_watch if ur sleep schedule is a mess_ _ THE GLOW UP PROJECT Episode 3

Look, I'm not exactly proud of this, but this is usually how my nights go. Every night, I'm given a multiple choice test. A. Snuggle up and read a good book to unwind. B. Get a good night's sleep and feel rested in the morning. Or C. Ignore all common sense and surrender to my bad habits. You know that girl that you met the other day? Do you think she actually likes you and wants to be a friend? Or is she just trying to be nice? Actually, dude, I mean, I- And like, you raised your hand, and you were like so confident, but then you got the answer wrong. Yeah, wasn't that embarrassing? But also like, bad for like- I think you should keep overanalyzing it because I feel like that would be productive to you. Also, what if your life is actually a trillion? Like, you'd be able to get it all the time? Yeah, what if you were crazy? Okay, okay, I'm good. What if you were totally crazy? I feel like when I was younger, sleeping used to be so much easier. I literally would just touch the pillow and fall asleep instantly. But it feels like I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in like 10 years. I just feel tired all the time. Which is so ironic to me because sleeping is supposed to be this natural and innate thing. Like, our body craves it so much, but yet it's so ******* hard for us to get that good, good sleep. I did some quick research. The average adult needs 7-9 hours of sleep. And according to the CDC, 1 in 3 U.S. adults regularly don't get enough sleep. And 88% of American adults reportedly lose sleep due to binge-watching. And there's just so many more statistics linking lack of sleep to detrimental health effects and a bunch of nasty, nasty diseases. So this week, I'm challenging myself to fix my sleep schedule from sleeping at 5am to waking up at 5am. Dude, I don't know how the **** I thought this was gonna work. Like, my sleep schedule has been so bad for 10 years. I really thought I could fix it in a day, huh? It's just not what my body is used to or my mind. And I think the issue is I kind of see sleep as this endless well of resources that I can just keep depleting and it doesn't really have any consequences. Like, sure, I feel like ----. But like, for some reason, that doesn't really register as a real consequence in my mind. I also think I use stress and lack of sleep as a measure of success, which is really fucked up when you think about it. In some messed-up way, I think when I tell people, oh, I only got four hours of sleep, it somehow provides my brain with a feeling of validation that, oh, I'm working so hard because look, I didn't sleep. And so as a result, my brain always associates lack of sleep and stress with something positive. Until pretty recently. In the past couple months, I think I'm finally seeing the physical embodiments of my lack of sleep. Like, my skin has been progressively getting worse, my hair is thinning and falling out, and I'll have these stints of insomnia where I cannot get a lick of sleep even though I'm exhausted. And my body's like, oh, you don't want to sleep? Here, I won't give you sleep. But I really, really want things to change. But then, I realized I needed to set some actual battle plans in order to achieve what I wanted. I also could not pass up the opportunity to buy a projector because I really want to recreate that one scene from Euphoria. I also did not take into account the fact that projectors are really loud. Here's the game plan. Okay, I actually don't remember the game plan. For the next week, I will be experimenting with and analyzing my slumber schedule to figure out why it is so goddamn messy. And the goal is, by the end of the week, I will have concocted my ideal sleep schedule and be waking up at 5 a.m. So it turns out, if I want to wake up early, I have to sleep early. As we've seen so far, jumping off the deep end does not work for me. The plan. I will be implementing a more gradual process. The goal is to wake up at 10 a.m., which I feel is doable. And if I want to get eight hours of sleep, I have to sleep at 2 a.m. These- it says 1, 2, 3, but I realized that I explained them out of order. Anyway, the hypothesis is... Nope. Easy! There's no way I'll fail. Right? Dude, it took so long for me to fall asleep last night. Honestly, it takes me a while to fall asleep every night. So I think I need to start taking into account the amount of time- the amount of fu- the- how much time it actually takes me to fall asleep, which is like at least half an hour to an hour. I'm 100% sure I didn't actually get eight hours of sleep. I feel like ----. Absolute ----. Turns out, I do need to allot a lot more time to the process of actually falling asleep. But the new goal is... Wake up at 9 a.m. Now, let's do some math. In order to get eight hours of sleep, I need to fall asleep at 1 a.m. But it takes at least 30 minutes for me to fall asleep, which means I need to be in bed by 1230 a.m. And then I also want to do some kind of like leisure, calming down activity, like reading or journaling. I'd probably start that at 12 a.m. just to like wind down my brain, right? So basically, I'll need to start my entire night routine at 1130 p.m. It's so weird because I feel so tired already, even though it's so early, according to my standards. This is what I used to consider used to. It's literally like two days ago. This is what I would consider my prime waking hours. Like this is when I would function my best at. I mean, it seems kind of obvious that if you wake up earlier, you're gonna feel tired earlier. But I don't know. I think I've just been pulling late nights for so long that I've just convinced myself that this is normal. And I'm supposed to feel super energetic at night. And that's just how my body is wired. But no, it's just because my circadian rhythm is fucked. My hair loss was one of the biggest health indicators that my body is just not working properly. It's really due to a lot of different bad habits that I have. But tonight, I'm allowing myself half an hour to get ready for bed, half an hour to unwind, and half an hour for the actual process of falling asleep. It's really hard for me because my brain kind of sees all of this as a waste of time. Okay, this is my thought process. Technically, I could be using this time to be doing something way more productive. I could be working or I could be giving my brain the instant gratification that it so, so badly craves. Like going on social media, scrolling on TikTok. Because that's also just what my brain is so used to. It just doesn't want to calm down and actually be bored at night when things are supposed to slow down. And on most nights, my impulse control is just so bad. Because my brain keeps telling myself like, Stop. Stop. Get off your phone. Go to bed. But my body just doesn't move. I think just taking care of my health isn't something that my brain automatically associates with something beneficial. So I'm trying now. I'm really, really trying. See, I was supposed to journal for 30 minutes before I slept, but it's already 1230. So I guess I don't have time for that. I'm just going to skip it and go straight to sleep because I feel like that's more important. I feel like it's so hard for me to like stay on track. Okay, literally on my phone again. I literally I'm going to go to bed now. Wish me luck. I'm so tired waking up today, which is really weird because I got eight hours of sleep. I think maybe my body's just not used to like waking up so early. So no matter how many hours of sleep I get, it's just going to be like in a foreign state. Because I'm so tired. All I can do is like go on my phone to keep myself awake, but it's like so bad for me because once I go on my phone, I just can't stop. I need to like figure out a way to make my brain automatically associate all these good habits with a positive, positive, positive positivity. I'm going to pause. I may be an NYU dropout, but there is something that I remembered from my psychology class Pavlov's. I guess I didn't remember it. Pavlov's theory of classical conditioning. He wanted to figure out why dogs salivate. So have dog give meat saliva. Wait, this is saliva. But then he introduced a neutral stimulus, a bell. Every time he would bring up the meat, he would ring the bell. He did this dozens of times until eventually he would take away the meat entirely. Just ring the bell and the dog would salivate. Again, let's pretend that this dog is salivating. This is because the dog eventually associated the sound of the bell with meat, which is something that he wanted. Now in order to pass this psych course, we had to partake in a series of sketchy student experiments, but I do have to say I thoroughly enjoyed them because they gave us $20 at the end of each session. The point is I want to treat myself like a Pavlovian dog and conduct this experiment on myself. See, the issue is I currently extract zero joy from waking up early and as a result, I kind of just lay in bed for hours scrolling on TikTok. So I want to trigger a chain of habits in the morning that I do automatically without thinking, which are as follows. Wake up, chug water, do a short workout. Now, as you can imagine, this currently does not make me salivate. Now, what does make me salivate? A pink drink, which looks like a white drink right now. They also provide me with a lot of joy and serotonin, which are actually way more important than the salivation, by the way. That was just a metaphor. So every time I complete this chain of habits, I will reward myself with a pink drink. And in time, I want to make my brain associate this with joy. And then when I take it away eventually, the goal is to still enjoy waking up early and doing that chain of events. Hypothesis? I will be spending a lot of money on pink drinks. but I did it. I feel a lot more energized now, probably because I'm sweating. I don't want to say I doubted myself. I doubted myself. I don't think my body and brain feel the benefits yet. Like I do feel proud of myself, but my body wants to be in bed. Literally, the only thing that motivated me every time was like, I can't do this. I was like, Starbucks. One thing that was helping me a lot was the 3-2-1 rule. I don't know why it works, but if I just count down in my head or out loud 3-2-1, and suddenly I'm doing the thing that I was trying to do. I'm going to reward myself for completing this habit. It's 1030 and I'm getting ready for bed, which is actually insane because I started getting tired around like 930. It really just goes to show like my body can be normal. I will say it feels really weird to be able to get so much done at the beginning of the day because towards the end, I was like, oh, I finished everything on my list. Like did I not do enough today? I think it's just because I'm so used to starting my day so late that by the time it gets to like 10 o'clock midnight, that's when I'm in like hardcore work mode. But I think today has proved to me that I actually don't need to stay up late to get stuff done. I've actually gotten more done by getting up early, which I kind of hate because I've always rolled my eyes at morning people who are like, why don't you just get up earlier? Like you'll be way more productive. Like you'll feel way more awake and like shut up. But now look at me. Actually don't look at me. I'm a damn hypocrite. I think one of the reasons why it's so hard for me to fall asleep is because normally throughout the day, my thoughts are constantly drowned out by some type of media, social media, Netflix, listening to music, podcast. And so when I go to sleep, that's when everything is silent. I'm alone with my brain and my thoughts and the floodgates open and I wish my head were more empty. I like to think that my head is empty with no thoughts, but unfortunately there are a lot of thoughts in there. So I thought I would try journaling before bed to get my thoughts out physically and to see if I can allow my brain to think all the thoughts before I try to fall asleep. So then I'm more carefree. What the ****? Well this backfired. I guess this is what happens when you suppress your emotions. I'm thinking maybe I journal in the mornings instead. Or never. Maybe I should just, maybe. For the next couple days, things went really well. I continued with my morning routine, gradually waking up earlier and earlier. And for the first time in a long time, I was sleeping well. So disappointed in myself because I was on such a good trajectory and I was like, oh my god, like I'm finally fixing my sleep schedule. Like everything's going to be amazing. And then last night I slept at 5 a.m. And then this morning I tried to wake up early, but I woke up at like 12. I don't- I just don't want to get up. Basically did this whole week for nothing. This is so frustrating. Maybe I'm just like not meant to like improve my life. Like maybe this is just how my life is supposed to be. Is this a sign that like I shouldn't even try? Like I feel so shitty right now. No, we're not doing that today. We're not self-pitying today. Well, we did self-pity for three hours already. Okay. Okay, get up, get up, get up, get up, get up, get up. Okay. Oh god. I tried. Now that I'm feeling a little more clean, I do feel better. I think I was being overdramatic earlier, but I mean it was what I was feeling in the moment. I am frustrated, don't get me wrong, but it's like it's not the end of the world. And I feel like I was hinging too much of my success on having the exact same routine every single day. But then realistically, it's like there are days where I'm going to go out with my friends or just have late nights. And what am I going to do? Just like fall apart every time? No, so I definitely need to factor in that real life is a thing and not every week is just a challenge on the internet, you know? Also, it's like I've had this lifestyle for like 10 years and I really expected that I could change it all in a week. Like that's a little bit insane. I think it's because I'm so used to cramming for everything, procrastinating, leaving everything till the last minute when everything's super high pressure. And you know how teachers always say like, oh, you need to study early, cramming doesn't work, but it did work for me. Like I literally only crammed. I always got good marks. And so I kind of just have gone through my whole life continuing to procrastinate, continuing all my bad habits because I've always gotten positive validation from that. Of course internally, like it makes me feel very anxious and very stressed and like now I'm starting to see the physical repercussions in my body. Like it's now 4 18 p.m. Bro, I feel like my old self. Doesn't feel good. Let me tell you that. It's more than just feeling bad because I failed the challenge. It's more so that I genuinely don't like this feeling of like grimy and dirty and muddled in my head and it's genuinely worse than the tiredness that I felt from waking up early. Like when I woke up early, I felt super accomplished just from this week of not going on my phone right after I get up to going on my phone for hours when I get up and before I went to sleep last night. Like that did oh, I feel it like it's not good energy. It's the first time I've ever felt like my phone was actually holding me back from the good feelings that a person can feel because you know how people are always like, oh your phone is so bad for your social media is so bad for you, but it's like you get these tiny little serotonin hits every time you refresh and you find a new TikTok, which I genuinely think can be a boost to your day. But it's the fact that I go way too overboard. Anyway, this is not the end of the world. This is a journey. It's a work in progress. I think it's a big step that I actually recognize that I like how I feel when I wake up earlier. Which is really weird. So what does all of this mean then? I guess it means that I'm a normal ******* human being. I don't have my ---- together. In fact, I have the least ---- together. I actually didn't even ---- today. That's actually really not good. But I think I also realized that my sleep schedule and habits aren't just this isolated issue that I can tackle in a vacuum. Everything is kind of interconnected and I guess that's the whole point of The Glow Up Project. That's the reason why I put the string in between all the topics anyway. Don't forget to stream Counting Sheep. I feel like it perfectly encapsulates this whole episode and I poured all of my heart and creativity into that song. I definitely think it's not necessary for me to wake up at 5 a.m. What am I waking up to? The ass crack of dawn? It's pitch black outside. Who am I gonna see? No one. 5 a.m. is kind of just an arbitrary number anyway. The number is just a quantifiable metric and what I'm really chasing are the benefits. For the past couple weeks, I've actually been looking after my sleep and my skin is better. I feel happier waking up in the morning. I feel more productive and I'm actually able to fall asleep pretty quickly at night. But there's still so much more to work on for myself and this is only the beginning. So, what comes next? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.