Waking at 3am? Leave the Clock Alone
First shared as a Substack Note on October 9, 2026. Read the original Note.
You wake in the dark and the first move is almost automatic: find out what time it is. This Note was about not making that move.
Why the clock makes it worse
The number on the screen turns a quiet moment into a sum. Hours left until the alarm, hours already lost, how tired tomorrow will be. Now you are awake and doing maths, which is a job, and jobs keep a brain alert. The time itself changes nothing you can do in the next ten minutes.
The first step
Leave the phone and the clock exactly where they are. Don’t look. That one choice already takes the arithmetic off the table.
The rest of the practice is short, and it is in the original Note. It is also one of the five night practices in Bare Sleep, where it sits alongside what to do before bed and at early waking.
What this is and is not
This is not a trick for falling back asleep, and it does not promise you will. The aim is smaller: to stop adding effort and arithmetic to a waking that would otherwise pass. Sleep tends to come back on its own schedule. Your part is not to stand in the way.
If you are lying awake a long time most nights, that is worth talking to a doctor about. This is a practice, not a treatment.
Safety. If you feel dizzy or lightheaded, stop and breathe normally. Don’t force the air out and don’t hold your breath. If you have a breathing or heart condition, or you are pregnant, ask your doctor first. This is a practice, not medical advice.
The full sequence is in the book
This is one practice. Bare Sleep is the full sequence: five night practices, one for each moment of the night, and a seven-night starter.
The opening of chapter one of Bare Breath is free. Enter your email on the free-chapter page and it opens there.
Read the free chapter Bare Sleep on Amazon
More about the book on its page. More from the blog