It has come to my attention that the cool kids are showering with the lights off. According to a report from PopSugar, TikTok's wellness influencers are now swearing by "dark showers" - some call them "sensory showers" - in which they turn off all the lights, spark a candle and either play music, listen to nature sounds or just straight vibe.
We start the bedtime routine at 7 p.m., and it lasts until 8:15 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. most nights. This includes about 20 minutes of overseeing the toothbrushing and general bedtime prep, and then I spend about 20 minutes of one-on-one time with each of my three kids, in reverse age order. The kids are welcome to read in their beds until they're sleepy enough to turn off the light,
That's what the viral "10-3-2-1-0" sleep hack is all about. It suggests you should stop drinking caffeine 10 hours before you plan to go to bed. It also recommends that you should stop eating three hours before bed, banish work-related thoughts two hours before bed, and ditch screens an hour before bed. If you do all of that, you should be able to hit snooze zero times in the morning: 10-3-2-1-0.
In September, I published a column that laid out the design of my morning protocol, which uses the best available research to manage my mood-especially my natural negativity-and optimize my creativity and productivity. The six steps I detailed there have dramatically enhanced my quality of life. Since that column, many readers have inquired about how to design other parts of the day, particularly the evening. This column outlines the evening protocol I have developed to match my morning one.
Even if you shower before bed every night (gold star), you're still bringing an invisible entourage with you under the covers. We don't think about it because sleep is non-negotiable, but dead skin, sweat, and yes, a little saliva end up on our sheets and pillowcases. You can't see itbut it's there. I'm not hear to induce fear, I'm just saying all this as a reminder that clean sheets do matter.
First up is reassurance. It can help to think about a situation, or maybe more than one, that you struggled with in the past, something that felt endless, yet you found ways to move through it. Even if sleep challenges have been with you for a long time, new layers of healing and understanding are always possible. This might be a chapter that's asking for patience and new tools, but you can learn to support yourself through it and find resources that help.
What distinguishes the Hikikomori (ESW) experience is not about the quality or even quantity of sleep; it's about when the sleep happens. Folks I tend to see report ten or more hours of shut-eye; however, it occurs from the wee hours until mid-day or even later. This is problematic because it places someone out of synch with social norms, where jobs and social lives are happening.
