The Lifehacker article is brief. If you want something deeper, I recommend Wendy M. Troxel’s recent book “Sharing the Covers”. The author acknowledges the term

The Lifehacker article is brief. If you want something deeper, I recommend Wendy M. Troxel’s recent book “Sharing the Covers”. The author acknowledges the term “sleep divorce” and suggests alternatives, as the book is also about the mental and overall health of close relationships. In Mahatma Gandhi’s 1921 book “A Guide to Health” chapter IX he states: “It is not enough to observe the laws of health as regards air, water, and food. The man should altogether cease to sleep in privacy with his wife. Little reflection is needed to show that the only possible motive for privacy between man and wife is the desire for sexual enjoyment. They should sleep apart at night, and be incessantly engaged in good works during the day. They should read such books as fill them with noble thoughts and mediate over the lives of great men, and live in the constant realisation of the fact that sensual enjoyment is the root of all disease. Whenever they feel a prompting for enjoyment, they should bathe in cold water, so that the heat of passion may be cooled down, and be refined into the energy of virtuous activity. This is a hard thing to do, but we have been born into this world that we might wrestle with difficulties and temptations, and conquer them; and he who has not the will to do it can never enjoy the supreme blessing of true health.” Well. He might overreach here, and in other parts of the book I question whether science supports his claims, but we’re a diverse bunch of individuals; experiment and see what works. His admonishment to breathe only through the nose is, erm, on the nose according to James Nestor and his journalism in his recent book “Breath” where he and another person went ten days with their noses plugged, for science. Back to sleeping: I find it helpful to sleep alone, in part because I’m sensitive to touch and sometimes find it tough to return to sleep once disturbed. Being rested is even more important now that I’m responsibly for a child. It took some adjustment, but since my partner is more of an owl to my lark, and we both like our private time for recharging, and we are still attracted to each other to the point of distraction from virtuous activity, sleeping apart continues to be a healthy move.