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Great, another source of anxiety to make it harder to maintain a consistent sleep schedule.

I know this will not help you, but stressing about sleep is a vicious cycle which does not help.

I used to be much more anxious about sleep — and life in general — but I have leaned that if I don’t sleep that is fine. Life goes on, the body gets what the body needs, and I should focus on living instead of sleeping.

Being active, spending time with friends, going outside for walks, laughing, and taking the world as it comes to me has done more for my sleep than reading studies or buying stuff (outside of a tempurpedic matress and solid oak frame).

Fortunately, I did learn early on that stressing about sleep, especially as I lie awake in bed, was making things worse.

Agree. Every month there’s some new “discovery” about what can make your life shorter. It makes me anxious and definitely doesn’t help at all. I cannot simply manage so many variables. I try to do a little bit of everything, to be in the middle point of everything as much as I can; that’s my strategy.

I think this is a framing problem. You need to let go of the outcome and focus on what you can do. You can't control the result, but you can do the best that you're capsble of in your current situation, which includes not over-extending yourself.

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