The Radical Act of Going to Sleep (for Women Physicians Who Are Tired of Being Tired)

If I asked you how much sleep you got last night, would you:

• Laugh?
  
  
• Change the subject?
  
  
• Or quietly think, “Definitely not enough… but I don’t know how to fix it”?
  
  

As physicians, we know sleep touches everything: mood, metabolic health, immune function, cardiovascular risk, cognition, telomeres, you name it. We order it for our patients like it’s a medication.

And yet, we’ve been trained—culturally and literally—to treat our own sleep as optional.

“I don’t have insomnia. I have too much on my mind.”

Most of the women physicians I work with don’t have classic insomnia.

They have:

• “I just need some time to myself after everyone else goes to bed.”
  
  
• “I’ll just clear a few messages in the EMR so tomorrow isn’t as bad.”
  
  
• “I’m on my fourth life—physician, parent, partner, household COO—and 11 p.m. is the first time no one needs anything from me.”
  
  

That isn’t a character flaw.
It’s a survival pattern.

But it’s also a pattern that is quietly eroding your health.

We’ve been talking a lot in the Recharge Challenge about telomeres—those protective caps on your chromosomes that shorten under chronic stress. Poor sleep? It’s one of the big stressors that speeds that shortening along.

The good news? You do not have to sleep like a monastery resident to make a difference. Getting to an average of around seven hours does a lot.

Seasons vs systems

There are absolutely seasons when sleep is going to be a mess no matter what you do:

• You just had a baby.
  
  
• You’re caring for someone who’s very ill.
  
  
• You’re on a brutal training schedule or rotation with no true control.
  
  

Those seasons are real. They are hard. And you deserve extra compassion during them.

But for many of us, sleep loss isn’t just a season. It’s a system:

• A job that treats overnight shifts and 24+ hour calls as normal.
  
  
• An EMR that follows you home and into bed.
  
  
• A culture that quietly praises you for “pushing through” exhaustion.
  
  
• Family expectations that leave you with zero margin.
  
  

We can’t politely wish that away.
We also can’t wait for the hospital to suddenly say, “You know what, we’ve decided your sleep is important.”

At some point, we have to ask hard questions:

• Is this schedule compatible with being a human who needs rest?
  
  
• What boundaries am I actually allowed to set—and what have I assumed I can’t?
  
  
• What am I tolerating that is slowly burning me down?
  
  

The thought plane, not a light switch

One of my favorite metaphors from The Telomere Effect is that our thoughts do not shut off like a light switch.

They land like a plane.

Most of us are trying to go from full-speed mental chatter → straight into “now sleep.” Meanwhile, our brains are:

• Replaying difficult patient encounters
  
  
• Reviewing labs and to-dos
  
  
• Worrying about kids, partners, aging parents
  
  
• Processing the latest news headline we saw two minutes before lying down
  
  
• Rehearsing tomorrow’s schedule and everything that could go wrong
  
  

No wonder we lie there, “tired but wired.”

Wind-down isn’t indulgent; it’s required.

This is where practices like:

• Yoga Nidra (deep guided rest)
  
  
• Slow breathing (like 5-second inhale, 5-second exhale)
  
  
• Cognitive work around sleep thoughts (CBT-i, MBT-i)
  
  

actually matter. They’re not fluffy wellness extras. They are the “descent” that lets the plane land.

What’s getting in the way of your sleep?

Some of the most common barriers I hear from women physicians:

• “I’m doing inbox in bed, because I can’t face it in the morning.”
  
  
• “I stay up late for revenge bedtime procrastination—just wanting 90 minutes where no one needs anything from me.”
  
  
• “I’m perimenopausal and my sleep is totally unpredictable.”
  
  
• “My kid is in my bed every night and I’m a human pretzel.”
  
  
• “I drink wine to unwind and then I’m awake at 2 a.m.”
  
  

If any of those feel familiar, you are so not alone.

Instead of turning this into another place to judge yourself, we can turn it into curiosity:

What is one small thing I’m doing at night that makes sleep harder?
What is one small thing I could try this week to make it easier?

Maybe it’s:

• Moving your “last chart” time earlier in the evening
  
  
• Swapping doomscrolling for Yoga Nidra
  
  
• Reducing alcohol on nights before clinic
  
  
• Setting “Do Not Disturb” hours on your phone
  
  
• Moving bedtime 15–20 minutes earlier
  
  

Incremental changes, repeated, are far more powerful than heroic overhauls you can’t maintain.

Sleep as a boundary and a belief

Underneath the habits and schedules is a deeper question:

Do you believe you are allowed to rest?

Many of us were trained to believe:

• Our worth = our productivity
  
  
• Patients’ needs always come first
  
  
• Good mothers/partners/doctors sacrifice themselves
  
  

So of course we resent sleep. It feels like deprivation of that last sliver of “me time” and like lost productivity.

Seeing sleep as a radical act means reframing it as:

• A boundary with systems that overuse you
  
  
• A vote for your future self
  
  
• A prerequisite for the kind of leader/physician/parent you want to be
  
  

Rest is not you checking out.
Rest is you repairing.

Where to start this week

If this feels overwhelming, here’s your tiny starting point:

1. Choose one wind-down ritual.
   
   
• 10–20 minutes of Yoga Nidra
  
  
• 1 minute of slow breathing
  
  
• A hot shower, dim lights, and a book that isn’t about medicine
  
  
2. Pick one “sleep thief” to experiment with.
   
   
• No EMR after a set time
  
  
• No phone in bed
  
  
• One fewer drink in the evening
  
  
• Slightly earlier bedtime
  
  
3. Hold it with curiosity, not judgment.
   This isn’t a moral test. It’s data gathering on what helps you feel more human.
   
   

You are not broken because you’re exhausted.
You’re exhausted because you’ve been living in a system that acts like you don’t need rest.

But you do. And you’re allowed to claim it.

Ready for deeper, personalized work?

If you’re reading this thinking,
“Okay, sleep is one piece… but my whole life feels unsustainable,”
you’re exactly who I coach.

We work on:

• Boundaries that actually hold in real clinical life
  
  
• Charting less and living more
  
  
• Releasing perfectionism and people-pleasing
  
  
• Rebuilding your identity around your definition of a good life
  
  

If you’re ready to feel less burned out and more like yourself again, I’d love to talk.

👉 Schedule a free 1:1 Coaching Discovery Call with me:
https://calendly.com/healthierforgood/coaching-discovery-call

We’ll look at where you are now, what you want instead, and whether coaching together is the right next step.

You deserve more than just “getting by.”
You deserve to be rested, present, and actually living your life. 🌙💛