Saying that I've had a fraught relationship with sleep throughout most of my life would be an exercise in extreme understatement. I assume that I slept well as a baby and toddler because I've never heard anything to the contrary. After that, though, the Sandman seemed to have forgotten where I lived.
I know a lot of successful, well-adjusted people who can nod off seemingly at will and I would very much like to experience something like that for myself one day soon.
In fairness to me, not needing much sleep has long been seen as something positive. Politicians and titans of business often brag about getting by on just a few hours a night. President Donald Trump (both a politician and a titan of business) seems to not get much of it at all, according to many who work with him.
Because of all of the lore around driven, almost sleepless people, I didn't do much to address my situation. The obsession with longevity that I have developed in the past few years and the research involved in that made me aware that I needed to focus more on my nighttime routine.
OK, I never really did have any nighttime routine that involved sleep. I've spent much of my adult life on the road doing comedy. That's a very nocturnal business and my natural sleep rhythms enjoyed it. Until I had to start bringing my daughter to school, I wasn't in sync with the normal world. Once my daughter was off to college, I got back into night owl mode.
These days, I do a lot of work that happens when the sun is up. Much of it (podcasting) is done with people who are three hours ahead of me. We've got some things in the works that are going to require even more morning attention from me. A few months ago, I decided to try getting up earlier, and at the same time every day. That, of course, required that I set an alarm, something that I hadn't done in years.
More importantly, I tried to more tightly regulate when I wrapped up the next day's Morning Briefing and got to bed. That end of the sleep equation is still a work in progress, but it's getting better. I'd begun taking magnesium glycinate several months ago after my friends Ashley McCully and Stephen Green said they were having success with it. It works better than melatonin and I don't have freakshow dreams about Satanic puppies trying to murder people with farm equipment.
I can't pencil in eight hours a night just yet, but I'm hitting the 6-7 range. After some recent blood work, the AI consultant that was aware of my habits and supplement stack said that the best thing I could do to improve the numbers I wanted to improve would be to get more sleep. It was a relief to realize that the suggestion didn't annoy me.
For the first time since toddlerhood, I know how to do that.
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