So I was convinced that when I did not drink, I could not sleep. Awake all night, watching the clock. Then I bought a new Apple watch. Was going to trade the old one in, but decided to keep it as the battery was good enough to last over night and measure my sleep patterns.

A couple of weeks have passed, so I have quite a bit of nightly data. I was expecting to see on the nights I hadn’t drank anything quite a lot of ‘awake’ time, very little ‘deep’ sleep and not much of anything else either. Now here is the strange thing, there is virtually no difference. Takes about the same time to fall asleep (20-25 minutes), same number of deep sleep periods and awake times. So there we have it, it’s all in my head. I think the only difference is I’m conscious of the awake time when I’m coherent and not when I’ve been drinking.

Now I know this knowledge, I have no real issues getting to sleep. As long as I’m relaxed and have a clear head, all is good. I found reading for an hour before lights out is a good way to unwind. I did try some of the ‘sounds’ and meditation stuff, but that just kept me awake.

So at the moment I’m trying to be ‘good’ and not drink on ‘school’ nights. Lets see how long it lasts.