Friction of Start
It has been two years since I last wrote here. One day, I will go into detail about what happened in my life and the successes, failures, gains, and losses I experienced along the way.
Let's define the objective of writing this. Somewhere within myself, I want to build something and, in the process, add value to your life while finding a structure for my thoughts and trying to discover more about myself.
Without context, it will be difficult for you to understand what comes next. I am working on multiple things: becoming better in my career, education, health, fitness, longevity, relationships, and spirituality. My current progress varies from little to decent in each area. Additionally, I am building something outwardly (hence the blog and many other ideas that will follow).
There are many things to do and less time to execute them, which can be overwhelming. But wait, I have some tools that I can use. Let's roll out the first tool, one step at a time, and focus on one to two goals first.
Sleep:
I always default back to sleep as my starting point. I have spent a majority of my short life (read 28 years) being sleep-deprived or having poor-quality sleep at odd hours. Sleep affects pretty much everything, from my behavior, ability to process information, and productivity to my fitness and relationships. So, let's fix the sleep first.
What is the problem with my sleep? To begin with, I sleep around 12-2:30 am each day and wake up at 5:45-9:45 am. That is a big variability, with average sleep on workdays being about 5-6 hours and 7 hours on weekends. The time I go to sleep varies by about 2.5 hours, and my waking time is even worse, with a variability of about 4 hours.
What causes this high variability? Let's go back a few hours from my bedtime. Depending on the day and social needs, I eat my last meal between 8-10 pm. I have observed that it takes about 3-4 hours for me to digest food enough to sleep comfortably. Additionally, I need to maintain a good diet, as poor digestion causes me to wake up frequently, resulting in poor sleep quality.
I have had little to moderate success in bringing my bedtime from 3 am to 11 pm, but it doesn’t last long. I am quite undisciplined, as I like to feel a sense of freedom during these quiet hours and often obsess over the latest national news, new health podcasts, or, many times, just plain reels/shorts. The last one is the worst due to the reduced attention span I suffer from their overuse.
Sleeping on time and for over 7 hours seems like an easy task for some people, but having struggled with it for 14 years, I don’t find it the same. When I enumerate the problems and consider the knowledge I’ve gained from podcasts, a few broad guidelines emerge: avoid anything exciting 1-2 hours before bed (and boy, a lot of things can excite you, no pun intended), try to eat at least 4 hours before bed, preferably something light, exercise in the morning (more on exercise later, but I am currently at close to zero, so I will try to get this whenever I can), fix one or both—wake up and sleep times—and avoid blue light post-sunset.
Action plan.
- I currently, on average, sleep by 12:30 am. I will bring this to 11:30 pm for this week (until June 16) with waking hours set at 6 am. I will update this post with my progress.
- Avoid anything (or at least the majority of it) that excites me—this includes watching electronic screens, thriller novels (it’s been a few months since I read one), serious podcasts, workouts, and stimulating conversations after 10:30 pm.
- Finish my meals (preferably light) by 7 pm.