worth a repost."
---

# How to sleep well and fall asleep fast: life hacks from Zarathustra

> It is no small art to know how to sleep: for that you must stay awake all day.
>
> **Ten times a day you must overcome yourself**: that overcoming brings a pleasant weariness and is poppy for the soul.
>
> **Ten times a day you must make peace with yourself again**: for overcoming is a grievance, and the unreconciled sleep badly.
>
> **Ten times a day you must find a truth**, or else you will look for it at night as well, and your soul will stay hungry.
>
> **Ten times a day laugh and be merry**, so that at night your stomach, that father of sorrow, does not trouble you.
>
> Few know this truth: to sleep well, one must have all the virtues. Shall I bear false witness? Shall I commit adultery?
>
> Shall I let myself covet my neighbor's maidservant? None of that would go well with good sleep.
>
> And even if you have all the virtues, do not forget one thing: **know when to send your virtues to sleep**.
>
> So that they do not quarrel with one another, these dear little gossips, and over you of all people, you wretch!
>
> Be at peace with God and with your neighbor: good sleep demands it. And be at peace with your neighbor's devil too! Otherwise he will visit you at night.
>
> Honor your superiors and obey them, even if they prefer to walk crooked! Good sleep demands it. Is it your fault that power walks on lame legs?
>
> The best shepherd shall be the one who grazes his sheep on the fattest meadows: for that is how he wins good sleep.
>
> I want neither great honors nor great riches: they inflame the spleen. But one sleeps well with a good name and a little treasure.
>
> Better a small company than a bad one: but everyone must come and go at the right time. That makes for good sleep.
>
> I am fond of the poor in spirit: they help one sleep. Blessed are they, especially if one always agrees that they are right.
>
> So passes the day of the virtuous. **But when night comes, I take care not to summon sleep**; he does not like to be summoned, sleep, the lord of the virtues!
>
> **I only think over what I did and thought during the day.** Patiently, like a cow, I chew it all over, asking myself: what were my ten overcomings?
>
> And the ten reconciliations, and the ten truths, and the ten times I laughed and gladdened my heart?
>
> And while I ponder and weigh all these forty thoughts, sleep suddenly overtakes me, the uninvited lord of the virtues.
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> He taps on my eyelids, and they grow heavy; he touches my mouth, and it stays open.
>
> Truly, on soft feet he comes to me, the dearest of thieves, and steals my thoughts: and I stand there as dumb as this lectern.
>
> [http://www.psylib.ukrweb.net/books/nitzf01/txt08.htm](http://www.psylib.ukrweb.net/books/nitzf01/txt08.htm)

To be honest, I understand little of Nietzsche's *Zarathustra*, but every now and then something gets through that I can follow. I think this guide deserves a repost.