This whole summer I’ve been dealing with the accumulated stress and depression. And I’ve won! Here is how I did that without taking any time off work:

Go to sleep early

The first problem that I’ve started attacking was my inability to go to sleep on time. I’ve resolved this by not using any blue-light screens after 8:30 PM (no TV, and laptop at all, and smartphone at a bare minimum).

Instead, I’ve prepared myself to sleep entirely, so that when I get drowsy, I can just start sleeping immediately. Such preparation included: brushing my teeth (and any other bathroom-related activities), making my bed, shutting down all the artificial lights in my apartment, and start reading some fictional literature right there, in the bed.

Moreover, I have installed a sun-alarm clock that can emulate the sunset experience: it dims slowly for one hour until there is no light anymore. That tricked my brain into drowsiness much quicker.

With all of the above, I was well asleep from 9:00 PM to 10:00 PM.

Wake up early

The second problem that I’ve attacked was my inability to wake up early and constant alarm snoozing and power-napping in the morning that usually made me late to work. And being late all the time made me hate myself.

I’ve resolved this by setting up my sun-alarm clock for 5:00 AM. Sun-alarm clock emulates the sunrise experience for half an hour right there, in my bedroom. It also adds bird-chirping sound effect. The sunrise experience starts roughly at 4:45 AM and reaches its peak at 5:00 AM, at which point I’m already fully awake.

(If you share your bed with anyone, that’ll get them widely awake too, so agree on the wake-up time with your partner!)

Have a nice breakfast

Also, I’ve promised myself never to snooze and to never power-nap in the morning. Instead, I’ve started my day with a small breakfast: toast with sausage slice and cheese, and some nice cup of coffee.

After this small breakfast, there is a strong desire to go and power-nap a bit. Don’t. Seriously. Your body and mind will thank you!

This all so far, gave me an opportunity never to be late at work, which is nice, because I wouldn’t hate myself so much anymore for being an ignorant and lazy bum.

Meditate and exercise

More importantly, this gave me the time to deal with the third problem — recovering from the mental damage from the accumulated stress and depression.

At this point, after breakfast, it was perhaps 5:30–5:45 AM. Still 2 hours before I need to get a shower and go to work.

First thing I did to recover my mind is to meditate. I’m using the Headspace app — Stress pack. It worked wonders on how I feel for the whole day. Next thing was to exercise.

The minimum set of exercises included simple warm-up, crunches, sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups. It took only 15–30 minutes.

Complete your personal tasks before going to work

The fourth problem that I had to deal with — my inability to advance towards my goals (non-work ones). After the meditation and the exercise, I still had roughly one hour left before I needed to start going to work.

I used this time to put two Pomodori of work into completing tasks from my Todo-list towards my personal life goals. (One Pomodoro for me = 25 minutes of laser-focused uninterrupted deep work, and 5 minutes of break time).

I can’t describe this feeling well yet. Imagine, when the majority of the city is still sleeping, and you’re already done with your personal tasks for the day.

Work sustainably

The final problem is to make sure that I’m not overloading my brain and body at work. I’ve resolved this by limiting my focused work time to 9 Pomodori at work. (My personal sustainable maximum is 11 Pomodori per day. This will be different for everyone).

If I had any time left in the 8-hour working day after my 9 Pomodori, it was a perfect time for meetings, workshops, helping my colleagues with their problems, and water-cooler conversations.

Recap

Let’s recap: go to sleep early, and wake up early, never be late to your work, so that you don’t feel like a lazy bum; meditate and exercise every morning to repair and strengthen your body and mind; complete all your personal tasks before your day job, and maintain a sustainable focus-work limit.

Bonus: you get to spend pleasant evenings with your family! :)

Thank you

I genuinely thank you for reading and encourage you to learn from my experience and adapt this knowledge to boost your own mental and physical health!

If you want to make me happy, then you can give me claps on Medium (did you know you can provide multiple?) and share it with your friends, on social networks, hacker news, Reddit, etc.