[Sleepssss]

My parents tell me they struggled to get me to go to sleep from a young age. They’d put my brother and I to sleep and he’d be out cold in 10 minutes but I’d still be up an hour later. As I got to be a teenager I would stay up late reading and build up enough sleep debt to fall asleep around 1 a.m., but the cost was groginess the next day in school, which I’ve dealt with most of my life.

In college the pattern shifted, and I started waking in the middle of the night for several hours before falling back asleep till my alarm sounded. I still sometimes had good nights sleep, but increasingly rarely as time went on.

By the time I hit my late 20s, I was unable to sleep well most nights, and almost always woke in the middle of the night before falling back asleep. I tried taking melatonin, which often put me to sleep, but I started having weird side effects after a year and abandoned it. I still do take zinc, magnesium, and the amino acid glycine, and I’m pretty sure they legitimately help, particularly in helping me fall asleep quickly when I get in bed. I also started using a light lamp in the morning and 7:30 p.m. (summer sunset time), which I also think helps manage my circadian rhythm. This was the time that we started hearing a lot about sleep hygiene, and I got on board with all of it, but found it had minimal impact, if any, except the avoidance of screens for a couple hours before bed.

In my 30s I read something about sleep restriction and found that it helped consolidate my sleep. If I limited myself to 5-6 hours I could sleep in a solid block. Gradually, I built to around 7 hours of sleep, which I realize is better than what many experience, but I’m a pretty active athlete and was always still exhausted and groggy. If I pushed much further than 7 hours I’d start waking in the night again.

I’m now in my early 40s. If I do a few days at 6 or 7 hours I’m so tired that if I don’t set an alarm I sleep roughly 8.5 hours and I wake naturally feeling like a million bucks. I think this is what normal people must feel like most of the time. Better memory and attention, more alert, better mood. It’s great. It makes me want to sleep like this all the time. I’m tired of being tired and running at 70% of my potential.

But when I sleep 8 and a half hours, the next night I’m back to waking from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., sleeping again, and then waking when my alarm sounds, feeling horrible. So I usually just keep it to 7 hours of sleep and accept feeling half alive. I’ve mostly stopped ever staying up late because it’s just too disruptive, which sucks for my social life. I’ve just accepted that I can’t be a normal person doing normal person things. Also, international travel and changing time zones is horrible for me, and I lose days of my life to zombie status.

I’m wondering if I’ve taken this as far as I can go, or if there’s a realistic chance that I could sleep longer and feel better every day. The CBT stuff is interesting, but I have no anxiety/worry about sleep. I’ve lived this way as long as I can remember and I’m not anxious. It’s just my life, and I accept it.

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