Time to time this happens, I lie down on the bed, done with the day, trying to fall sleep. I close my eyes, take slow breaths and … NOPE! I don’t feel like sleeping anymore. I should play that game or watch that series or get motivated senselessly and plan out my whole path to grand success and the 6 pack abs and that 0% fat body. I am willing to do everything but sleep — I do want to sleep on time, but I don’t feel like sleeping. I am too bored to sleep.
Why is that? Is not being sleepy the problem? Is the desire for doing something else the problem? No. Those are just symptoms — problem here is something else. Also, it is important that we don’t get stuck on symptoms instead of finding the root cause.
After many observations, reading many books and consuming a lot of research — I conclude that for me, it has to be one the following:
- Not being tired enough physically and/or mentally.
- Too early to sleep as per body clock (woke up really late)
- Addicted to that high dopamine rush
- Sleep mindset
So, starting with the first one — Not being tired enough physically and/or mentally. There are times when I do feel sleepy and actually am able to fall sleep relatively quickly. It is when I am really tired after doing something really exhausting on that day, let it be a physical activity or a mental one. This happens after a hard workout day, or after a mentally tiring day like studying or working on projects ( the brainstorming sessions or problem solving phases).
But that is rare, not everyday is or can be so exhausting that I feel tired and ready to sleep when the bedtime approaches. If that was the situation, you wouldn’t be reading this anyway. But this can still be useful, we can try to be a little more tired, we can try to do something everyday that makes us comparatively more tired. Like, Exercising, running or brisk walking or just being active and moving throughout the day. Now I get it, exercising is a problem in itself and we will tackle too, further down the line. And for mental exhaustion, we can play video games (the competitive ones), we can solve puzzles or have long conversation with someone about something we are really passionate about, that tends to wear me out.
The second one is very basic, waking up late will make is impossible to fall sleep early as it brings the first point again, we aren’t tired at all — the body clock says so. Also, it shows that we are not sleeping on time, we are sleeping so late that we have sleep till late to complete the hours of rest needed. Yes, sleeping on time and still waking up late happens too, but that problem becomes impossible to solve when you are sleeping late.
So, what we need to focus on is to sleep at a consistent hour and then to wake up at a consistent hour so that we can sleep on a consistent hour. What?! That’s a hen or egg problem! Yes it is, but this one can be solved by focusing on both at once, by sleeping 15 min early than your current bedtime and waking up 15 min early than your current morning alarm. This way we can slide the whole sleep routine 15 mins at a time, if that’s difficult for you, we can break it down to 5min. This way we reach the desired sleeping and waking up time in the near future, consistency is the key.
The third is more of a lifestyle change. Sleep is only a side effect of living a life high on dopamine. Dopamine is a brain chemical for desire, anything that has potential for a big reward gets associated with dopamine and hence becomes highly desirable/attractive for us. When everything we do throughout the day is for a rush of high dopamine, then jumping straight to a super low dopamine activity (sleeping) is not very appealing. Internet, Video games, Movies, Web series and Junk food are some example of high dopamine activities. We expect a bigger reward from all of these, hence they are always much more interesting than low dopamine activities like reading, studying, taking a walk or sleeping.
When we drive to our offices everyday, a bicycle ride to office is not something you would want to replace it with. But if the situation changes, and suddenly you had to walk your way to the office everyday. Now everything else that is faster and less tiring than walking, like that same bicycle, sounds quite an upgrade now. So these high dopamine activities have increased your expectations and tolerance to such a level that you don’t want to do anything less. We need to starve ourselves to tackle this problem. We need to go on a daily or weekly fast of dopamine. We need to restrict high dopamine activities as much as possible so that low dopamine activities start to look appealing enough. This a whole topic in itself, and should be further read about.
Once last thing that works is how to think about sleep itself. Don’t think of sleep as chore that you have to do, but as a luxury that you get to enjoy. When it is time to sleep, that is exactly what you are supposed to — you don’t have to be anywhere, you don’t have to do anything else, nothing more is expected from you in that period. You just have to relax and embrace this time, when you get to sleep to your heart’s content.
In conclusion,
- Do mental and physical exercises.
- Wake up and sleep at consistent hours.
- Reduced high dopamine activities throughout the day and restrict completely, hours before bedtime.
- Embrace Sleep.
This is all built on common sense of mine and numerous others. Fortunately every problem can be solved with right amount and right application of common sense.
