Sleep 15 minutes more tomorrow!

Do you ever wake up in the morning and feel like you are still tired?

Are you at the mercy of alarm clocks(any versions of it, spouse, parent, sibling, room mate, or phone) to wake you up?

Do you feel that you need at least 15 minutes of more sleep?!

Ever since I was a kid, albeit an infant, as my mom says, I loved sleeping. It is one of my favourite activities to do. I can proceed to nap in the middle of the day, in evening – whenever. As my schooling started, and later academics got busier, of course my sleep took the brunt of it. School, tuition classes, tv, playing with my brother, reading – all of these hid my first hobby, sleeping. Still, to this day – amongst many other things ; I find ways to sleep as much as possible while balancing other things in my life.

I was in afternoon school, so school didn’t start until 12 in the noon until I was in primary school, so except for Saturdays, I don’t have any memories of being dragged out of the bed by Aai(mom in marathi). And that torture was being compensated on the next day being Sunday. Then I think during 6th Std, my parents got this idea to sign me up for a tuition class, which demanded for me to reach to classes by 7:30am in the morning. Ever since then, I dreamt and looked for the days where I can sleep and wake up where I felt like, not by alarm clocks. Schooling happened, I even had tuition classes which started at 5:15am, for two years – I survived in the hope that some day I will get to the point where I will have the luxury to sleep more and wake up late. We all know how that story is going for everyone, that is how it went for me until 2019, until I got the job which started after 10:30 in the morning. I survived graduation, post-graduation and my first job – everyday feeling a bit out of place, because I couldn’t wake up when I wanted to.

Throughout the years, for someone who is not ready to get out of the bed, we have given a lot of titles, “Lazy”, “Night owl” etc. When I finally started the new job, for first three months, I didn’t wake up before 9 am, and it felt like heaven. I was not tired at any point of the day, I was creative(my work requires a lot of that), I generally loved life. Now, I was on the quest of self-improvement experiment those days, who isn’t? and everywhere I saw, everything told me to wake up early. It just asked me to get up at a certain time, have a morning routine ( morning routine is important, no doubt), and get some important things done before you move on with the day and day takes control. Since all of these claims proved that it will make me more “productive”, give me more time in the day, allowed me to follow my hobby of writing and explore meditation – I wanted to try it! I started with those, wake up just 15 minutes early today, then the next day and then the next. I think the target was to always wake me up between 4-6am. I was able to achieve it with daily motivation, I was able to get things done – because I had extra time in my day now that I woke up early! And as all habits are made in 21 days, I got it done too.

Of course, because my work starts late, it ended a bit late as well, so in the efforts to wake up early, I would either sleep early, with little or no unwind time after my work, or stretch to enjoy a movie or a book and get less hours of sleep.

I was trying to share this achievement with one of my friends, and it hit me. I was not enjoying this entire ordeal! Of course, it transformed me into a more disciplined person, more productive because now I could pursue more things, and the label “lazy” went away. Now I was this routine oriented, high functioning individual. But I was not happy, upon introspection – I realized that, I was doing it as I went through my education – “You just have to do hard work for these few years, then your life is sorted”. I realized, this is the life part we talked about, if I push myself even now, when am I going to live those days of waking up when I want to?

Now, because I loved sleep, I always kept one day a week where there will be no alarm clocks, I would not keep any commitments, tell my family not to wake me up – and on an average I woke up at around 10-10:30. I felt so much well rested, So creative – I didn’t need caffeine to wake me up, the day went so well!

I think the perceived knowledge about sleep was the first time I started questioning all the mainstream best practices. I was convinced that this didn’t give me any kind of happiness, no joy and I was already looking forward to the end of it, I couldn’t continue living this way. So, I started going one level deeper in my study. Now comes the science part.

I read scientific articles on importance of sleep, circadian rhythm, about actual existence of “Morning people” & “Night owls” ( it is true) and how much sleep a person needs in a day and what kind ; yes the deep sleep, light sleep all that our smart watches measure.

Again, amidst my family being disappointed that I can’t hold on to any routine, I allowed myself to wake up naturally. First week, I woke up at 10, couldn’t do those high productivity routine rituals because I had to run for work. I felt great throughout the day, because I was well rested, didn’t need as much coffee – because I was awake already.(Another article on caffeine some day)

After a couple of weeks, I woke up at 9, because I was sleeping by 12-12:30 am, after enough cool down time post work , allowing myself to leisure through social media, tv and such , and felt amazing. I tried the permutation & combination for a few weeks, and reached to the conclusion that I need 8.5-9 hours of sleep every day. I felt well rested, active, energetic, didn’t need caffeine, was in better mood(yes, everyone has those) and was highly productive because my brain wasn’t tired and had an amazing creative flow.

The reason to share my sleep autobiographical journey is with the hope that you find pieces of your life here as well, and if you felt like you were doing something for the betterment for your life, but it was not giving you better life – you were right.

Some of the research I came across, gave me these pointers to design my sleep schedule:

1) Everyone’s circadian rhythm is different, it depends on various factors, and one schedule doesn’t fit all.

2) You need certain hours of sleep every day, and it is way more than 5 hours these productivity hacks allow you to. To find your need of sleep, switch off your alarm clock for a week, ranging from the busy to leisurely days, and see when you naturally wake up – that’s your average.

3) If you need caffeine to wake you up, as most of us in the corporate world, you are not sleeping enough.

4) Sleeping more will make you more productive (for those who are concerned, more than sleeping less will ever make you) and definitely happier.

5) Sleeping early and waking up with sun (as per ancient knowledge) might work for some, but we shouldn’t forget that at the time people woke up with sun, they also ended their day with sun down.

I will be writing on sleep a bit more in the coming days, exploring “morning routines”, caffeine and “sleeping early” – but until then, I would recommend you to you, the reader, to start questioning your own sleep schedule – is it allowing you to rest properly? Do you wake up fresh? Do you immediately need caffeine to start the day? Do you often wonder about killing your alarm clock?

Our brain and our body are work of a genius. If we pay attention, it is always telling us what feels good and what not. We just need to pay attention and listen, and answers will come. So, tomorrow – wake up 15 minutes later than every day. And see how it goes.