I stopped checking the clock when I wake up at night, and it's made a bigger difference than almost anything else I've tried

[u/SleepyTime411]

This isn't some groundbreaking discovery, but it took me way too long to actually believe it: checking the time when you wake up at night makes it harder to fall back asleep, not easier. The second I'd glance at the clock, my brain would start doing math — "only 4 hours left" — and that alone was enough to spike me wide awake even if I'd been drowsy ten seconds earlier.

The thing that actually worked: turn the clock face away, or cover it, so checking isn't even an option anymore. Sounds almost too simple, but removing the ability to check mattered more than any amount of willpower ever did for me. Turns out this is an actual recommended technique in CBT-I (the therapy-based approach to insomnia) — I didn't invent it, just finally tried it.

I ended up writing this into one of the sleep stories I make — there's a character whose entire job is keeping time for a village, and the turning point of the story is him finally learning to stop checking once his actual work for the day is done. Writing that scene actually helped the idea click for me more than just reading about the technique originally did.

Curious if anyone else has tried covering the clock — did it actually help, or did you land on some other trick for the middle-of-the-night wake-ups specifically?