Day 14: You can't change your life if you're too knackered to care
September Rentrée Series
🍂 Welcome to the September Rentrée! Every weekday this month, you'll get one bold, bite-sized piece to spark reflection, shift your habits, and help you design a life that feels good in real life. 1 month. 20 bold truths. A life-changing September. In France, la rentrée (the return) is a national event. It's about fresh routines, new ideas, and intentional renewal. And that's exactly the energy we're bringing here!
You already know sleep matters.
Your mental health, energy, mood. Your basic ability to function like a decent human.
But if you're lying awake at 2 am with your heart pounding and brain spiralling, the usual advice is downright unhelpful.
“Just get 8 hours” is like handing someone a green juice in the midst of crisis and calling it ‘healing’.
Here's what matters: Sleep is your foundation. Everything else, mindset work, habit changes, emotional regulation, crumbles without it. You can't think clearly, feel stable, or show up as your best self when you're running on fumes.
So if you're stuck, scattered, or spiralling, start there. Not with a 5 am routine or 10-step journaling practice. Start with sleep.
But not the generic "sleep hygiene" that gets thrown around like gospel. The real work is understanding what's actually keeping you up, and making tiny shifts that work.
The Real Problems (And What Actually Helps)
Racing thoughts
You're wired but exhausted. Replaying today, spiralling about tomorrow. Your brain feels like it has 20 tabs open.
Generic advice: “Just meditate.”
Real solution: Your nervous system is too activated for calm. Try a brain dump on paper first. Schedule ‘worry time’ earlier in the evening. Use a body scan to shift from go to ‘rest’ gradually.
Sleep anxiety
You're worried about not sleeping. Checking the time. Doing the math: “If I fall asleep now, I'll get 4 hours...”
Generic advice: “Same bedtime every night.”
Real solution: Stop clock-watching. Turn your phone face-down or leave it in another room. Practise the "15-minute rule". If you're not drowsy after 15 minutes in bed, get up and do something until you are.
Overstimulation Your day was chaos. No transition between on and off. You went from Zoom calls to Netflix to bed.
Generic advice: “No screens before bed”.
Real solution: Create a bridge between day and night. Even 10 minutes of dimmed lights, chilled music, or reading gives a signal to your brain it's time to downshift.
Sleep isn't self-care. It's self-respect. It's choosing to show up tomorrow as someone who can handle whatever comes next.
Your life is waiting for the version of you that's rested enough to care about it.
Ready to stop fighting your sleep and start working with it? I've mapped out the complete system that helped me go from 4-hour nights to deep, restorative rest (even during my most stressful seasons. Get the full 7-Day Sleep Reset Challenge for free here.
If today's post resonated, subscribe free to get the rest of Your September Rentrée series: 20 days of bold truths to design your wellbeing.