Episode 51
10PM Trip-Up
It’s 9:59 when you look at the clock and realize you wanted to be in bed and asleep when the clock strikes 10pm with no time to lose. Is now the time to turn off the TV, get your daily exercise in, cut the caffeine and avoid alcohol?
In this episode, I explore why trying to cram in all the good sleep inducing hacks at the last minute is neither an easy nor productive way to get that good snooze.
Scrambling to integrate a bit of sleep hygiene at the last minute will leave you tripped up at 10PM. There are no magical instantaneous solutions that out-of-nowhere manifest a great night of sleep. Even the best-funded efforts - prescription-grade sleeping drugs - miss the mark by margins so wide its a takes quite a stretch of the imagination to consider them worthwhile, as we explored in Episode 25.
So cut yourself some slack. You didn’t want to be in a situation like this. Nobody yearns for a need for last minute solution. And you’re not alone. Millions struggle in the exact same way.
And in no way are you expected to just have it all figured out, a perfect master plan from scratch to follow exactly. But it does require some upfront investment in intention and forethought.
And use that intention to be reasonable - its not reasonable to expect to turn your life around or make some drastic changes overnight in how you spend your 24 hours. But rather, what is a reasonable adjustment you can make, an adjustment with a high likelihood of success, the least revolutionary, that won’t be too difficult to keep up. Use that win to build on. Start somewhere, and add to your success. And as habits build and stack, become more automatic, there is less and less intention required, your sleep continues to improve on autopilot, daytime health and wellness improves, and life improves.
Since you have to start somewhere, I’d recommend just starting with a consistent wake up time 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
To get a sense of what these habits may actually look like, or how they may be implemented in one’s day, check out wellrestedmd.com/day to get a free cheat sheet of a Day in the Life of the Well Rested with examples and timing of how to incorporate some of these specific best practices to achieve reliable great nights of sleep.
