What celibate orders say about sleep and waking
Celibate orders are known for what they gave up and much less known for how they organised a day. The concepts below are all about the clock: when monastics rose, how the hours in between were filled, and why several traditions concluded that empty time, rather than desire, was the actual difficulty. A few of these name a text. Several are descriptions the library offers with no source behind them, and I have left those citations empty rather than supply one.
A brahmachari rises before the sun, bathes in cold water, and begins the day's study before the household even wakes
The Hindu student's discipline is built around timing: up before sunrise, cold water, and study begun before the rest of the household is awake.
Quanzhen monks and nuns lived in separate halls, rising before dawn for meditation and communal labor in equal measure
Men and women in Quanzhen Taoist houses lived in separate halls but kept an identical schedule, rising before dawn for the same round of meditation and shared labour.
A Taoist nun of the Quanzhen order tends the incense and sweeps the courtyard before dawn, her chores themselves a form of quiet cultivation
In the same order, tending incense and sweeping at first light count as the cultivation itself, not as chores that clear the way for it.
The monk's day is measured by bells calling to prayer seven times, leaving no hour for restlessness
Benedict divided the monastic day with prayer seven times over, taking the number from a psalm. The effect is that no long unshaped stretch of time is ever left lying about.
Psalm 119:164, quoted in the Rule of Saint Benedict, ch. 16
Idleness is the enemy of the soul, therefore the brothers should always be occupied in labor or in sacred reading
His reasoning is stated outright, which is why the Rule fills the gaps between prayers with manual labour and reading rather than with free hours.
Rule of Saint Benedict
Cassian taught that the wandering mind of the solitary monk is calmed not by fighting each thought directly, but by steady, humble daily labor
Cassian's remedy for restlessness is deliberately indirect: occupy the hands with steady, humble work instead of arguing with each thought as it comes.
The Institutes
Evagrius taught that the demon of lust is defeated less by argument than by simple, patient bodily discipline: fasting, vigil, and honest work
Evagrius is more specific again, treating sexual temptation as something managed by diet, sleep and labour rather than defeated by willpower or reasoning.
Praktikos
A monk's cell, Abba Moses said, teaches him everything he needs to know, if only he has the patience to stay in it
Abba Moses's instruction is to stay put and let the boredom do the teaching. It is advice about not leaving, and it is the hardest item on this list.
Apophthegmata Patrum
A wandering Jain monk sleeps on the bare ground and eats only what is freely offered, refusing anything specially prepared for him alone
A wandering Jain monk sleeps on the ground and eats only what is already offered, so that nobody prepares anything on his account.
A monk who keeps his precepts fully is said to sleep well, for there is nothing left undone that guilt might visit in the night
Theravada tradition holds that a monk whose discipline is complete sleeps easily, because nothing is left undone for guilt to raise at night. Sleep is treated here as evidence rather than as a goal.
What these share is a preference for structure over resolve. None of them trusts a person to manage an unshaped afternoon, and none treats good sleep as something arranged at bedtime. Whether you would want the life built around that conclusion is a separate question, and these concepts do not press it.