A person should not encourage himself to sleep and even if he feels sleep overtaking him, he should force himself and stand up and put his bare feet on the cold floor and wash his face until he accustoms himself to very small quantities of sleep as habit becomes nature. He should command all of his household members that they should stand on guard to make sure to wake him up in the morning at least for prayers. It goes without saying that once he wakes up he should not be lazy or turn over in his bed until he falls asleep again or stay there until the time for praying is past G-d forbid.
It is correct for every person to strengthen himself to arise like a warrior and to fortify himself to arise very early to serve Hashem. If someone lies down to sleep at the beginning of the night and is unable to fall asleep he should not turn in his bed for an hour or two in order to grab sleep with his hands. Instead, he should arise and delve into the Torah until such time as the sleep comes by itself. For all of the time that he can remain awake and delve into the Torah, he should force himself to do this and he should imagine to himself that he is about to make a deal from which he will earn a million gold coins in which case he will have no desire to sleep for many days and nights, and how much more so for the sake of learning the Torah and giving pleasure to one’s Creator as one hour of Torah and good deeds in this world is worth more than all of the life in the next world. There will come days when there is no more will-after his death-and then he can sleep as much as he desires. A person should know that he can achieve everything that he really wants to but that the beginnings are always hard and the reward is in direct proportion to the pain.
