Me vs. sleep: my struggle with taking back control of my life
I woke up and checked my phone. It was 5:30 PM on a Wednesday. The sun was about to set, and my room was that hollow and mysterious kind of dark. Three missed calls. A pile of unread messages I hadn't had the strength to face.
I stepped outside. The world was wrapping the day up while I was only just waking up, as if I was trying to escape from it. Suddenly, a sense of meaninglessness took over me. I started wondering, what happened to my life? How did I get here?
This wasn't a rare occurrence, either. I've been a night owl for as long as I can remember, falling in love with the quiet of the night in my early teens. Over the past two decades, I've cycled through all the possible feelings about it. Starting from blaming and hating myself for it, doubting if something was wrong with me, or even trying to embrace it.
After all this, I feel it's worth giving it a solid effort to take back control of my life.
Why this matters
Sleep is the arrow that decides not just how far we'll go in a day, but in which direction. A broken sleep schedule has always left me feeling tired, never having the energy for the things I wanna do. I feel like I'm always trying to catch up. As if I'm in a race where time has unlimited nitro and I have a knee injury.
It also cost me my social life. It's a sneaky one to catch, but over time, my connections started fading away. Being invisible when everyone else is living their lives means you're not as present in their lives. It slowly builds up until one day you find yourself feeling isolated and alone.
So fixing my sleep matters for all the same reasons having a rich and meaningful life matters.
The Challenge
This isn't the first time I'm trying to fix my sleep. It isn't the 13th. The earliest frustrated note I've found about sleep dates back to 2015. Here's me talking about it in 2020.
🛑 Biggest fails:
- Sleep: Writing this at 4AM. Tried the entire year to improve when and how much I sleep but failed miserably. Affected my social life terribly.
- Being in touch: I lost connection with most friends and at times, I feel extremely out of touch now (aka lonely) 😔
Through all my failed and partially successful attempts, I've found things that work, and things that don't. I've learned the importance of simplicity. So, this time, I'm taking everything I learned about the science of habit formation, accountability, and my own behaviours and putting them all together.
I came up with a few core principles for the challenge to make it a real event in my life, and not just another wish-list item with no real skin in the game. I decided my failure should embarrass me beyond just a passing thought, so the challenge needs to be public. The progress and setbacks need to be measured and published, so I'm forced to be accountable. The system should be as automated as possible to keep things simple. And lastly, there should be a real consequence for success or failure, i.e. reward/punishment. And all the while, it needs to be fun. Otherwise, what's the point? Naprevive is the culmination of all those different factors.
But beyond all those details, the main objective here is pretty simple: Waking up before a certain time every single day until it becomes a habit.
Where I started
I know doing a public challenge to wake up at "8AM" sounds...a little dramatic, to say the least. But to understand why this is ambitious for me, we gotta take a look at some past data and understand what we're dealing with here.
October 12th - 18th, 2025
Red - Failed to wake up before 8AM, Green - Woke up before 8AM
My average bed time has been after 5AM for so long, it feels abnormal when I accidentally go to bed at 2AM sometimes. My typical week has at least a few days when I'm waking up after 2PM. So attempting to wake up at 8AM isn't exactly a baby step in my case.
The stakes
I've committed to myself before. But have I, really? It seems like it's pretty easy to break the promises you make to yourself when breaking them doesn't come with any clear and visible consequence. So this time, I've decided to make sure I get some kind of punishment if I fail.
If I win
Buy the Kindle I've been dreaming about for years. I didn't give it to myself because I want to 'earn' it.
If I fail
Give away a Kindle to someone following along. Failure turns into a gift; the stakes stay real.
How I'm running it
Automated tracking
All the data on Naprevive is pulled directly from my Garmin smartwatch. I've programmed this app to check for the latest data every two hours. Besides helping me keep things simple, it should also help build trust. No manual edits, no hanky-panky.
Public accountability
Progress and setbacks are live and archived. Each miss is visible; each win is logged. You can not only follow the journey, but also send me an instant message yelling at me. I wanted to make sure every failure stinks extra.
Daily logs
Writing about each day's wins and struggles. Both to reflect and find learnings, as well as keeping this journey in the books to be able to look back at later.
Gamification
Lives system, streaks, progress bar, and clear win/lose conditions. I don't wanna be a grumpy face waking up groggy every morning wondering why I'm torturing myself.
Create community, share and inspire (🤞)
Besides solving my accountability issue, I wanted to build something others can follow along with and feel a part of. Maybe even inspire someone else to attempt improving their life, too.
What's next
I'll keep trying to fix my sleep, and you keep following the journey and keep me on my toes. If you're feeling generous and really want to help, share this site with your friends. Specially the insomniac ones.
The mission is simple: trying to be the best version of myself, doing it in a fun way, and sharing the joy of it with everyone else. Regardless of winning or losing the challenge, I'm hoping to finish this with an experience I'll look back at fondly.
If you've read this far, I thank you for your time. Please feel free to leave a message on the Wall of Love or write me a direct message. Maybe you have a similar story of struggle that'll inspire me? Or maybe just say hi. I like making friends. :)