While going to bed early may not seem like fun, Richard Swerdlow has embraced his new routine.
If you’re listening to this, you must wake up early. I get it. I’m in my sixties now, and retired. I don’t set a wake-up alarm anymore, but somehow I just naturally wake up earlier than ever, like 5 a.m. early.
So I’ve started getting up and found I like the peace and quiet of the silent, pre-dawn hours. No dinging texts, argumentative TV news, or demanding phone calls. I can just sit in the hushed world, slowly surfacing with a cup of coffee for company.
But for every action there is a reaction, and getting up early requires going to bed early, too. So I’m often in bed by nine p.m. In my twenties, I liked late night parties and clubs. But somewhere along the way, I’ve gone from night owl to early bird. Now I turn down invitations that require being out past 10 p.m. And, surprisingly, I’m not the only one. People of all ages tell me they’re exhausted and crash after they’ve barely finished dinner.
It sounds boring, but going to bed early is actually cool now, according to the Wall Street Journal’s reporting that 9 p.m. is the bedtime of choice for 18 to 35 year olds. Getting tons of sleep is the latest productivity hack and wellness fad, with formerly proudly sleep-deprived Silicon Valley tech billionaires and Hollywood celebrities bragging about how much shut-eye they get nowadays. Unlike those trendy A-listers, I didn’t choose this lights-out lifestyle, it chose me. But I like it. Hitting the hay early has me feeling freshly energetic.