Sleeping More

I was never the teenager who slept until noon. The early morning is my favorite part of the day. Waking up between 4-5am has a drawback though, you need to get to bed early in order to get a full 8 hours. I’ve never focused on getting 8 hours. I usually just go to bed when I’m tired. 

For the past week, I wanted to see if I could get a solid 8 hours every night. What would I need to do differently and how different would I feel getting an extra 30-60 minutes each night? 

Here are my stats for the past 7 nights:

1/17/20 -  7h31m

1/18/20 -  7h46m

1/19/20 - 7h15m

1/20/20 - 8h6m

1/21/20 - 8h40m

1/22/20 - 7h29m

1/23/20 - 8h43m

I feel more awake and more willing to do things like clean the kitchen, do the dishes and pack myself a lunch when I hit that full 8 hours. On days I only get 7, I find myself reaching for an extra cup of coffee early in the morning and again later in the day. Nothing shocking there. I try to take a short power nap every day, regardless of the amount of sleep I get.

Nothing surprising here, right? I feel more awake and alert when I get more sleep. We all know that and we all know we should probably be sleeping more. The reason I’m sharing this with you today is two fold.

First, to hold myself accountable. By sharing, I now have some social pressure to keep going with my experiment. Secondly, if you’re one of the many people who have talked to me about getting more sleep, I wanted to show you that it isn’t going to happen by just hoping you sleep more. Work on your night time routine, set a hard bedtime, try some breathing or tea or no screens and figure out what works for you. Track your nightly Z’s to get some data on how you’re doing so you can figure out how to improve. It won’t happen without some effort. 

Justin Miner 

@justinminergain