Let’s talk about sleep, and how we’re doing with sleeping as a practice:
I’ve achieved a pretty rock solid skill level when it comes to sleeping. Going by the numbers tracked by my fitness watch I’ve had fewer than 10 nights of “fair” or worse sleep this year. The metrics tracked include heart rate, heart rate variability, stress levels during sleep, breathing rate, sleep cycles, wake ups/restless motions and consistency of timing. I can attribute most of the fair nights of sleep to one off events, or in a few cases ramping up physical training a bit too quickly. I’m quite happy with “great sleep” being my normal. Especially considering the issues with insomnia and sleep avoidance I struggled with as a teen and in my twenties.
That said, lately I’ve been missing the late nights and the decision to go to bed has gained a new speed bump of “if I stay up I can play video games/watch movies/youtube and I’m only sacrificing my sleep, not productive hours or relaxing time with family”. I do spend time throughout the day on things just for me, but the games/content watching has basically fallen off my schedule entirely and I get pangs for it still.
Oddly enough I’ve only spent a single cycle with a sleep focused title in my stack, but I’ve found as my meditation skills have increased my ability to just-go-to-sleep has kept pace. Most nights I now transition to sleep from a meditative state.