How Much Sleep You Get In Your 30s Can Determine The Rest Of Your Life

In the last year of my 20s, I crossed an invisible line.

I used to be able to operate on five to six hours of sleep a night, and now, I'm a useless blob of nothing without eight hours of Zs.

Why?

Because I'm in my 30s now, and it's basically the decade-long equivalent of running a marathon.

Being in your 20s is a drunk obstacle course.

It's fun and you fall down a lot, but you bounce back up. You keep going 'cause your bones are protected with whiskey bloat.

Being in your 30s feels exactly the same, except when you fall off that obstacle course, you're like, "Obstacle courses aren't very sensible," and you go home to elevate your knee.

In your 30s, you have an entire life to build, and you have 10 years to do it.

This means you need to allocate your time wisely, balancing your mental health, relationships, social life, work, fitness and finances.

Your 30s feel like an ongoing calendar of appointments, and everything on that calendar feels just as exhausting as the next thing.

In fact, putting effort into my social life — one of my favorite things to do in my 20s — is probably the most exhausting thing on that calendar.

The other night, I was getting ready to go out (aka lying on the couch procrastinating), and I thought to myself, "I could just stay here on this couch forever, and it would be fine."

The high-stakes pressure of your 30s, the attitude of "so much to do, so little time" is part of why this decade is so tiring.

The stress of knowing you spent your 20s farting around with your pals — not thinking of the consequences and realizing you now have only so much time to decide who you want to be and how to make yourself that person — is exhaustive and stressful.

By the time you hit your 30s, sleep is a respite for more than your brain.

Opting for eight hours of sleep is a recipe for fresh skin (which definitely starts to disappear) and a positive attitude, which you'll need just to keep going.

Look, I'm not saying your 30s is a terrible decade.

You will learn to challenge yourself, you'll feel like you're capable of more than you ever dreamed possible and you'll continually surprise yourself with your level of personal responsibility and mature choices.

You'll feel a real, unshakeable sense of confidence in yourself and your achievements, especially if you're getting enough shuteye.

So if you want to get to that place, you're going to need a shitload of sleep because adulthood is draining AF.