In contrast to humanist thinkers who equated sleep with carelessness, these writers draw on the ancient Stoic principle of —the process of orienting the living being toward its proper objects of care, beginning with itself—in asserting the value of sleep, while underscoring insomnia's threat to the ethical flourishing of persons and polity alike. Parris offers an important revaluation of Stoic philosophy, which has too often been misconstrued as renouncing feeling and sympathetic connection with others. With its striking new account of the reception of Stoicism and attitudes toward sleep and sleeplessness in early modern thought, reveals the period's mounting concern with the regenerative nature of physical life and its elaboration of a newfound ethics of care.