The sitch
You are struggling to sleep well. You want to wake up more early, consistently. You want to stop hitting snooze for 2 hours when nothing else is on in the morning. It’s not any easier when your partner is in the same boat as you.
The problem
Your sleep is shit. Why is your sleep ‘shit’? It is below your level of acceptable quality in some form, so it’s not the way you want it to be. So it’s shit. Reasons you identify it is shit:
- Wake up too late
- Wake up early, but too inconsistently
- Hitting snooze
- Not an issue when there are fixed events, but an issue when there are none
Why is shit sleep shit? Generally speaking shit sleep is shit because of the obvious: energy levels, mood, decision making, concentration, et cetera, et cetera.
In the above mentioned scenario where you wake up too late unless there are no events planned, the implications of shit sleep go much deeper. Why is the problem a problem? Why should you care about this?
What you take off the table
Assume a typical day. A workday, where you are up at 6am and are asleep by 10-11pm. Let’s ignore for now that we’re all trash who really sleep more like at 12-1am, and operate continuously on 5-7 hours of sleep. You only wake up at 6am, because that affords you enough time to get to your job that you start at 8am.
Now compare this to a weekend, where you sleep in until 9am-10am. You might feel great and well rested, but you’ve now made your weekend less useful to you by 3 hours. 3 hours sleeping in - spent ‘repaying’ a debt you’ve accumulated throughout the week, on one of the only 2 days of rest you get from work. Time away from your eternal errand list, time away from your family, time away from a large chunk of free, personal time. Simply put, you take away time to capitalise on opportunity and freedom. It’s already so short, and we make it shorter, because we manage ourselves in an unsustainable way that requires us to play catch up with our already limited spare time.
Further to this - you should realise that this opportunity of time is incredibly valuable. I’ll come back to it later.
So what kind of things can we do to overcome this problem?
The solutions
The black and white shit AI can spit out for you
I could recite all kinds of semi-useful information on solutions like these. They’re already well documented and researchable. The difficult part is going through the journey of trying and failing to find what works for you. Like in any challenging pursuit - you need to struggle, wrestle with the void, and persist. I’ll skim over them - they are the boring meat and potatoes - the answers that are right in front of you, that will provide the bulk of the nutrients of this meal.
Environment
Blackout blinds, cool dark room, reduce fluid intake before bed, bedroom only for bed.
Short power naps only, if any
20 minutes or less, never too close to bedtime.
No coffee later in the day, if any
Duh.
Plan the morning, the night before
What are you going to do with your day? Don’t have anything scheduled? Why don’t you schedule something? Give your self a reason to get up in the morning. Chase your shitty dreams.
Consistent sleep time
Your body loves routine. It’s a mechanism for it to maintain energy levels. Aiming for consistent sleep times will help with future sleep times, because your body will regulate energy expenditure to allow you to be alert or sleepy at the same times each day.
Consistent wake time
Even more important than a consistent bed time. The reasoning also borrows from the previous answer a little. I think it’s more important because it’s so fucking hard to wake up in the morning as it is. If you were gonna get either half of this equation of consistency right, let it be this one.
Turn off your fucking phone
Throw it across the room. Put it in a different room. In a drawer. Whatever. Get a separate alarm clock. This one I struggle with too. Because I know it works so well, I avoid doing it. Why does it work?
- Blue light in eyes from your screen keeps you awake (apparently). Not looking at a screen or bright lights in the last hour of your day will help you become more sleepy.
- Phone content is attractive and keeps you awake for longer than you need to be.
- Your brain has a chance to process and slow down. Rather than being supercharged on content thrown at you, you can process your own thoughts. Wake up and start the day at your own pace.
Never hit snooze
Even if you did get 10 more minutes of rest - is it even really that restful? It’s interrupted and broken. Just set one alarm, and get up for it. If you’re going to set it really early beyond what’s realistic and just miss it - then maybe that should be a message that you need to be more realistic. Hardcore strategies around this exist, which you can read later on below. This leads to the next point.
Setting the schedule gradually
Like most things - change happens gradually. Shift consistent wake times by like 15 minutes each morning, and don’t shift it if you’re still failing. Amongst failures, you need success to believe in your results and work. Your body needs encouragement, training and time to adapt.
Or not. You could completely go the other way, into the danger zone of crazier but sometimes effective strategies. Growth comes in many forms.
Where sleep strategy gets serious and hairy - advanced strategies for the absolute crybaby (me)
Track your sleep
Garmin, Apple, Samsung, Oura, whatever, I don’t care. But having data helps inform your decisions. You might not notice that you actually wake up a lot throughout the night because your breathing is congested, or you are breathing through your mouth.
Dealing with rumination
Sometimes our minds play tricks on us. It runs around in circles, processing life’s events. That stupid thing you said. That metaphorical or literal ball you fumbled. The rejection you feel when you don’t get what you want. It can keep you up all night - searching in loops. Sometimes you get answers. Mostly it’s wasted thoughts. Here’s ways I deal with that specifically:
- get out of my bedroom, read a book, and come back when I’m more tired
- journal and brain dump my thoughts so everything makes more sense
- eat your feelings by getting a kebab and letting dopamine do the work (do not recommend, but it is a method)
The irony of stressing about sleep
Some of us panic about not getting enough sleep. Your concerns are valid, but panicking doesn’t help. The more we stress, the harder it can be to relax (which is what we really need). One psychological strategy I’ve used is adopting the mindset something along the lines of “fuck it, life goes on.” You acquiesce to the shit sleep. You roll with the punches. You understand that your performance is not optimal, that you are tired, and you just keep living. We don’t live in a bubble. The shift in thinking could be what you need to teach your body that you don’t need to be your best to be okay. You are only human.
Crash mode
Say for example you go on an overnight flight. Your sleep schedule is fucked. As much as possible, try not to catch up by overcompensating. Struggle some. Overextend now and be tired, and sleep properly in a window that you want to and will benefit you in the long term. Sleeping at 10am until 6pm to catch up is a recipe for disaster.
Hard no’s
Set boundaries with others, or yourself. These can be things like - I do nothing after 11pm. I get minimum 5 hours, no matter what. You’ll find even your hard no’s can be not as hard as you want them to be. But they’re a safe guard to help you 99% of the time.
Alarm training
Train yourself to get up on the first ring, every time. Think Pavlov conditioning. It’s boring and miserable as hell, but it works.
Lifestyle
My best strategy in waking up early is built on a good understanding of purpose. Why do I want to wake up early? What kind of life do I want to live?
For me, I understand that the morning is the time of day where I am mentally least fatigued, most rested. Where my decisions can be made in peace. I want to capitalise on that. So I can live the life I want to live. If I don’t fix this, I leave things off the table.
What you don’t put on the table.
More ranting about tables. The unrealised opportunity.
I don’t know about you, but I am incredibly cognizant of my own impending death. I am dying, and all I can do is live. Not living how I want to live, or working towards a live I want to live, is wasting this opportunity. There’s so much to life. I already spend so much of my time wasting it on distractions, things I don’t care about. Maximise the value of time you spend. It can be slow, or fast. Energetic or restorative. Self-affirming, or challenging. But doing things you default to doing, just because you haven’t thought about it? I can’t stand it.
I recently came across this behemoth of a sleep information database. I’ve not read it - but most things I’ve heard about sleep hygiene are covered in here in some form: https://super-memory.com/articles/sleep.htm