Are You A Sleep Procrastinator?

I'm a new convert to the benefits of sleep.  For years I've been judging those of you who fought and lost the battle with the snooze button in the mornings.  I understood the need for sleep, but in the way that flossing is recommended daily; surely once a week has to be putting a dent in the job.  Or like a colleague once optimistically, and very seriously, responded when asked if sales were bad on a new product, "They're not zero".  

I was getting sleep, 5 1/2 to 7 hours most weeknights.  Now you're agreeing with me that that's not that bad, right?  When I began reading the latest in sleep literature, I realized I was sabotaging all my best efforts at nutrition and fitness, at mental alertness and creativity in my work by shortchanging my sleep.  There are some eye-opening publications on the detriments of less than 7-9 hours sleep per night, including a couple of recent best-sellers by Shawn Stevenson and Matthew Walker.  Both experts debunk the myth of the pulling-themselves-up-by-their-bootstraps, work from dusk till dawn way of life being sustainable, even for legendary sleep-cheaters, like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.  Reading Walker's book scared the dickens out of me enough to change my perception of less sleep equating to getting more done. The problem for me, I realized after some truly heroic efforts to get more sleep, was something less talked about, sleep procrastination.  In fact, you might not have heard the term, but you'd probably recognize yourself in this description.  It's a Tuesday evening, 10:00 PM, and you look at your watch and think ‘I just finished dinner/the dishes/putting the kids to bed.  I've only watched one episode of "Schitts Creek”.  How is it 10:00 already? This isn't fair’.  I know I need to go to bed, but I just started staring at my laptop, half-checking email, half thinking Alexis and Ted really wouldn't survive in the wild together.  You still have to let the dog out or turn on the dishwasher, gather some things for the next day, make sure you have something to wear, give your calendar a last (or first) look, brush your teeth, and look at the floss and think ‘I just flossed on Saturday’.  Getting to bed at 10:00 seemed a noble goal at 7:00, or this morning when I had the world by the tail, and was certain I'd get those 40 things checked off my to-do list by 5:00 and then sit in Rockwellian peace with my family by dinner, living it up in the now, patting myself on the back for all I'd slayed during the day.  Then at 5:00 I had checked 2 things off my list, added 5 other hot things that came up through the day, 1 or 2 of which got done, and had shaken a fist at the Own the Day book that propped up my cold coffee that never made its way to the sink from the crazy morning.  Owning the day is for retired people, I'd think, as I popped dinosaur-shaped nuggets into the toaster oven over the sound of a 5 year-old calling from the living room "You're not making big people food I won't eat, are you?"  

What does this have to do with sleep procrastination? You might be putting two and two together here already, or you might be thinking sleep procrastination is the least of this woman’s issues.  This typical day for me, that you might relate to in your own ways, carries a load of things that are terrible for sleep. Getting up at 5:00 or 5:30 AM has never been a problem for me.  But getting to bed before 11:00 PM was virtually impossible.  I set alarms with nice reminders like "sleep refuels your body", and ones that were less carrot and more stick like "get in the damn bed!"  I drank sleepy tea, and anyone who saw me dramatically brush back my bangs to draw attention to my very tough nose ring in college knows that I would have scoffed at sleepy tea (and probably the word “scoff”).  I’ve worn blue light-blocking glasses.  I tried setting out my things for the next day earlier in the evening.  I read, then I didn't read.  I stopped caffeine earlier in the day.  I tried eating dinner earlier, then later, lots of carbs and no carbs.  I got an app that tracked my sleep.  I even considered getting a silk pillowcase and spraying some enticing lavender oil on it. The same person who got gum stuck on her mom's 70's red silk pillow cases each and every night (why did she keep giving me gum?) as a child, and who got a good laugh a few years ago about why anyone would want ONE silk pillow case when seeing them offered as a skin and hair-pampering treat.  But what I was overlooking through all of that was that I wasn't allowing myself to mentally prepare, I didn't have a shutdown ritual that shifted me to a place where I could value sleep.  I was still rushing to guzzle my sleepy tea, blue light glasses on, while sending ONE last email at 10:30, which led to sending one quick report, and making a note of a couple of things to do later on my to-do list. All of that was sitting undone in my subconscious, taking up precious RAM, and not allowing me to let the day come to a peaceful conclusion.  If I still saw another 10 things that "needed" to be done by the time I went to bed, I couldn't rest until they were done, and that was often happening right at the time I'd decided I needed to be in bed; so it was a mad rush.  It's like bedtime sneaked right up on me, and I was shocked at the nerve of 10:00 arriving and me just donning my blue light glasses.

For me, it has made a world of difference to have a very well planned shutdown ritual (concept borrowed from Cal Newport) in the evening, and to realize the quality of my work isn't so good at 10:30 PM so there's more value in resting for a productive next day. If you're a to-do list person, you can make this ritual into a list if it makes you feel better:

Here's what my typical evening plan looks like, starting with a work shutdown ritual:

• 5:00 - 5:15 PM - Check my inbox for things that need attention first thing tomorrow, gather and properly deal with any notes scribbled from the day's meetings, plan next day, close the laptop
• 5:15 - 6:00 - Family puttering time
• 6:00 - 6:30 - Prepare dinner, merlot time
• 6:30 - 7:15 - Dinner with the fam, dishes away
• 7:15 - 7:45 - Prep the kids’ things for the next day, hang out with fam
• 7:45 - 8:15 - Get the small people to bed, begrudgingly put the $3 merlot away at least 2 hours before bed
• 8:15 - 9:00 - Wrap up any necessary household or work tasks more than an hour before bed, pick up around the house, start the dishwasher, lights on/off, etc.
• 9:00 - 10:00 - Wind down...TV and chatting with my wife, who has an endless supply of snarky remarks about how attractive it is when I put my blue light-blocking glasses on OVER my regular glasses (falls into things you'd never do within the first 10 years of a relationship). I'm confident I make this look good, but find it best not to say this aloud (again).
• 10:00 - 10:15 - Ready for bed
• 10:15 - Lights out

Am I able to accomplish this everyday?  No, but I give myself some grace for hitting bedtime by 10:30 a night or two, starting dinner a bit later, or occasionally sending the later email.  A B+ or a solid 85 is fine with me.  It’s progress.

For my fellow sleep procrastinators, for those who think of eleventy more things to do as soon as they see their significant other’s eyes flutter shut on the couch, here’s a list of suggestions to ensure you get the 7-9 hours that your body needs:

1. Have a schedule.  It doesn't need to map out the whole evening as mine did above. Start with getting just 15 more minutes of sleep each night for a week or so, until you’re at least 7, but preferably closer to 8.  Back up from the time you need to get up and determine what time you need to go to bed.  Then attach an amount of time needed to each task that has to happen before bedtime and schedule them.  For example, if you need to get up at 6:00, and plan to be in bed at 11:00, add up the time it takes to do all your nightly tasks.  Maybe loading the dishwasher, walking the dog, getting into your PJs and doing your nightly grooming tasks will take 30 minutes.  So you know you must start those things no later than 10:30.
2. Do wear glasses that block blue light an hour or two before bedtime.  Many studies have shown the benefit of this.  It’s also beneficial to turn down other lights within your home during that time frame if possible.
3. Stop caffeine by early afternoon and stop all other beverages by 2 hours before bedtime.  With alcohol, your body is processing it hours after you stop consuming it, and its disruptive effects on sleep are well documented.  Even water, in a large enough quantity or too close to bed can affect sleep if you wake to go to the bathroom.
4. Do get exercise, but not too close to bedtime.  Exercise can help your body wind down and contribute to better sleep, if done earlier in the day.
5. Eat earlier.  Not only does your body have more time to process the food before you hit the hay, if you’re used to eating closer to bedtime and move that up to earlier in the evening, it becomes a signal to your body that it’s later.  This makes it easier to feel that it’s truly time for bed at a reasonable hour.
6. Set time limits for yourself for social media, or better than that, all media.  You’ll feel accomplished if you’ve set a 30-minute a day window and you stick to that vs. mindlessly scrolling and looking up to realize an hour has passed unnoticed.  And do it earlier in the evening so your mind isn’t racing from seeing everything from what your high school English teacher had for dinner to the latest in political/world news.
7. Remind yourself routinely why sleep is so valuable.  I’d suggest reading Sleep Smarter: 21 Essential Strategies to Sleep Your Way to a Better Body, Better Health, and Bigger Success by Shawn Stevenson, or Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep.  Knowing your “why” for sleep is just as important as knowing your “why” for driving to your goals each day. Why do you want to be healthier, to live longer, and to add life to your days? Dig deep. There's more to life than "Schitt's Creek" (she tells herself as she approaches the cold reality of the last 2 episodes).
8. And most importantly for the sleep procrastinator, get all those loose ends tied up and off your mind at the beginning of the evening, in a shutdown routine to which you’ve committed. Get to a point where there’s nothing lingering in your inbox or on a scrap of paper on your desk, waiting to attack in the form of a missed deadline or angry colleague.  Get everything into a system for follow-up for the next day or beyond, then rest.  Tomorrow truly is another day.