Recently, I listened to Amy Poehler interview Gwyneth Paltrow on her “Good Hang” podcast and became jealous of their sleep routines. Both of them are a little older than I am, but they sounded decades wiser when it came to their sleep habits. Poehler said she eats dinner at 6 p.m. and is usually in bed by 8 p.m., and that it’s one of the great joys of her life. “I think about bedtime all day,” she said.

Gwyneth is also an early eater. Then, right before bed, she takes either a bath or a shower – “to wash the day off her skin” – and is in bed by 8. “It’s non-negotiable,” she said, in a vaguely threatening way.

​Also, her bedroom is something like 65 degrees. The sheets are cold. She’s got a sleep mask on and some mouth tape. She also admitted she watches TV before bedtime, to which Poehler made a disapproving noise. “I know that’s bad,” said Gwyneth. But she still sleeps blissfully.

​I thought of the specificity of her routine and how it’s the opposite of what I have done at night for most of my life: fight against sleep like it’s my mortal enemy.

​Usually, at the end of the day, I wind down by watching terribly violent movies on my laptop until way past midnight. Sometimes I don’t even bother with the movies. I’ll type “Most violent movie scenes” into the YouTube search and follow it wherever it takes me, which is usually a Gaspar Noé montage.  

​As for nighttime baths—you don’t want to know how often I forget to shower, sometimes for days. I fall asleep in my dirty clothes once or twice per week. I eat processed food very late. I grind my teeth, and I have night terrors. If I wake up in the night, I move to the couch, and then the next morning, it feels like I used a dumbbell as a pillow.

​All this is to say—I don’t think about bedtime all day. I don’t even think of bedtime at bedtime. What is “bedtime” anyway?

*****

​When I was newly sober, I tried to get into some healthy sleep patterns, with no success. I went through a tea phase for a little while, but I’d throw three or four different flavored bags into the cup, like Sleepy Time Raspberry with one Honey Turmeric, punched up with a green or black tea, in the hopes that I’d create some strange alchemy that would induce peyote-like visions and a Nyquil-level coma. It never worked.

​I was also a hopeless chainsmoker, but I thought one of the immediate bonuses of sobriety was that smoking was temporarily declared healthier in the grand scheme. This will come as a shock to no one who is under the age of 80, but as a 20-plus-year, pack-a-day smoker, I mistakenly thought this was my most reliable sleep remedy. I would smoke before and after I brushed my teeth. (Don’t let anyone tell you that the morning or post-meal smoke is the best, the one after you’ve flossed, brushed, and mouth-washed is life-affirming.)

​On nights I was particularly antsy, I would wear two nicotine patches, sometimes on my neck, just because those three-hour dreams that felt like they were directed by Terrence Malick were so amazing.

​But now—I’m all screwed up. My FitBit has a sleep monitor, and it’s never more than 3.5 hours per night. During my last doctor’s visit, he gravely said that this will ruin me if I don’t get a handle on it. He suggested taking double the amount of Gabapentin for starters, but he also said I should consider participating in a sleep study.

​For this month’s “What It’s Like…” feature—I’d love to hear about sleep routines, especially routines post-sobriety, but that’s not a requirement. If you’ve got a system that you’re proud of, I’d love to read it, as would thousands of other sleep-starved readers who spend their nights worrying about shit.

So that’s the prompt: What is it like to go to sleep? Tell me how you went from being a terrible sleeper to someone who has incredible sleep hygiene. HELP me.

All contributors will remain extremely anonymous.

Please keep contributions to under 500 words.

Send your stories here: [email protected]

Subject: SLEEP

Anyone who gets published gets an annual subscription to TSB Sundays.

After the jump, we have our usual rundown plus a couple of readers sent in their favorite Ram Dass books to start. See you down there. — AJD