the art of falling asleep
an underrated talent
I’ve always been jealous of people who can immediately fall asleep as soon as their head hits the pillow. I’m also jealous of people who can fall asleep anywhere and everywhere. And generally, I’m jealous of people who can nap.
Because I’m the opposite.
overthinking central
When I lay down to go to bed, immediately, every possible thought to ever exist comes to my mind. If I’m worried about something happening the next day, suddenly that’s all I’m thinking about. Sometimes, random conversations from throughout the day pop in my head, and in that moment, I decide that I responded in a strange way to something that my friend said. If I’m leaving for a trip the next day, it’s not until I’m laying in the dark that I remember that I need to bring that one item that wasn’t on my packing list. And lastly, it’s in these moments that I typically come up with my Substack ideas. Or, if not the ideas, then the perfect title for my article. I have to disrupt my falling asleep journey to pull out my phone, open my notes app, and write that title down, or else, hyper-fixating on that idea will be another thing keeping me from falling asleep.
To be real with you, this was the first week that I struggled to find a topic to write about. So, I figured, why not write a Substack about sleep if my inability to fall asleep is often the source of my creativity?
our sleep patterns are evolving with us
I know all of you remember being little kids, and never wanting to go to sleep. Or, if you don’t, you’ve recently witnessed a child throwing a tantrum over the idea of going to bed. I remember feeling sad that I was missing out on the “big kid” movies or “big kid” activities, but also, I guess the concept of sleep was boring in comparison to the excitement of the day.
As humans get older, we get more and more excited about going to sleep. This is definitely partially due to work and stress, but I recently learned that it is also due to a shift in your circadian rhythm as you age. This concept is called a phase advance. This doesn’t usually happen until you’re in your 60s, but your body biologically demands an earlier bedtime and earlier wake-up as you get older. Your sleep quality also gets worse. It isn’t just societal norms forcing people to desire the comfort of their bed, it’s also physiologically part of the human experience.
sleep defines each era of our lives
In high school, I would sleep from approximately 11pm-6:50am and feel perfectly energized, but in college, sometimes sleeping from 12am-9am didn’t feel like enough. In college, thinking about my high school energy levels would often perplex me. How was less than 8 hours enough sleep to get me through an entire day of classes, track practice, and homework? In college, the track part of my schedule was more demanding, but I usually only had 1-2 classes a day. Yet, I still felt like I needed more than 9 hours of sleep in order to feel good.
One of the elements of post-grad that has been slightly intimidating to me is that my sleep schedule is going to be forced to drastically change once I start my job. But, as I just described, a new sleep schedule is just a defining aspect of a new era of life. I guess that should be somewhat comforting. Since running will continue to be a part of my schedule, I’m going to probably be on a 10pm-6am sleep schedule, or something of the sort. While that is a big adjustment from how I function now, I probably will feel so much more energized. My schedule will align a little bit more with the natural human circadian rhythm. Although, I’m definitely going to miss the peacefulness of the hours of 10pm-12am.
I recently saw this TikTok that asked: if you have to choose an exact sleep schedule that you had to follow every day for the rest of your life, what would it be? You have to take into account the things you may miss out on, like late night parties or starting a road trip early in the morning. In this hypothetical world, you have to stick to this schedule every single day.
My answer is 11pm-8am. I’m curious what you guys think.
my hopes and dreams
Let’s hope that as I enter this new stage of life, I’ll get better at falling asleep, or else I’ll be constantly sleep deprived with this adulting sleep schedule. I’m going to use my go-to falling asleep techniques which include: imagining a black square on a chalkboard (yes, that’s all.), thinking about myself falling asleep (this sounds unhelpful, but trust), and lastly, imagining my great-grandma jumping on a trampoline (an OG technique given from my mom to a mini version of me).
But hey, even if I never get better at falling asleep, at least I’ll be producing some fabulous Substack article titles.