useSleep()
Not a Tech Blog, But i don't care
Chapter 1: The 2AM Hero
There was a time when sleeping at 2AM felt super cool.
School days.
Early college days.
If you slept at 10PM, you were “uncle”.
If you slept at 2AM, you were elite.
Late night movies.
Random YouTube.
Scrolling for no reason.
Thinking about the startup I built perfectly in my mind… but nowhere else.
Important clarification:
I didn’t even code till I was 22.
So this wasn’t “hustle”.
It was just vibes.
But the brain doesn’t care about vibes.
It builds habits.
Chapter 2: The Side Effects
Years passed.
2AM became default.
Then something weird started happening.
Even if I slept 9–10 hours…
I woke up tired.
Heavy head.
Low energy.
Morning irritation.
It felt like my body booted up in safe mode.
Chapter 3: The Science (Very Light)
I honestly wasn’t planning to explain the science part.
How can someone who hasn’t properly opened a biology textbook after 10th standard suddenly start talking about hormones and brain systems?
But since this is a tech blog — and we like understanding how things work under the hood — I’ll try.
Inside our body, there’s something called the circadian rhythm.
Think of it like an internal scheduler.
A biological clock that runs on roughly a 24-hour cycle.
It regulates when you feel sleepy, when you feel alert, when your body temperature drops, when hormones are released — almost everything related to your daily energy.
At the center of this system is a tiny part of the brain that responds mainly to light and darkness.
When it gets dark, your brain starts releasing melatonin — the hormone responsible for making you feel sleepy. Your alertness decreases, body temperature drops slightly, and your system begins preparing for rest.
Now here’s the part most of us ignore.
Your brain doesn’t know the difference between sunlight and your bedroom LED light.
Light is light.
Especially blue light — the kind emitted from:
Phone screens
Laptop screens
TVs
White LED bulbs
When you sit under bright light at 11:45PM scrolling or watching something, your brain interprets that as daytime.
So melatonin release gets delayed.
Which means:
You don’t feel sleepy at the right time.
You stay awake longer without realising it.
You go to bed but your brain is still active.
Even normal room lighting can reduce melatonin levels slightly. Bright LED lighting can suppress it more significantly.
It’s like shifting your system clock every night and expecting all scheduled processes to run properly.
Morning works in the opposite way.
When sunlight hits your eyes, melatonin drops and cortisol rises — helping you feel awake and alert. If you wake up late and avoid natural light, that signal also gets delayed.
So when I was sleeping at 2AM one day, 12:30AM the next, 3AM on weekends — my internal clock was constantly adjusting.
Even if I slept 9–10 hours, the timing was misaligned.
Sleep isn’t just about how long you sleep.
It’s about when you sleep.
Your body prefers consistency over chaos.
Once I fixed my sleep time and wake-up time — and reduced late-night light exposure — things slowly started syncing again.
No hacks.
No extreme routines.
Just alignment.
Chapter 4: Operation Reset
No 5AM challenge.
No motivational reels.
No ice bath nonsense.
Just one rule:
Sleep at the same time.
Wake up at the same time.
Every single day.
Even Sunday.
Day 1?
Hard.
After that?
Smooth.
Surprisingly, I never struggled to wake up after the first day.
That shocked me.
The body adjusts faster than the ego.
Chapter 5: The Upgrade
Now I wake up fresh.
Not because I sleep 10 hours.
But because I sleep consistently.
Brain feels clear.
Energy is stable.
Mornings feel calm.
Kerala mornings are underrated by the way.
That quiet air.
That slow sunlight.
Peaceful.
Earlier I used to miss all that because I was sleeping through it.
Chapter 6: Final Dialogue
I’m not saying wake up at 5AM.
I’m not saying night life is evil.
I’m just saying this:
Don’t romanticize 2AM like I did.
Discipline feels boring.
But boring things build strong systems.
And as a 25-year-old tech guy trying to build a life,
stable energy is more powerful than late night drama.
If you’re reading this at 1:38AM…
Close this tab.
Sleep brother.
