Kamal Ghorui
Picture this: a movie star and a mystic are sitting across from each other. Alia Bhatt says she likes her nine hours of sleep. Sadhguru says he now sleeps around four to four-and-a-half hours, and earlier, even less. Then comes the line that made half the internet combust: “When do you live?”
And just like that, the script was written for him. Alia became the exhausted working mother doing “real work.” Sadhguru became the conveniently serene man who “just sits and meditates.” It is a neat narrative. It is also lazy. Because if you look at Sadhguru’s public footprint for even ten minutes, the theory starts collapsing under its own weight. His platforms continue to show a relentless stream of talks, programs, interviews, retreats, and public engagements. This is the same person behind movements like Save Soil, Conscious Planet, and Cauvery Calling, alongside long-running formats like Youth and Truth, Lap of the Master, and Conversations with the Mystic, where he speaks to all kinds of people for hours. Save Soil alone involved a 100-day, 30,000-kilometer ride across 27 countries. That is not the digital trail of a man in decorative stillness. That is the schedule of someone operating across time zones, institutions, audiences, and causes. And what is visible is obviously only the surface; what happens behind the scenes must be many times more.
So this is not about whether Alia works hard. Of course she does. The point is sharper than that. People rushed to assume that visible fatigue is the proof of “real work,” and that physical busyness is the only valid expenditure of life. That assumption is exactly what the yogic lens challenges. A person may be doing immense work and still not look chronically frayed – not because they are doing less, but because their inner mechanics are more efficient.
That brings us to sleep.
Biologically, sleep is the body’s major repair shift. During sleep, the brain cycles through stages that support energy regulation, tissue repair, immune balance, memory consolidation, emotional processing, and metabolic cleanup. Deep non-REM sleep is closely tied to physical restoration. REM sleep is heavily involved in emotional processing, memory integration, and learning. That is why bad sleep hits everything at once: mood, immunity, concentration, patience, appetite, and resilience. Sleep is not laziness. Sleep is maintenance.
Now the real question: can yogic practice improve that maintenance?
The strongest evidence around Inner Engineering and Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya shows something important: better stress regulation, better subjective sleep quality, and better overall recovery. A 2022 Frontiers study on Inner Engineering found significant reductions in perceived stress and improvements in sleep quality and mindfulness after six weeks. The researchers used validated scales, including the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, not vague “felt good” impressions. A separate 2017 study on Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya found that after six weeks of daily 21-minute practice, participants reported significantly lower perceived stress and higher general well-being. That paper also reviewed prior pranayama research showing links with lower stress, improved heart rate variability, better autonomic balance, and stronger cognitive performance. In simple terms: the body becomes less trapped in emergency mode. And when that happens, rest starts doing its job properly.
Broader sleep science points in the same direction. A randomized clinical trial in JAMA Internal Medicine found that meditation improved sleep quality in older adults with moderate sleep disturbance, outperforming a sleep-hygiene program on several secondary outcomes, including fatigue, insomnia symptoms, and depression symptoms. A 2018 systematic review found moderate evidence that meditation improves sleep quality compared with nonspecific active controls. Then comes the really interesting part: sleep architecture. Some research suggests long-term meditators do not just sleep differently in terms of hours; they sleep differently in terms of quality and structure. Reviews on meditation and sleep have reported better-preserved slow-wave sleep and distinct REM-related changes in long-term meditators. That matters because the real question is not only how long you sleep. It is how well the system uses that sleep. A more regulated nervous system may simply need less recovery from its own chaos.
This is where Patanjali enters, and the shift from science to sutra is actually very smooth.
Patanjali’s foundational line is: योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः. Yoga is the stilling, restraint, or mastery of the fluctuations of the mind. Then he defines sleep itself: अभावप्रत्ययालम्बना वृत्तिर्निद्रा. Sleep is a vritti, a modification of the mind, resting on the experience of absence or voidness. Later, on pranayama, he says: ततः क्षीयते प्रकाशावरणम्: then the covering over the mind’s light becomes thinner. And next: धारणासु च योग्यता मनसः : the mind becomes fit for concentration.
That is not anti-sleep. It is more sophisticated than that. Patanjali is saying that when the mind is less agitated, less cloudy, and less compulsive, human energy is no longer leaking constantly through mental friction. A yogi is not “superhuman” because he hates sleep. A yogi may simply not waste as much life in inner turbulence. Better-regulated days create better-regulated nights. Better nights create greater capacity in the day.
That is what makes Sadhguru’s line to Alia more interesting than offensive. It was a provocation: if your life is precious, how much of it are you spending merely recovering from your own mess? And if there is a tool that can reduce stress, improve sleep quality, steady the mind, and make your system more efficient, why respond with outrage instead of curiosity?
Not “How dare he?”
But: what if he is pointing to a technology of life most people have never seriously tried?
Even Alia, in that moment, seemed open to the possibility. That is probably the smartest response in the room. Not outrage. Not defense. Just intelligence. If your life is demanding – whether you are on a film set, in a boardroom, running a home, or trying to hold yourself together through the week – the question is not whether you admire a yogi. The question is whether you want the kind of inner engineering that lets a human being sleep better, recover better, and therefore live more.
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