I'll sleep when I'm dead

For the past few years, I've been living in what I now realize was a perpetual state of sleep deprivation. Five, maybe six hours of sleep if I was lucky. "I'll sleep when I'm dead," I used to joke, wearing my sleep deprivation like some weird badge of honor. Spoiler alert: it isn’t actually something to be proud of.

Root cause? Working with other timezones, personal trauma and I failed completely at falling back asleep after waking up at 4am in the morning. My brain was already starting to solve problems for the day ahead and I just couldn’t stop it.

In fact, as Matthew Walker points out, just one hour of less sleep makes life changing differences.

You know that feeling when you're so tired that even your tired feels tired? That was basically my default state. I'd power through my days with an unhealthy combination of coffee, a nap or sheer stubbornness, convincing myself that I was one of those 1% humans who just didn't need much sleep. Narrator voice: I was not.

The turning point came when I found myself waking up at 5am one weekend morning, with no energy whatsoever, and poured coffee on top of my upside down coffee mug. I finally admitted to myself that maybe, just maybe, I needed to make some changes.

On this quest to fix my sleep habits, bought myself an Oura Ring for sleep tracking, and I've learned a few things along the way. First off, my phone was basically my bedroom's most toxic roommate. We had to break up – at least for the last hour before bed. It was a hard goodbye, but my brain has been thanking me for it. Oura and I have a bit of a love/hate relationship, as it’s the first thing I open in the morning to see how my sleep was, which probably isn’t the healthiest way to use it, as on bad sleep nights, I make myself feel more tired by looking.

I also discovered something revolutionary: having a consistent bedtime doesn't make you a five-year-old. Who knew? Turns out our bodies actually like routine. Mind-blowing, I know. I've been trying to hit the hay at 10 - 10.30 every night, even on weekends. Yes, it means sometimes being "that friend" who leaves early, but my mornings have gotten significantly less murderous.

The biggest challenge? Convincing myself that those extra hours of Netflix weren't actually improving my life. "Just one more episode" was my nightly mantra. Now I'm trying to replace it with reading or, on ambitious days, self hypnosis. Though if I'm honest, sometimes my "self hypnosis" turns into accidental napping.

I've also learned that my afternoon coffee wasn't doing me any favors. Switching to herbal tea felt like a betrayal at first, but chamomile hasn't let me down yet. Plus, there's something soothing about holding a warm mug that isn't going to send me into a caffeine-induced thought spiral at 11 PM.

I'm not going to pretend I've become some sort of sleep guru. I still find myself doom-scrolling at midnight or convincing myself that 3 AM is the perfect time to reorganize my sock drawer. But I'm making progress. Those rare nights when I get seven hours? Pure magic. I wake up feeling like I could conquer the world – or at least make it through the day without accidentally pouring coffee on my mug instead of into it. Those rare nights are becoming more and more frequent.

So here's to better sleep habits, one night at a time. If you're like me, still working on this whole "proper adult sleep schedule" thing, just know you're not alone. And hey, if nothing else, at least make sure you put your coffee mug right side up before pouring. Trust me on that one.