✦Wellbeing · 12 recordsFix your sleep

Almost every sleep problem that is not medical comes down to an inconsistent wake time and an evening with no edge to it. This changes those two things and asks for four weeks before judging, because a few nights tell you nothing.

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✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

Sleep properly, most nights, for a month Week 5

Judged over four weeks. A few nights tell you nothing.

Fix the wake time Week 4

The same time every day, weekends included.

  • Pick a wake time I can hold seven days a weekDo firstDay 2
  • Hold it for one full week, including the weekendDo firstDay 9
  • Get daylight within an hour of waking, every day for a weekWeek 2

Give the evening an edge Week 5

A wind-down that starts before I am tired.

  • Decide what the last hour looks like and where the phone goesDo firstDay 4
  • Move anything caffeinated to before middayDay 12

Routines

  • Same wake timedaily
  • Start winding downdaily
  • Get outside in the morningdaily
✦ It comes with a note

Wake time first

Almost every sleep problem that is not medical comes down to an inconsistent wake time and an evening with no edge to it. Fix the wake time and bedtime largely follows.\n\nJudge it at four weeks, not four days. If it is still bad after that, this is a plan for ordinary causes and not a treatment — worth seeing a doctor.

✦ Questions

Fix your sleep, answered.

The wake time, and keep it the same at weekends. Bedtime largely follows from it once you are genuinely tired at the right hour, whereas a fixed bedtime with a drifting wake time tends to produce lying awake.
Four weeks, which is why the goal is dated that way. A few nights are noise, and judging a sleep change on a bad Tuesday is how people conclude that nothing works and go back to what they were doing.
Then it is worth seeing a doctor rather than trying another routine. This plan handles the ordinary causes — inconsistency and an evening with no wind-down — and is explicit that it is not a treatment for insomnia.
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