How To Turn Your Inability To Sleep on Time Into a Superpower
Science-backed reasons why you don’t have to feel guilty each time you’re unable to sleep on time at night.
“You’re up early,” my mother remarked as she walked into me rummaging through the contents of the refrigerator for something to eat. It was 5 in the morning. I hadn’t woken up early. I hadn’t yet retired for the night.
This happened in May 2020 — right in the middle of the pandemic-induced lockdown in India. Because I had no obligation to wake up early, I found I just couldn’t go to sleep on time. Even before the work-from-home phase started, I had trouble going to bed early, but because my classes started at 9 AM, I had to sleep by 1. Now though, things were different.
After the lockdown ended, I’ve still been working from home. For almost eight months, I tried my best to maintain a “healthy” sleep cycle. But each time, some crazy idea struck me at midnight, and I couldn’t go to sleep until I’d seen it to completion.
I even tried extreme measures like staying up all night so I’d be tired and sleep by 8 or 9 PM the next day. Even then, though I did manage to fall asleep by 9 PM, as soon as my sleep debt was complete, I was back to my habit of sleeping by 5 AM.
