🕰️ You’re Not Tired. You’re Time-Disoriented.

It was a Tuesday morning.

Or at least I thought it was.

I was in my third year of residency, working 28-hour shifts back-to-back. My badge said “doctor,” but I felt like a ghost moving through hospital halls.

The fluorescent lights above flickered the same way they did in the on-call room — No sunrise. No sunset. No sense of time.

Just alarms, patients, adrenaline, coffee… and confusion.

I remember washing my hands, looking into the mirror, and suddenly not recognizing my own eyes.

They looked… hollow.

It wasn’t just exhaustion.

It was disconnection.

I had lost my rhythm.

And without rhythm, the body forgets how to rest. The mind forgets how to heal.

⛰️ Michel Siffre and the Cave of No Time

Decades earlier, a French scientist named Michel Siffre locked himself inside a cave for 180 days.

No clocks. No sun. No human contact.

Just him, his thoughts, and the raw ticking of biology.

At first, he tried to keep a schedule. But his body had other plans.

He began sleeping for 12 hours… then staying awake for 36.

Time blurred.

His brain, deprived of light and social cues, created its own reality.

He thought only 151 days had passed. In truth, it had been 180.

His experiment showed something radical:

🧠 When we remove external cues, the brain stops knowing what time it is.

We lose the anchor that tells us:

Now it’s time to rest. Now it’s time to rise.

And without that anchor, things fall apart — fast.

👩⚕️ What I See Every Day

I see this loss of rhythm all the time in my work with high-performing professionals.

💼 The lawyer who says, “I sleep five hours a night and I’m fine.”

👩👧 The mother who wakes up six times to check on her child but never mentions her own exhaustion.

🚀 The entrepreneur who built a seven-figure business — but breaks down in my office, whispering, “I haven’t felt rested in years.”

I don’t tell them they need more sleep.

I tell them they need recalibration.

Because here’s the truth:

You can’t force rest. You have to earn it — creating the conditions for your nervous system to feel safe enough to let go.

Sleep is not a luxury. It’s architecture.

🏗️ So what’s the foundation of sleep?

Let me show you.

Not from a textbook — but from inside the cave of your own life.

1. Rhythm First, Repair Later

Before supplements. Before therapy. Before fancy biohacks.

👉 You need to reconnect with natural rhythm.

Your body craves light in the morning, darkness at night, and consistency always.

That means:

🕖 Waking up at the same time — even on weekends.

🌙 Going to bed not when you’re “finished,” but when your body whispers: now.

📱 Putting your phone to sleep before you put yourself to sleep.

Without rhythm, your brain never trusts it’s safe to fall.

It stays on high alert. Scanning for danger — even if the “danger” is just your inbox.

2. Your Bedroom Is Sacred Ground

Don’t just “sleep” there.

Curate it.

Cool. Dark. Quiet.

Like a luxury cave.

No screens. No deadlines. No unresolved arguments.

You’re telling your brain: 🛏️ This is where I surrender. This is where I come back to myself.

Treat your bedroom like a sanctuary, not a storage unit.

3. Your Nervous System Needs Permission

This is the part no one talks about.

You can’t sleep when your body is still in fight-or-flight.

You may think you’ve shut down — but you’re just frozen.

What helps?

🚿 A hot shower before bed.

💨 Breathwork that mimics the exhale of safety.

✋ Touch — grounding, not just sexual. Like placing a hand on your own chest.

Even three minutes of stillness can tell your amygdala: It’s okay to stop now.

💡 Sleep as Identity

You don’t just “fix” sleep.

You become the kind of person who honors it.

Who understands that boundaries around rest aren’t a weakness — They’re leadership.

I’m a psychiatrist. I’ve read the studies. I know what REM deprivation does to emotional regulation.

But I’m also a mother. A wife. A woman who once lived off caffeine and cortisol.

I’ve rebuilt my relationship with sleep the hard way.

Now I help others do the same — with compassion, strategy, and zero shame.

👩💻 For the Professionals Reading This:

If you’re a high performer, you’ve probably convinced yourself you’re the exception.

That your brain is different. That your stamina is superhuman.

It’s not.

And that’s not a weakness. It’s the human design.

You don’t need more discipline.

You need more softness around your edges.

More respect for the biology that built you.

Let go of the badge of burnout. Trade it for one that says: ✨ I know who I am without exhaustion.

Your brain will thank you. Your body will respond.

And maybe — just maybe — you’ll start waking up not just rested… but restored.

Warmly,

Florina