About Sleep Optimized

I fell asleep during a client presentation in March. Not dozed off -- actually fell asleep, head-drop-wake-up, in a conference room with eight people watching. That was rock bottom.

I am a marketing director in San Francisco, 39, and for most of my thirties I treated sleep the way most people in demanding jobs do: as something you negotiate with, bargain against, and eventually steal back on Saturdays. Five hours was a good week. Four was common. I wore it as proof of commitment. The presentation was the moment my body decided we were done with that arrangement.

The six months after that were a full-on experiment. I kept working my regular schedule (50 hours, give or take, Slack pinging at 10 PM because time zones), which meant I couldn't just slow down. I had to figure out sleep while still living the life that was breaking it. I tried every approach I could find -- apps, supplements, routine changes, no-screens rules I mostly kept, magnesium combinations that mostly didn't work, a two-week no-alcohol stretch that helped more than I expected, and a few habits that actually stuck.

Sleep Optimized is the documentation of that process. What helped, what didn't, what helped but only if I also did the other thing. Some of the product links pay a commission -- I'd rather say so plainly here than bury a disclosure somewhere you'll only see after you've already clicked.

Still works too much. Still checks email before bed sometimes. Sleeps dramatically better than I did a year ago. My therapist says progress, not perfection. She is right.

The fuller version of who's writing this is on the author page.

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