When I’m sleeping well, life often flows relatively easily and effortlessly. I make better food choices, I’m more productive at work, and I’m more present with my family.
The low-level, persistent angst goes away. The feeling of not being enough is gone. The desire to attain something outside of myself dissipates.
Desires for unhealthy food, processed snacks, social media, social validation, and needing to be busy are forgotten or can be easily shooed away like a fly on the arm.
Willpower is simultaneously stronger and almost unnecessary. Clarity reigns.
We live in a culture where lack of sleep is often put on a pedestal. We want to make time for everything and the obvious way to do it is to cut sleep short.
Sometimes life thrusts us into a situation where we’re all but forced to cut sleep. We have newborn babies, a massive deadline or promotion at work, or a health issue with a loved one that requires us.
But the subset of people who can thrive on low sleep for an extended period is extremely small in my experience.
Most people who appear to “thrive” on lack of sleep are often achieving outward success in one area of their life (generally business or financial success) at the expense of other areas of their life (usually health, family, or relationships). Like a social media influencer who appears to have it all together on the surface but is falling apart behind the scenes.
There are plenty of exceptions to this general rule. The exceptions lead us to believe that we can get away with minimal sleep ourselves, so we go for it.
The first few times we sacrifice sleep for productivity it feels like a cheat code. You get more done than you ever have, while not losing a step.
This could even go on for weeks, months, or years before it finally catches up to you.
Once it does catch up though, it becomes like a never-ending fog. That fog is so persistent that we forget what it’s like to see and experience blue skies.
Like the worst stretch of cloudy days living in Seattle or London. Or having one of those colds or coughs that won’t seem to go away.
You forget what it’s like to feel good. You forget what it’s like to feel like yourself.
Sleep deprivation tricks us into thinking that we’re experiencing the same life, just a little more tired than before. But the experience of life is radically different when you are sleep deprived. It’s truly like living a completely different life.
In the last decade our family has had 3 kids and started 3 businesses, so there have been multiple stretches where sleep has taken a back seat.
You get to the point where you convince yourself that 6.5 hours of mostly uninterrupted sleep is a great night. You finally string together back-to-back nights over 7 hours and feel like a God.
You get a glimpse of what life could be like on great sleep, but it’s fleeting. The status quo is still poor sleep in relation to what our bodies need and are designed for.
Often people will get their sleep disrupted during their 20s, 30s, or 40s, and never repair it. It stays that way forever.
Our idea of repairing sleep is waking up without an alarm both Saturday AND Sunday.
We believe we can repair sleep in a matter of a couple days or a couple weeks, but it can take years to truly repair, depending on how much damage has been done.
It’s a realization that I’ve recently come to, as I’ve been working on my sleep over the last year. We’re still dealing with a 1-year-old at home, but I’ve backed off my career goals significantly to focus on my sleep and health. I’m only now feeling like I’m making significant progress after months of diligent effort.
I found it extremely refreshing to recently hear an interview with the king of sleep and longevity biohacker Bryan Johnson, sharing how it took him almost 2 years to repair his broken sleep.
In the interview both Thomas DeLauer and Bryan share how having colicky newborns changed the trajectory of their sleep, and how difficult it was to repair.
I’ve had an almost identical experience with having newborns while owning a gym that required me to be there at 4:30 am 2-3 times per week. I would often wake up at 2 or 3 am and never get back to sleep. That disjointed sleep bled into days where I didn’t need to get up, and I would still find myself awake at 2 am for no reason.
This led to brain fog, lack of energy, gut issues, achy joints, drops in workout performance, and accelerated aging in my skin and hair. And it led to finally putting my foot down to recommit to sleep over the last year.
If it took Bryan Johnson two years to repair his sleep while spending millions of dollars and working with a team of experts, then certainly we can give ourselves a little grace and a little patience in repairing our own.
What I love most about Bryan is his approach to sleep. He “identifies as a professional sleeper” and treats sleep as the highest priority in his life. Like a job that starts at the same time every day, that he’s never late for, and never misses a day.
Bryan’s seriousness and intention towards sleep is incredibly inspiring. I wore a Whoop band for 2 years and never once achieved a 100% sleep score for a single night. I believe at one point Bryan had strung together 6 months straight of 100% sleep score nights.
But everyone who knows Bryan knows that he won’t negotiate on sleep. He goes to bed at the same 8:30 pm bedtime every single night. He turns down invitations that would end later, and everyone in his household knows when it’s time to wind down for bed.
That type of commitment to sleep is rare. But should it be?
As someone who has experienced extended periods of negative health that has at least been partially caused by lack of sleep, I have massive respect (and jealousy) for Bryan’s commitment.
I look forward to the day that I can truly prioritize sleep above all else, but for now, I am doing my best with the things that are within my control.
Bryan put together an incredible video that summarizes his top 10 habits for fixing his sleep. In the near future, I’ll share my own, which coincidentally look very similar.