I Never Want to Sleep

There’s nothing better than a good night’s sleep. The problem: I don’t want to sleep, never been a fan of it.

The average well-adjusted person’s day looks a little like this:

My (not average, terribly-adjusted person) day however, looks more like this:

Perpetual Sleep Deprivation

Revenge Bedtime Procrastination is the name of the game. My day is unfulfilling, boring, spent doing a lot of things that I don’t really want to do (that’s life!) and I desperately claw back my time when the evening rolls around. As the world heads to sleep, the night is serene. Quiet, peaceful. After waiting an eternity I can finally pursue my interests free from interruption or judgement.

… And then I keep going. Midnight flies by. Anyone responsible would pack everything away and call it a night, but nah. Going to sleep means I’ll have to trudge through an entire day before I can get back to doing what I want.

Even if I know an early & full night’s sleep will restore me and allow me to perform at twice my best, immediate comfort trumps it. If I’m working on something, I won’t want to stop, so I’ll lock in to finish it regardless of when it’ll be done. If I’m relaxing, well there’s always one more video, always another friend to say hello to, anything to put off the next day.

Unfortunately my responsibilities aren’t as flexible as my sleep, and trying to deal with that conundrum is a nightmare in itself. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life a husk, dark circles permanently etched under my eyes, shambling from one day to another. On the good weeks I can scrape back my needed sleep over the weekend, but Monday is inevitable.

Is it immature? Yep. Is it unhealthy? Absolutely. As if the brain fog and grogginess of perpetual sleep deprivation wasn’t bad enough I can assure you I’m walking into an early grave because of it, be it stroke or heart failure. The sad thing is that despite knowing this, I can’t bring myself to actually head to bed at a reasonable time and get enough sleep.

The causes

• Excitement and Motivation - I’m not eager to trudge through the boring stuff of the next day before I can do what I want
• Ubiquity of the Internet - 20 years ago the web was smaller, slower, and you’d only have your computer connected to it. The internet was an addition to our day-to-day lives, not a core part of it, and we could easily disconnect ourselves from it.
• Bloody Americans - Unfortunately I know a lot of Americans. Because they live in a later timezone and have their own responsibilities, often the only time I can talk to them is in the evening… And then I don’t want to stop.
• Nighttime is comfy - As if the inherent thrill of being awake while the world sleeps isn’t good enough, add on the peace & quiet and the fact that you’re finally, truly alone… It’s nice.
• I’m not tired - I spend my entire day feeling like death but when the sun goes down I could live forever. Possible Vampirism?

Possible solutions (which I will ignore)

• No more caffeine - Moot point, I’ve been caffeine-free for 4 years now (or at least, only having decaf!). Across the board I feel better without it, and I can usually nod off in 15-30 minutes… The issue is that I don’t want to.
• Avoid Blue Light - I kinda try? I have all my devices set to the lowest brightness with warm Night-light settings practically set to max but… It’s more that having said devices means I don’t want to disconnect.
• Disconnect - I mean I do so before 1am, but okay. The issue with programs that shut your devices off after a set time is that I could just switch devices or turn things back on.¹
• Grow up, be responsible - I realise that this is the answer, but eughhhhhhh
• Do more - Fair. The more I do during the day, the more tired I am when the evening rolls around.
• Get something to live for - This one is probably too deep for this blog post. Maybe I’d actually sleep if I was with someone who’d make the boring stuff in the day worth it… But knowing me I’d probably attract a fellow internet vampire and it wouldn’t fix anything.

I don’t really have much else to say. The act of sleeping itself is lovely, and getting a healthy amount of it feels great but I keep denying myself it. Occasionally I’ll have a week or two where I sleep on time and get enough of it, but it never lasts and… I don’t know.

If the day had an extra ~4 hours so I could extra time to myself AND get a full night’s sleep… Honestly I’d waste it by still choosing not to sleep. Oops.