Stay awake for 36 straight hours then sleep 12. You get a bunch of extra time then have the best sleep ever bc you're fucking destroyed level exhausted and want to die. psyche unraveling you wrote a treatise on every way you're broken, an incapable being in a zombielike stupor completing the work you've been tasked with but feeling nothing. Your body hurts, your mind aches, you want to go home but you are home and that hurts more- so like the sleep feels really good.
I’ve always gone through phases of insomnia. It’s an endless cycle of can’t sleep, get tired, sleep too much, can’t sleep again. It’s frustrating. I would never wake up at a regular time and, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d end up miserably forcing myself to stay up later to make sure I actually slept once I went to bed, instead of doing that half-dozing semi-conscious crap.
I think a big part of the reason so many people have dysfunctional sleep schedules is just because beds are comfortable. That’s it. They’re comfortable, warm, and you just don’t want to get out of them. Weekend lie-ins are great, but they screw up your sleep during the week. That’s the hardest part of this: if you want to sleep regularly, you have to be regular, regardless of what day it is.
Please bear in mind I’m no medical professional and this won’t work for everyone, it’s not a universal cure to insomnia, this is just how I did it. But, if you are struggling, it’s probably worth a try.
1) Pick a wake-up time.
To fix your sleep schedule, you first need to figure out how much sleep your body needs. This means fiddling with bedtimes and wake-times, and people generally have more room for flexibility with bedtimes - they just have more free time at night. So, you need to adjust your bedtime to figure that out.
Pick the time you want to wake up in the morning (I’d recommend some time around or after sunrise - getting up, probably earlier than you would otherwise, is hard, and doing it in the dark isn’t going to do much good for your mood or willingness to get out of bed.) and stick to it. I don’t care if it’s Saturday, get up. Same time, every morning, every day of the week.
2) Count back 7 hours.
Generally, people need 7-9 hours of sleep a night. The goal here is to gradually increase the amount of sleep you’re getting, until you hit the right amount, and it’s best to start with an underestimate. You’ll be tired for a few days, but if you start with an overestimate, you then may not be able to sleep and this whole thing just won’t work.
So, take your wake-up time, count back 7 hours, and make that your bedtime for the moment - e.g. if you want to get up at 7am, go to bed at midnight. Again: every day of the week.
3) Put your alarm across the room.
Alarms are hard to get up to. You hate the noise, so you shut it up, and go back to sleep, because you’re warm. I’ve been that person, setting an alarm every five minutes for an hour and still not getting up.
The trick to getting out of bed at your alarm is really not letting your body realise how warm it is. Wake up, get up, immediately. And the best way to do that is by putting your alarm, whether it’s a clock or a phone, across the room. It’ll go off, wake you up, and you, immediately wanting to silence it, you’ll get straight of bed without mulling in the warmth, and you’ll be more willing to stay out.
It sucks, but it works.
4) Wait a week.
It takes around a week for your body to adjust to a new sleep pattern, so you might not really know whether or not it’s enough sleep until then. Since 7 hours isn’t enough sleep for most people, you’ll probably be sleeping right up until your alarm goes off. You’ll probably be tired during the day, but it’s ultimately worth it, and, besides, that’s what caffeine is for.
5) Adjust.
After the first week, make your bedtime half an hour earlier. Wait another week. If, after the week, you’re still sleeping right up to your alarm, make it another half hour earlier, and repeat, until you start naturally waking up just before your alarm. When you wake up naturally at the time your body’s used to, it means you’re getting enough sleep.
Ideally, you should wait a week between each bedtime, but, if after you’ve got to at least 7.5 hours, you’ve been going to bed at a certain time for a few days and are still tired, you can adjust slightly early. But not until after at least a couple of nights.
6) Exercise your willpower.
Honestly, it gets harder once you’ve worked out how much sleep you need, because when you wake up before your alarm, you do have a few minutes to enjoy the warmth of your bed. Even if you keep putting your alarm across your room (which I would highly recommend), it can make you want to get back into bed. You have to force yourself not to.
As a person who makes my bed every morning, after quieting my alarm, I have to go straight back to my bed to make it, because I refuse to let my alarm blare as I do that. Personally, I keep a water bottle with my phone across the room, which I chug from once the alarm’s off. I also open my curtains because it wakes me up, then I make my bed.
When you wake up before your alarm across the room, it’s all down to your will.
7) Adjust as necessary.
The amount of sleep you need does change throughout your life, so, if your sleep schedule stops working for you, adjust it. Work it out again.
If there’s a specific morning or night in which you have to wake up early or go to bed late, that doesn’t meant change the unnecessary one - if you have to go to bed an hour late, wake up as you usually would, and vice versa. It’s a little tiring, but worth it.
If the time you need to wake up changes, feel free to adjust the whole schedule. You need to wake up an hour earlier than usual from September, wake up and go to bed an hour earlier. It’ll take your body a few nights to re-adjust, but it works.
Waking up earlier is genuinely fantastic. I find it makes me more energetic throughout the day, and gives me so much more time. I hope this can help someone.
Curiosity Daily Podcast: Breathing Trick to Fall Asleep Faster, Wisdom Teeth Removal Revelations, and Lise Meitner
Learn about why getting your wisdom teeth removed might be pointless; Lise Meitner, the forgotten female physicist who helped us figure out nuclear power; and the 4-7-8 breathing technique to help you fall asleep faster.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Getting Your Wisdom Teeth Removed Is Likely A Waste Of Time — https://curiosity.im/2tvT1Uz
Lise Meitner Is the forgotten female physicist who deserved a Nobel Prize — https://curiosity.im/2GW1hVP
The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique Will Help You Get to Sleep Faster — https://curiosity.im/2txnWAc
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The Dinner Revolution: Why Your Grandmother's Meal Schedule Might Have Been Right
Something strange happened when I fell down the chrono-nutrition research rabbit hole.
A circadian medicine-backed chrono-nutrition guide. Discover meal plans and recipes timed precisely to boost insulin sensitivity and deep sl
I kept thinking about my grandmother.
Not because she had a PhD in nutritional science (she didn't). Not because she was ahead of her time in any trendy way (she wasn't). But because the way she ate — breakfast at 7, lunch at 12, dinner at 5:30 — actually lines up almost perfectly with what the latest circadian research recommends.
And that's either a coincidence or evidence that our ancestors knew something we forgot.
The science, condensed:
Your body runs on a 24-hour internal clock that governs everything from sleep to metabolism to hormone release . This clock is so fundamental to your biology that virtually every cell in your body has its own ticking mechanism . And here's the kicker: when you eat sends signals to these clocks.
Eat in alignment with your natural rhythms? Your body processes nutrients efficiently, your insulin sensitivity is optimized, your digestion works smoothly . Eat against them? Late-night meals, inconsistent timing, skipping breakfast? You're essentially asking your body to work the night shift when it's supposed to be sleeping .
What the evidence actually says:
Breakfast should happen within 1–2 hours of waking, preferably before 8 AM, when your insulin sensitivity is highest . This isn't about "the most important meal" dogma — it's about aligning with your body's metabolic peak.
Lunch should be your heartiest meal, ideally between 12:30–1:30 PM. This is when your digestion is strongest, your metabolism is most active, and your body is best equipped to handle a substantial caloric load .
Dinner should be lighter and finished at least 2–3 hours before bed. After 7 PM, your insulin sensitivity drops significantly, and your body becomes more likely to store carbohydrates as fat rather than use them for energy . Late-night eating is associated with higher body fat, blood sugar spikes, and disrupted lipid profiles .
Okay, but what does this actually look like?
Stephanie Schiff, a registered dietitian at Northwell Health, likes the old saying: "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper" . Your caloric intake should taper off as the day progresses, not peak at dinner.
The National Geographic team that wrote What to Eat When suggests aiming for three-quarters of your daily calories between breakfast and lunch, before 2 PM . This might sound extreme, but the evidence supporting front-loaded eating is remarkably robust .
One study followed over 1,200 people for six years and found that those who ate a larger percentage of their calories at night had a significantly higher risk of developing obesity, metabolic syndrome, and fatty liver . A systematic review in JAMA confirmed that distributing calories earlier in the biological day leads to better weight outcomes .
The cultural disconnect:
Here's where I start thinking about my grandmother again. She ate her biggest meal at lunch — a tradition that many cultures around the world still practice. The idea that dinner should be the main event? That's relatively recent, and it might be working against our biology.
The Chinese CDC recommends breakfast before 8 AM, lunch between 12:30–1:30, and dinner between 6–7 PM . Indonesian public health guidance echoes similar timing principles for children's nutrition . The Japanese Journal of Nutritional Science emphasizes that late-night meals are an "independent risk factor" for diabetes and cardiovascular disease .
This isn't a Western trend — it's a global conversation about syncing our eating patterns with our biology.
But here's what I keep coming back to:
This isn't about deprivation. It's not about restrictive diets or fasting fads. It's about shifting when you eat, not what you eat. And the beauty of chrono-nutrition is that it costs nothing, requires no special equipment, and works with your body rather than against it .
The practical takeaway:
Try eating within a 10–12 hour window
Make breakfast or lunch your biggest meal
Finish dinner 2–3 hours before bed
Keep your meal times consistent from day to day
Small shifts matter. Even moving your dinner 30 minutes earlier or adding more protein to breakfast can make a difference .
For a detailed breakdown of the research and a full meal plan I've structured around these principles (again: researched and cited, not personally tested — I'm the researcher here), check out the full article at reciperevise.com [BLOG_POST_URL].
Now I'm genuinely curious: What's your family's eating rhythm? Did you grow up with a big dinner tradition, or was lunch always the anchor meal? And more importantly — could you imagine shifting your eating schedule to align with your body clock?
Reply to this email — I'd love to hear your thoughts. 🍽️
I discovered a new sleep hack I can add to the ones I shared previously. In my Elder Rest post I distinguished between hacks to help me fall asleep at bedtime from those needed when waking up in the middle of the night. I have the most trouble falling back asleep at around 4:00 am. By that time 2-3 sleep cycles already have occurred.
For falling back asleep in the wee hours holding Cindy’s…
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