For many years, sleep has always been at the bottom of my daily to-do list.
It isn’t the most important item.
It’s rarely even treated as a formal commitment.
Sleep is just that little bit of time that happens to be left over after everything else is done.
Replying to emails, tidying up the kitchen, checking the next day’s weather, watching one more episode of a TV show, casually searching for a recipe I’ll never actually make, and then, for some reason, clicking on a celebrity news article that has absolutely nothing to do with me.
Once all these things are done, if there are still ten or so minutes left, those ten or so minutes belong to sleep.
I’m really generous with myself.
Every night, I crawl into bed completely exhausted, place my phone next to my pillow, and promise myself:
“I’ll only look at one thing.”
When it comes to my phone, “just one thing” is a very dangerous phrase.
I check a message, and there’s a video in it.
An actress appears in the video.
So I search for her name.
Then I come across an article about her skincare routine.
By the time I finally look up, it’s already 12:47 a.m., and I’ve somehow learned what kind of face cream a complete stranger uses every night.
The next morning, I woke up looking exhausted and acted completely surprised.
I treated my fatigue like an uninvited guest, forgetting that I’d actually invited it in myself.
I’d tell myself, “I’m definitely going to bed early tonight.”
Really.
Unless there’s something good on TV.
Unless there’s one more thing I need to finish.
Unless, after everyone else has gone to sleep, I want to enjoy a little more quiet time on my own.
That last reason is the hardest to let go of.
No one calls me late at night.
There’s nothing that needs to be dealt with immediately.
No one asks me questions, and there are no appointments to remember.
Once the whole world has fallen silent, that time feels as if it belongs entirely to me.
Going to sleep feels, in a way, like actively bringing an end to the only truly free part of the day.
But I’ve gradually had to admit that these seemingly peaceful nights are leading to very painful mornings.
I start feeling restless even before I eat breakfast.
I have to drink coffee first before I’m even capable of finding a cup to put it in.
Sometimes I open the fridge and stare inside for a long time, as if that carton of yogurt could tell me why I’m standing there.
My body hasn’t betrayed me.
It’s simply responding very honestly to the life I’ve arranged for it.
So, I decided I wouldn’t wait until I was so sleepy I could barely keep my eyes open before suddenly collapsing into bed.
I began to set the stage for sleep properly.
Around 10 p.m., I turn off the brightest light in the house.
I put my phone on charge a little ways away from the bed.
When I first started doing this, it felt very strange.
I’d stare at my phone, as if I were the heroine in an old movie, watching my beloved board a ship bound for distant shores.
Then I’d wash my face, change into my pajamas, and read a few pages of an actual book.
Not the news.
Not product reviews.
And certainly not the comments sections written by people who were clearly even more agitated than I was.
Just an ordinary book.
No miracle happened on the first night.
When I woke up the next day, I didn’t look radiant.
There weren’t any birds outside the window lining up to cheer for my healthy lifestyle.
When the alarm went off, I was still a little grumpy.
But my mind wasn’t as chaotic as it used to be.
After sticking with it for a while, mornings started to get a little easier.
I didn’t need to become a completely different person overnight.
I didn’t need to buy expensive bedding, nor did I need to establish a complicated bedtime ritual involving a dozen different products.
I just needed to stop treating sleep as the last thing left on my daily to-do list.
Sleep isn’t something that happens only after all the important things are done.
It is, in itself, an important thing.
There’s always another email.
Another basket of laundry.
Another episode of a TV show.
And another question I really don’t need to be searching for in the middle of the night.
But now, when it’s time to sleep, I remind myself that the “me” who wakes up tomorrow is someone who needs to be taken care of, too.
She shouldn’t just get whatever energy is left over from today.
She deserves for me to set aside a little time for her in advance.
