When I was in college, there were some people on the internet who claimed that you could train yourself to sleep as piddling every bit two hours per day. Keep in listen, this was back in the early 2000s when we all still believed random shit we read on the cyberspace.

Here'southward how the story went: There was a hyper-productive sleep schedule that had been discovered past armed services scientists. They were testing the limits of sleep impecuniousness on soldiers and made this startling discovery. Supposedly, great historical figures similar Napoleon and Da Vinci and Tesla followed the aforementioned sleep schedule and information technology's why they were so productive and influential in history.one Supposedly, anybody (i.e., you lot and me) could achieve this state of daily hyper-productivity. Supposedly, all we needed was plenty willpower to butt through days of sleep deprivation and "acclimate" to this new superhuman schedule. Supposedly, this was all true and verified and somehow made sense.

Supposedly.

The scheme was called "The Uberman Sleep Schedule," and hither'south how yous did it:

  • Sleep follows the 80/20 Rule—that is, 80% of your recovery comes from xx% of the fourth dimension you lot're unconscious. Conversely, 80% of the time you lot're asleep, you're a lazy slice of shit.
  • This uber-efficient portion of sleep is called REM sleep and just lasts approximately 15-20 minutes at a fourth dimension.two That means for every two hours that your torso is asleep, actually only the last 20 minutes or so is "useful" sleep. Thus, when you sleep eight hours during the night, but 80-100 of those minutes are actually causing y'all to feel rested and restored.three People on the internet decided this was inefficient and needed to be stock-still.
  • What the military scientists (supposedly) discovered is that if you're severely slumber-deprived, your body volition immediately fall into REM sleep the second you pass out. It does this in order to recoup for its lack of residual. People on the cyberspace decided this was incredibly efficient.
  • The thought of the Uberman Sleep Schedule was that if yous took 20-infinitesimal naps, every 4 hours, around the clock, for days and weeks on terminate, you would "train" your brain to fall into REM slumber instantly the moment you lay downwards. And so, once your REM sleep was over, you would feel rested and restored for the adjacent three-4 hours.
  • As long as y'all connected to take 20-infinitesimal naps every four hours, y'all could effectively stay awake forever. Congratulations, you were now an Uberman. Here, have a aureate star.
  • Only there was a take hold of: supposedly it took 1-2 weeks of intense sleep impecuniousness to properly "adjust" to the Uberman Sleep Schedule. Y'all had to stay up all night, every night, forcing yourself to only sleep for xx minutes at a time, half-dozen different times per 24-hour interval. And if at any point you screwed up and overslept your nap, all would exist undone and you would have to start over.
  • PS: Caffeine is non immune. And alcohol might equally well be suicide.
  • Therefore, the Uberman Sleep Schedule became this kind of decathlon of willpower amid net self-help people—an ultimate exam of one'south self-subject area with the ultimate pay-off: an extra 20-30% of productive waking hours per twenty-four hours, every day for the rest for your life. That's like having an actress ii days each week, or an extra three and a one-half months per yr. That's insane! Over the class of one'south life, that'due south over a decade of extra waking hours. Imagine everything you could achieve with an extra decade of life, all while everyone else is asleep.

Like an idiot, I tried to do this. Multiple times. For years, I obsessed with achieving the Uberman Sleep Schedule.

And for years, I continually failed at it.iv

You have probably pulled an all-nighter before. Not sleeping for one night is not that difficult. Especially if there are deadlines and/or drugs involved.5

What'due south difficult are the second and tertiary and fourth nights. Extreme slumber deprivation is a crash form on how frail our mind actually is. By twenty-four hours three, you lot volition start falling asleep standing up. You will doze while walking downwardly the street in wide daylight. You forget basic facts like your female parent'southward name or whether you had eaten that twenty-four hours, or—fuck, what day is information technology?

Past day four yous get febrile, imagining that people are speaking to you lot when they're not, believing that you're writing an email when y'all're not, and so discovering that you don't even remember who you were supposed to be emailing. I used to walk in circles effectually my living room for an hour, just to go on myself awake. When nap time came, I would crash, falling unconscious instantaneously, and proceed to have intense, fucked up dreams that seemed like they lasted for 5 hours. And so, 20 minutes subsequently, my warning would wake me upwards, where I would spend the side by side iii hours and modify badly lying to myself, trying to convince myself that I felt rested and couldn't wait to get dorsum to—wait, what was I supposed to be doing over again?

In the end, I could never make it through the fourth day. Each fourth dimension I failed, I felt intense thwarting at my ain lack of willpower and self-command. I believed this was something I should be able to do. It pissed me off that some random people on the internet could supposedly exercise this thing that I couldn't. I felt like information technology meant in that location was something wrong with me. That if I didn't have the self-discipline to slumber deprive myself for weeks on finish, so what the fuck, Mark? Get your shit together!

Then I tortured myself. And the more I tortured myself, the more unrealistic my expectations of myself became.

***

Chances are, at some point in your life, you lot've tried to modify your behavior through sheer willpower. And chances are, you besides failed miserably. Don't experience bad! This is what happens nigh of the time.

Most people recall of self-field of study in terms of willpower. If we see someone who wakes up at 5 AM every day, eats an avocado-chia-fennel-apricot-papaya smoothie each repast, snorts brussel sprout flakes, and works out for iii hours earlier fifty-fifty wiping their ass in the morning time, we assume they're achieving this through straight-upward self-abuse—that at that place is some insatiable inner demon driving them like a slave to do everything correct, no matter what.

Only this isn't true. Because, if you actually know anybody like this, you'll find something actually frightening most them: they actually enjoy it.six

Seeing self-subject in terms of pure willpower fails because beating ourselves up for not trying difficult plenty doesn't piece of work. In fact, it backfires. And, as anyone who has ever tried to go on a diet will tell you, it usually only makes information technology worse.

The problem is that willpower works like a muscle. If y'all piece of work it likewise difficult, information technology becomes fatigued and gives out. The starting time week committing to a new diet, or a new conditioning regimen, or a new morning routine, things go great. Merely past the second or third week, you lot're back to your sometime late-night, cheeto-loving ways.seven

The same way you can't just walk into a gym for the offset time and lift 500 pounds, you tin't just commencement waking upwardly at 4 AM on a dime, much less do something ridiculous similar an Uberman sleep schedule. To have a chance at success, your willpower must be trained steadily over a long period of time.8

Merely this leaves us in a conundrum. If we view cocky-discipline in terms of willpower, information technology creates a chicken-or-the-egg situation: To build willpower, we need self-field of study over a long period of time; but to have self-discipline, we need massive amounts of willpower.

So, which came first? What should we do? How exercise we outset? Or, more chiefly, where the fuck is the Ben and Jerry's?

Viewing self-subject field in terms of willpower creates a paradox for the simple reason that information technology's not true. Every bit we'll encounter, building cocky-discipline in your own life is a completely different practise.

Our behaviors are not based on logic or ideas. Logic and ideas tin can influence our decisions, but ultimately, our feelings determine what we practise. 9

Nosotros do what feels good and avert what feels bad. And the only way we can ever NOT do what feels expert, and do what feels bad instead, is through a temporary boost of willpower—to deny ourselves our desires and feelings and instead do what was "correct."

Throughout history, virtue was seen in terms of this sort of self-denial and cocky-negation.ten To be a good person, y'all non but had to deny yourself whatsoever pleasure, but y'all also had to prove your willingness to hurt yourself. You had monks hit themselves and locking themselves in rooms for days and not eating or even speaking for years on end. Yous had armies of men throwing themselves into battle for petty or no reason. You had people abstaining from sex until spousal relationship, or even for life. Shit was not fun.

This classical approach is where our assumption that "willpower = self-discipline" originally comes from. It operates on the belief that self-subject area is achieved through denying or rejecting ane's emotions. You want that taco? BAD Mark! You DON'T WANT SHIT! Y'all ARE SHIT! Y'all DESERVE TO STARVE Yous INGRATE!

Self-discipline tacos
The root of all evil.

The classical approach fused the concept of willpower—i.e., the ability to deny or reject ane'southward desires and emotions—with morality. Someone who can say no to the taco is a good person. The person who can't is a failure of a man.

The Classical Approach to Self-Discipline

Self-Subject = Willpower = Cocky-Denial = Good Person

This fusion of willpower and morality had good intentions. Information technology recognized (correctly) that, when left to our own instinctive desires, we all become egotistic assholes. If nosotros could get away with it, we would swallow, fuck, or kill pretty much annihilation or anyone within a 10-meter vicinity. So the groovy religious leaders and philosophers and kings throughout history preached a concept of virtue that involved suppressing our feelings in favor of rationality and denying our impulses in favor of developing willpower.

And the classic approach works! …kind of. Well, okay, while it makes for a more than stable social club, information technology as well totally fucks us upwardly individually.

The classic approach has the paradoxical effect of training the states to feel bad about all the things that make united states of america feel good. It basically seeks to teach us cocky-discipline through shaming us—past making us hate ourselves for simply being who we are. And the thought is that once nosotros are saddled with a sufficient corporeality of shame virtually all the things that give us pleasure, we'll be so self-loathing and terrified of our ain desires that we'll just fall in line and do what we're told.

Disciplining people through shame works for a while, but in the long run, information technology backfires. As an case, allow's employ perchance the well-nigh mutual source of shame on the planet: sex.

The encephalon likes sex. That's considering a) sex feels awesome, and b) nosotros're biologically evolved to crave information technology. Pretty self-explanatory.xi

Now, if you lot grew upwards like about people—and particularly if you're a adult female—there'due south a practiced adventure that you were taught that sex was this evil, carnal thing that corrupts you and makes you a horrible, icky person. You lot were punished for wanting it, and therefore, have a lot of conflicted feelings effectually sex activity: information technology sounds amazing simply is as well scary; it feels correct but also somehow so, so wrong. As a result, you still want sex, simply you also elevate around a lot of guilt and anxiety and doubt about yourself for wanting information technology.

This mixture of feelings generates an unpleasant tension within a person. And as fourth dimension goes on, that tension grows. Because the desire for sex activity never goes away. And equally the desire continues, the shame grows.

Somewhen, this tension becomes unbearable and must resolve itself in ane of 2 ways.

The first option is to overindulge. The tension has become so great that we feel the only manner to resolve it is by going all out in a spectacular style. Hooker orgies. Compulsive masturbation for days on stop. Rampant infidelity. And, sadly, often sexual violence.12

Only indulgence doesn't really resolve the tension. It just kicks the can down the road. Because after yous put the cock rings abroad and the hookers have gone home, the shame and guilt come dorsum. And they come dorsum with a vengeance.

And so, if indulgence doesn't work, what about the other option?

Well, the but other selection to escape that internal tension is to numb information technology. To distract oneself from the tension past finding some larger, more palatable tension. Alcohol is a common one.13 Partying and drugs, of course.14 Watching fourteen hours of television set each 24-hour interval can be another option. Or just eating yourself half to decease.fifteen

Sometimes, people practise find productive means to distract themselves from their shame. They run ultra-marathons or work 100-hr piece of work weeks for years on end. These are, ironically, many of the people nosotros come to adore for having inhuman willpower. But self-denial comes easy when, deep down, you lot fucking hate yourself.

Because shame can't be numbed away. It just changes form.sixteen The person who exercises religiously to escape their self-loathing will eventually discover means to loathe themselves for their exercise habits. And soon, what started out as a remarkable work ethic in the gym morphs into some form of trunk dysmorphia, like those guys who inject Synthol into their artillery to make themselves look like Popeye.

self-discipline-Valdir-flexed-his-huge-biceps
Image: Barcroft

Similarly, the businessman who transmutes his shame into stellar work at the office eventually develops shame virtually his productivity to the signal where he literally can't go home. He's terrified to do it. Whatever non-productive minute feels like an untenable failure. And while the residual of his life falls apart around him, he's merely worrying about spreadsheets and quarterly numbers.

This is why the most hardcore, uncompromising people are usually the ones who are about compromised. Information technology'southward why the well-nigh fundamentalist religious leaders who rails against the immorality of the earth are always the same leaders who are ordering fuckboys off Craigslist.17 It's why the most "spiritually enlightened" gurus are likewise the ones blackmailing and extorting their followers. Information technology's why the politicians near song about party loyalty and patriotism are always the ones shooting up meth in the drome bathroom. They are running away from their demons. And one way to do that is to create shinier, more socially adequate demons.

Self-discipline based on self-deprival cannot exist sustained in the long-run. It merely breeds greater dysfunction, and ultimately results in self-destruction.

The Truth About the Classical Approach

Self-Deprival = Emotional Dysfunction = Self-Devastation = -(Cocky-Discipline)

Here's the trouble with all this—and it'due south so obvious one time you lot hear information technology, I can't believe we accept to say it. You can will yourself to get to the gym if yous don't feel like it for a few days. But unless the gym ends up feeling proficient in some way, y'all will eventually lose motivation, run out of willpower, and end going. You can volition yourself to terminate drinking for a 24-hour interval or a calendar week, but unless you experience the reward of not drinking, then you lot will eventually become back to information technology.

This is why my polyphasic sleeping nightmare consistently concluded in disaster. Staying up all night and sleep-depriving myself produced no tangible benefits. It produced no good feelings. It produced nothing but misery and delirium. It was an practice in self-abuse. Therefore, my willpower somewhen ran out and my emotions took over, driving me to laissez passer out for almost xvi hours straight.

Any emotionally healthy approach to self-subject must work with your emotions, rather than against them.

Ultimately, cocky-discipline is non based on willpower or self-denial, just it's really based on the opposite: self-acceptance.

Let's say you're trying to lose weight and your big hang-up is that you run through about three liters of ice cream each calendar week. You're an ice foam fiend. You've tried stopping through willpower. You've tried diets with your friends. You've told your partner to never e'er buy ice cream once more in a desperate attempt to blame them for your own shortcomings.

But goose egg's worked. Non a twenty-four hours goes by that y'all don't down most a thousand calories of creamy goodness.

And you hate yourself for it.

And that's your get-go problem. Stride ane to self-discipline is to de-link your personal failings from moral failings. You have to take that you lot cave to indulgence and that this doesn't necessarily brand you a horrible person. Nosotros all cave to indulgence in some shape or course. We all harbor shame. We all neglect to rein in our impulses. And nosotros all like a practiced fucking bowl of water ice cream from time to fourth dimension.

This sort of acceptance is way more complicated than it sounds. Nosotros don't even realize all of the ways that nosotros judge ourselves for our perceived failings. Thoughts are constantly streaming through our heads and without even realizing it, nosotros're tacking on "because I'1000 a horrible person" to the end of a lot of them.

  • "I fucked upwards that project at work, considering I'k a horrible person…"
  • "The whole kitchen is a mess and my parents volition be here in twenty minutes, because I'k a horrible person…"
  • "Other people are adept at this, only I'm not, because I'm a horrible person…"
  • "Anybody probably thinks I'm an idiot, because I'grand a horrible person…"

Hell, you might even exist tacking on these self-judgments right at present while reading this! Man, I judge myself like this all the fourth dimension… because I'm a horrible person.

Self-discipline - Batman slapping Robin Meme

Hither'south the thing: there'south a sick sort of comfort that comes from these self-judgments. That'due south because they relieve u.s. of the responsibility for our own deportment. If I decide that I can't give upwards water ice cream because I'm a horrible person—that "horrible person-ness" precludes my power to change or improve in the future—therefore, it's technically out of my hands, isn't it? It implies that there's nothing I tin do about my cravings or compulsions, so fuck it, why try?

There'south a kind of fright and anxiety that comes when nosotros relinquish our conventionalities in our own horribleness. We actually resist accepting ourselves because the responsibility is scary. Because information technology suggests that not merely are nosotros capable of modify in the future (and change is always scary) but that nosotros accept perhaps wasted much of our past. And that never feels expert either. In fact, some other little trap is when people accept that they're non a horrible person—but and so make up one's mind that they are a horrible person for not realizing that years agone!

But, once we've de-coupled our emotions from our moral judgments—in one case we've decided that only because something makes us experience bad doesn't hateful we are bad—this opens united states of america upwards to some new perspectives.

For one, information technology suggests that emotions are merely internal behavioral mechanisms that can exist manipulated like annihilation else.eighteen Just like putting your floss next to your toothbrush reminds you to floss every morning, one time the moral judgments are removed, feeling bad because you relapsed on the cookies and cream tin can just be a reminder or motivator to address the underlying issue.

We must address the emotional problem the compulsion is trying to numb or cover upwards. You compulsively eat tubs of ice cream each week. Why? Well, eating—peculiarly sugary, unhealthy food—is a class of numbing. It brings the trunk comfort. It's sometimes known as "emotional eating" and the same manner an alcoholic drinks to escape her demons, the overeater eats to escape his.19

So, what are those demons? What is that shame?

Find it. Address information technology. And most importantly: accept it. Detect that deep, dark ugly part of yourself. Confront information technology, caput on, assuasive yourself to feel all the awful, icky emotions that come with it. And so accept that this is a part of you lot and it's never going away. And that's fine. You tin piece of work with this, rather than against it.

And here's where the magic happens. When you lot terminate feeling awful about yourself, ii things happen:

  1. There'due south nothing to numb anymore. Therefore, all of a sudden those tubs of ice cream seem pointless.
  2. You see no reason to punish yourself. On the opposite, yous like yourself, so you want to take care of yourself. More importantly, information technology feels good to have care of yourself.

And, incredibly, that tub of ice cream no longer feels good. It's no longer scratching some internal itch. Instead, it makes you feel sick and bloated and gross.

Similarly, exercising no longer feels similar this impossible task that you'll never be up for. On the reverse, it replenishes and enhances you. And those good feelings start showing upwardly that make it feel effortless.

***

But you don't necessarily have to do this deep therapeutic work to proceeds self-bailiwick. Simply agreement and accepting your emotions for what they are can allow you to piece of work with them rather than against them.

Here's ane way to do this: call upward your best friend and tell them to come over. Take out your checkbook. Write a check for $ii,000 to them, sign it, and give it to them. So tell them that if yous always swallow water ice cream again, they can cash it.

Done.

Eating ice cream will now crusade a much greater emotional problem than the one information technology solves. And, equally if by magic, refraining from eating water ice foam will begin to feel really fucking skilful.

Social accountability works in the same way. Information technology'due south much easier to meditate for a long time when you're in a room full of people than it is to practice it by yourself. Why? Because when you're in a room full of people, you don't want to be the solitary asshole who gets up and walks out after three minutes, like you practise at home! The social pressure makes information technology and so that not meditating causes a bigger emotional problem than meditating for the total amount of time.20

You can also do this through positive reinforcement: find means to reward yourself for doing the correct behavior. Enquiry shows that this is actually how new habits are formed: you do the desired behavior and then reward yourself for it.21

In one case you resolve much of your shame, and one time you've created situations to provide greater emotional benefits from doing the desired behavior than not doing it, what you cease upward with is the appearance of airtight self-bailiwick, without really putting forth any effort. Y'all end upwardly with subject without willpower.

You wake upwards early considering it feels good to wake upward early.

You swallow kale instead of smoking crack considering it feels expert to eat the kale and feels bad to smoke crack.

Yous stop lying considering it feels worse to lie than to say an important truth.

You practice because it feels better to do than it does to sit around, covering yourself in a thin layer of Cheeto dust.

It'south not that the hurting goes away. No, the pain is still there. It's just that the hurting at present has pregnant. It has purpose. And that makes all the difference. You work with the pain rather than confronting it. Y'all pursue information technology rather than run from information technology. And with every pursuit, you get stronger and healthier and happier.

And eventually, from the outside, it will look as though you're putting along monumental try, that you have this countless reservoir of willpower. Yet, to you, it will experience like zero at all.