A 9pm Screen Curfew and One Less Afternoon Coffee Added 26 Minutes of Sleep a Night
4 min read · RealCase summary
As month seven of a year-long "Foundations" project — after earlier months on fitness, productivity, money, food, reading, and outreach — Scott Young set a 9 p.m. cutoff for TV and devices in April 2025, which pushed his sleep onset roughly 30 minutes earlier. He also cut back afternoon coffee to a one-per-day rule, switching to decaf after that.
The changes brought his average nightly sleep from 6 hours 48 minutes over the previous six months up to 7 hours 14 minutes in April — a gain of 26 minutes a night. Even so, he was still woken up at least once before 5:30 a.m. on nearly half of all nights.
Young drew on sleep researcher Jade Wu's distinction to frame the results: "Sleepiness is a lack of sleep. Tiredness is a lack of energy. The two are not interchangeable," crediting part of the improvement to a mindset shift about having control over his own sleep quality.
Key takeaways
- ›Set a personal curfew: no television or devices after 9pm
- ›Switched to one coffee per day, decaf afterward, after realizing afternoon caffeine was delaying his perceived sleepiness
- ›Average nightly sleep rose from 6h48m to 7h14m (+26 minutes) over one month, driven by an earlier bedtime rather than fewer night wakings
Original source
Read the original (Scott H. Young)
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