The Wind-Down Protocol

The four lines

Morning: first outdoor light the sky allows; a little movement; weekend wake within an hour.

Evening: shelf; protein; forty-minute gap; phone in another room.

Wake: no clock; fifteen; then not-the-bed.

Bad night: don’t chase it.

The same page, spelled out

For when you wake between 1am and 4am and sleep doesn’t come back.

Before bed

Ten minutes with a paper notebook. Write down everything you’re tracking. Leave it on the kitchen counter.

Phone in the kitchen too. Plug it in there. Leave it there.

Put a dull book where you’ll sit, so 2:30 is not a scavenger hunt.

When you wake

You don’t look at the clock. You know what time it is.

Lie still for about fifteen minutes. Not timed. If sleep comes back, you’re done.

If it doesn’t, get up. Go to a chair in another room, in low light.

No chair: the bathroom floor with a towel, or the hallway step. Ugly places count.

Read three pages of a book you don’t care about. Knit two rows. Do a crossword. Look out a window.

No screen. No planning tomorrow.

Go back to bed when you’re sleepy. Sleepy is your eyes wanting to close. Tired is what you feel all the time.

If you’re awake again fifteen minutes later, get up again. As many times as it takes.

If you’re shaky, a few bites of something with protein, if it’s already in the kitchen. A bite. Back.

A new item at 2:19: if the notebook is in the kitchen, leave the item. It will live.

To yourself at 2:30

Tomorrow

Get up near the same hour even after an ugly night.

Take the first coffee outside for ten minutes.

Don’t chase a bad night with a late sofa, a 3:50 coffee, or a virtuous 9pm.

The wrong door

If it takes you an hour to fall asleep, if you snore or stop breathing, if you can’t name a thing you look forward to, if the glass of wine has become a requirement: this page is the wrong door. See a clinician. In the United States, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a real number. Call or text 988.