She was paid to sleep for two months—and walked away with ₹9.6 lakh

Imagine being paid nearly ₹10 lakh simply for sleeping well. For Mumbai’s Jiniya Chatterjee, that dream became reality after she won Wakefit’s fifth Sleep Internship—a 60-day contest that turned rest, routine and creativity into a ₹9.6 lakh prize, India Today reported.

"The love I have been receiving for my win at Wakefit Sleep Internship Season 5 is absolutely surreal!" she wrote in a LinkedIn post on Sunday.

Organised by home and furnishing company Wakefit, the Sleep Internship asked participants to make sleep their priority for around two months. The 10 finalists were selected from more than two lakh applicants across India.

Rather than working conventional office hours, participants were required to sleep for about nine hours each day, maintain regular sleep schedules and track their sleep patterns. Their daily sleep scores determined their positions on a leaderboard throughout the competition.

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More than just sleeping 

The contest was not solely about spending time in bed. Finalists also took part in creative weekly challenges, with the best performer each week earning the title of “Pro Sleeper of the Week.”

Among the named challenges was Sleep Cinema, in which participants recreated popular movie scenes with a sleep-related twist. Another task, Sleep Bingo, required contestants to assess and track their sleeping habits over a week.

In the Undercover Sleep Mission, participants had to casually use the words “blanket” or “pillow” 10 times during conversations without being caught. The quirky task tested how naturally they could weave sleep into everyday interactions.

The grand finale, called Big Bedd, featured two major challenges. In the Memory Foam Challenge, contestants studied reference images and had to recreate a bedroom arrangement from memory, testing observation, memory and teamwork.

The final task, the Sleep Auction, required finalists to bid from a limited pool of points for elements of their ideal sleeping environment—including pillows, blankets, air-conditioning settings, lighting and sound controls.

These tasks were designed to test participants’ creativity while reinforcing the importance of restful sleep.

How the winner was chosen 

At the end of the 60-day period, the organisers compared the participants’ final sleep scores. Chatterjee emerged with the highest score and was declared India’s “Sleep Champion".

Her prize included ₹9.6 lakh in cash and a Wakefit-sponsored vacation. It described the win as the culmination of a contest that combined sleep tracking, discipline and creative challenges.

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A growing competition

The Sleep Internship has become one of Wakefit’s best-known promotional campaigns. Across its first four seasons since its launch in 2019, the programme reportedly received more than 10 lakh applications, while 65 interns received stipends of ₹1 lakh each.