There have been many long-running tasks that I have performed over my the entirety of my life. Many of which occurred during my ultramarathon. They range from: learning how to communicate well to re-learning mathematics, or even my journey as high performing athlete.

One task stands above them all as the most difficult to perform. It comes in the shape of breaking an existing habit. As you might have already been able to tell, I have very strongly set routines by habit.

If you had asked me what my hardest challenge was 7 years ago, I might have answered, giving up https://reddit.com. Reddit was engraved into my daily life, such that it would need to be checked at any moment of downtime. There was a need for constant stimulation and Reddit solved that for me. However, I did not like being put in a head-space that needed to be constantly stimulated by interesting things. This made quitting cold turkey seem like a good choice. I soon realized the only reason I browsed the internet was to visit that site. Meaning there was an empty pit that Reddit left behind. There has not been one specific replacement for Reddit. Somehow my life went on and I found better things to work on. Breaking the muscle memory of constantly checking to see if people said interesting things was really tough. Not as tough as the thing that I struggled the most to accomplish.

Getting enough sleep is my current hardest challenge I have yet to overcome. The years of trying to become Alex 2.0 required me to adopt: a new mindset, outlook on life, and various other habits. This turned me into a tightly wound machine that was capable of accomplishing many great things. Unfortunately, this also leads to problems of not being able to wind down.

Driving myself into the ground is the easiest part of my day. Even after countless reflections, I still do not know where my endless internal drive forward is sourced. I would fill my days to the brim with character building activities and very few moments to relax. Then at the end of the day I would wonder, "why I am having such a hard time getting enough sleep?"

Well, I eventually figured out what my problem was and it only took me up until the time of writing this to figure it out (and I am still working at it).

How it started

In the very beginning of my athletic journey, I strove to be good at road cycling. The biggest problem about road cycling, is that you have to share the road with fast moving instant death machines. To prolong my life, the safest workaround for this was to perform the activity in the early hours of the morning. The idea was: it is hard to get hit by a car if everybody else still sleeping. This worked out well for the most part, traffic was almost non-existent, however it was also dark. This meant that I had to be tricked out in lighting gear in order to see and to be seen.

Another big problem about riding the dark is when autumn and winter roll around. I learned early on that most weather conditions were not going to stop me from getting a ride in. If it was raining, then I got soaked. When the temperature dropped below freezing, then more cold weather gear got put on. Unsurprisingly, the sun keep things warm and when it is not up it gets really cold. It gets to a level of cold where I need to wrap my feet (that already have two socks) in aluminum foil to avoid loosing heat during the ride. The only thing that would bring a halt to cycling would be snow/ice or fog. Though you may not know it, fog is terrible. It shows up around my part of America around mid-autumn. Where the ground is still warm from yesterday, but the air is significantly cooler. Visibility is essentially non-existent ( have you tried driving in fog at night?), plus everything gets wet. At the time, I had a rim-braking bike, the rims getting wet and would cause my stopping distance to drastically increase. Pair that with not being able to see further than it takes to stop an you got a recipe for not being able to react to anything ahead. Plus, I wear glasses so that makes it even worse. Anytime anybody says that the Fall or Winter is their favorite season, automatically tells me they like staying warm indoors or there hobbies winter based. The cold season can spare me the pleasure of its company. /rant

Anyway, the point that I am trying to get at is that I had to wake up early in order to ride safely. Waking up at 04:30 and heading out the door and hitting the roads by 05:00. This habit of rising early would continue even after my athletic goals changed. My normal routine now is, wake up at 04:00, start working on my free-time project, stop at 06:00. Get myself around and be done doing physical exercise around 7:30. After that, it would be off to work from 08:00 to 16:00. After completing work for the day, there was time to eat, meditate, and walk before 17:00. From 17:00 to 19:00 I would then continue my other free-time project. Once 19:00 rolls around, I needed to prep my meals for the next day, shower, eat, and then try to get to sleep.

That was my routine for the longest time, and began to wonder why I was having such a hard time getting to sleep. I would look at my schedule, and see there is an entire hour to wind down, so why am I having issues getting to sleep?

This evolved to the point, where finding sleep on the weekends was difficult as well. The entire time I knew that there was a large underlying problem, but did not do anything about it. I was being neglectful and getting 6-7 hours worth of sleep a night.

Lying to myself

You and I both know this fact very well, "Sleep is important." We both might know this fact, but I did not understand the significance of it. Voluntary comatose is crucial for peak performance. Even after reading these all these books on human performance:

I knew the significance of what having a good night of sleep gives you, however I did not understand that this also applied to me as well. I possessed many habits that exacerbated my sleep deprivation and was doing nothing about it.

The lie that I told myself was, "I am strong-willed, therefore I have habits. Because my habits are hurting me, I can change my habits." It was not until reaching a really tough point in my life, that the previous statement turned out to be a lie.

Over the years of my self-improvement journey, there was one goal to be held sacred, "Though shalt not lie to thyself." Lying is only good in attempts to impress/persuade others and it does not help get one stronger. Just because you might be impressed does not change the fact that I am not capable of doing it.

The one of prevalent places where this come into play is: athleticism. You can lie to yourself about being capable, but that does not make you stronger. Sure, I also could throw around a heavy weight and pretend like I am strong. However, that just makes me prone to injury and leaves me with the feeling of a hollow victory. What is the point of doing something just to impress other people? I am the one that has to live with myself at the end of the day. I am the one that has to give my life meaning, I have to fight my battles. Just because other people think that I am cool, does not solve my problems. Sure it might help, but in the end, I am the one that has to put up with my hardships. Yes, others can support me, but I am the one that has to pull myself out of the hole.

Overtime, I have learned that my actions taken when I feel the worst defines the limits of what I am capable of accomplishing in the future. I cannot achieve self actualization by building it up on false accomplishments. Lies do not help when you feel like crap and want to give up. What I am trying to get as is, I do not want to lie to myself.

Breaking the Habits

Getting to Sleep on Time

What I had been telling myself previously was a lie, though it was slightly mis-worded. Most of the correct words where present, just put in the wrong order. Instead of, "I am strong-willed, therefore I have habits, and because my habits are hurting me, I can change my habits." What it actually was "I am strong-willed, because I have habits. My current habits are hurting me, I can use my habits to change myself." This was realized only after I went through a spout of an existential crisis. A time when nothing really mattered, and there was no real point in doing anything. I felt hollow, and nothing I did would make the feeling go away. My current life philosophy, is that there is no point in life, so that means there is no reason not to make the most out of it. The only meaning in life is the meaning I give it. When things start to feel pointless, I just dig into the things that I gave meaning before, and just wade through hollowness. It is because I have such strong habits, that I am able to be resilient. I have normally exited these bouts stronger than before and knowing myself better.

By this time in my life, I have acquired and broken many habits. However, nothing that I was doing was helping me sleep a bit better. Everything becomes super interesting right around the time I should be going to sleep. The most common thing that I would tell myself is, "I bust my back all day, I deserve 20 extra minutes of videos or another episode." However, that would keep happening, and I would find myself putting the phone down at 21:30.

The first thing that I would attempt to do, was set an alarm that tells me to put down the phone and start to get ready for bed. An important factor that I learned after the fact was: I needed to respect this alarm to go to sleep like I do the waking up alarm. Waking up in the morning was never a problem, in-fact I am almost always ready to go the moment the alarm goes off. Which is another habit that needed to be controlled carefully. That shutdown alarm did not get the same respect as the wakeup alarm. Eventually it started to be ignored, causing a slip back into sleep my deprivation habits.

There was nothing at the time that would get me to respect that alarm. I always felt like there needed to be more time to relax. The thought of, "I have an entire hour to wind down and get to sleep, I can get this to work" did not help either. As time passed, it was clear that something I really did not want to do needed to be done. That action was to sacrifice the precious time devoted to work in return more time to wind down to sleep. Before I implemented my drastic change, I used to have 20 hours of dedicated focus time to accomplishing tasks during the weekday. This was the time between, sleeping, working out, various overhead activities, and my day job. I protected those precious hours because that was the time I could be improving myself. Those 2 hours before and after work are where my goals where being achieved. Changing that to 17.5 hours felt like a betrayal to my goals. The part of me that is driving me towards my goal, to becoming amazing, was strongly against that. It also just so happens that part of me is also very loud and holds the majority control of my actions.

However, another part of me realizes I am short-changing all my current efforts by not getting enough sleep. Getting more rest eventually won over. Instead of stopping the presses at 19:00, the new closing time is now 18:30. Starting this felt like it went against everything I had been doing all these years. I have even been spending money on outsourcing work, like getting groceries, so I could dedicate even more time to advance my goals. All these negative thoughts against this change where acknowledge and let go. This enabled me to move on with my life and take the steps in the right direction. Since I could not overcome this by will-power alone, I needed to sacrifice part the very thing was causing me degrade.

This gave me the respect I needed for my shutdown alarm. What was the point of giving up my precious time, if I was not taking the action to get to sleep sooner? Having overcome one of the habits that led to a poor sleep cycle, it was time to tackle the next ones.

Respecting the Magic Brick

The smartphone is an amazing tool at destroying any semblance of good nights sleep. I would browse the phone in bed and leave it charging right next to me overnight. Every book that I had read about getting to sleep, stated that the phone should live on the other side of the room or in another room. Again, these words where heard but not understood. This was because I was different, I am strong-willed, therefore I should be able to ignore my phone, put it down when necessary, or stop at anytime. You can probably guess, that that did not happen and nights where spent clinging to a phone. Why does everything have to be so darn interesting before going to sleep?

Another non-productive habit that formed in the same vein, was the need to constantly check email. If I woke up from a sleep cycle, that was prime time to reach for the phone and check emails/notifications. An epiphany happened right after completing a tough workout on a day that I was tired from a bad night sleep. I distinctly remember thinking, "Why do I need to check my email overnight or on my phone at all? I am not going to do anything about the knowledge I got, or respond. So why do I keep doing it?" There was not a good answer to that question. That was the night that the phone got put on the far end of the room. The physical distance was enough for me to quickly put myself back into bounds. It only took me a really long time to put my ego aside and listen.

Now that my nocturnal email checking habit was starting to break, there was one last problem that needed to be broken. Waking up at 04:00 and expecting to perform difficult tasks less than 10 minutes of waking up, can potentially lead to big sleeping issues. For me, it was I wanted to be ready to go as soon as possible, because I needed as much time to accomplish the mammoth goals I set for myself.

It was set in my head that everything should be timed by sleep cycles, which are about 2 hour intervals where your brain patterns change while sleeping. If you are woken up in the middle of one, the rest of the day would feel like your mind is in a fog. At least that is what I had at least convinced myself into believing. Therefore, it was my duty to not fall back asleep if I woke up less than an hour from my alarm clock.

You might be aware, but our brains are built with a really good internal clock. It is so good in fact, that it is a bit scary. I adopted the Pomodoro Technique a long time ago. My working sets are 27 minutes, and the resting intervals are 3 minutes. When a rest interval comes up, I get up and take a break, mostly looking out a window or something. Well, it has gotten to the point where I feel like there was enough of a break, and I could go back to what I was doing. By the time my rear hits is in the chair, the bell to start the next working set, rings. Almost as if I felt the passage of exactly 2 minutes and 45 seconds without actually keeping track.

This also means that it applies to sleep durations as well. The amount of times that I have woken up 3-5, minutes before 04:00, gave even more merit to the concept of an internal clock. Combine waking up 5 minute before the alarm and not wanting to fall back asleep in fear of breaking a sleep cycle, will result in getting a restless night sleep.

I had a strong conviction that I needed to know what time it is during the night, because I might need to wake up really soon. That would be enough for me to crawl to the other side of the room, to check the phone for the time. It would also happen when I needed to make a late night pit-stop.

Wait, what time is it?

This has proved to be the most difficult habit to break. Going to bed, and waking up not knowing if I overslept is difficult. Thankfully, I do not own any clocks other than my phone, so nothing had to be given away. The only course of action was to trust that the phone will go off when told so, and leave the rest to sleeping.

When I would wake up in the middle of the night, I needed to resist the urge to check the phone to see the time. This was such a hard-wired habit too. Each time I woke up, I had to re-assure myself that knowing the time did not matter. Even if it is 15 minutes to 04:00, if you get woken up you will not feel like death. There was no easy solution to overcoming this habit, in fact it went along with another habit.

I would frequently find that during the time it took to take a leak, my mind would kick into overdrive. Obviously, I had just woken up, therefore it means that I should start firing on all cylinders so that today's task can start. By the time I would get back into bed, my mind would be racing on trivial stuff that would prevent me from getting to sleep.

This would happen almost everytime I needed to get up out of bed. Happening in tandem with weening myself off knowing the time after waking up. I had no good solution to this, because I would almost instantly start thinking about things as soon as I got up. I wish there was a better solution to this. The way that I fixed this was, just hold it in and take care of it when 04:00 rolls around. It could wait until that unknown point in time is reached.

Sleep is such a difficult task to work with. It is not available on-demand, the best that can be done is to set the conditions for sleeping. Then hope that it eventually works. Being high-strung is the source of all my issues. I know this much because, when I relax sleep comes easy the next night. Saturdays are designated to be an active recovery day. There are no expectations to accomplish any great feats of will. Saturdays are dedicated to un-winding and avoiding stimulus. Which makes the night between Saturday and Sunday, the only night where sleep lasts for more than seven hours.

It is the combination of all these habits that result in getting a terrible night sleep. I need to keep looking out for Morning Alex because, he needs to be in top shape. However, Last Night Alex wants to stay up and look at all the interesting things. Completely detaching from my phone and all of my habits that come with it was the cost. What was lost in connectivity with the world became replaced with a clear head-space. That trade-off yields a higher life satisfaction overall.

I wish I could say that all my sleeping problems have been solved. The reality is that I am moving in the right direction. I find the desire the know the time at night to be manageable. It still sometimes happens and I will figure out hour of night. Though is not the end of the world, I still need to be mindful about regression. With time mostly under control, the alarm clock is really the only thing that pulls me from dreamland now days. To my surprise, even if I get woken up by the alarm, my mind quickly gets to a clear and active state.

While I am still working on managing all the poor sleeping habits. The reward so far has made it worth it, for the most part. The best thing that has come out of this is that I can actually sleep-in on both nights of the weekend now.

In the end, I had changed something that I had no direct control over. This was done by changing my habits that set my environment. Unfortunately, I do not collect various performance metrics on my studies or work tasks. Meaning that there are no numbers that can be pointed at as positive gain from this endeavour. Though I can speak to the fact my quality of life has gone up. There is no longer a feeling of being at the whims of the sleep fairy to get a full nights rest. I still have to hold any bathroom activities until the alarm goes off though. I am starting to notice that if I really need to get up, I can return to sleep faster.

The giant pool of willpower and effort needed to fix my poor sleeping habits marks this as the greatest challenge I have faced so far. My biggest problem is, that I cannot relax or get comfortable. While it may be a side effect of neglect during my ultramarathon, it is something I can fix. I just have to be ever vigilant to set the right conditions, and not slide down the slope of regression. Thankfully, I have the confidence in knowing that the habits I form, once set, are almost there to stay. I have the ability to change something that feels unchangeable.