Snoozeletter: What do YOU do at 3am?

Apr 5

APRIL 🌸 Soft Wonder, Sacred Sleep & Sweet Dreams

Hi Robert,

This month in the Snoozeletter, we’re sinking into the softer side of sleep. The kind that evokes childhood comfort—nightlights, tucked-in blankets, maybe even the sound of someone humming in the kitchen while you drifted off.

We’re exploring how sleep can be sacred. How wonder and rest are not opposites. How sometimes, when we’re awake in the quietest hours, our body might be trying to tell us something important. Lately, I’ve been listening.

During a recent corporate sleep coaching project with a law firm (yes, the kind of place where sleep deprivation is practically a badge of honor), I started to notice a strange pattern. Three different people—in separate coaching calls—told me they were regularly awake at 3am... watching Judge Judy.

At first, I thought maybe it was just the law firm vibe. But then I remembered that three weeks ago, at a women’s wellness retreat upstate, people told me the same thing. A few women, unprompted, admitted they too were watching Judge Judy at 3am.

There’s something tender and oddly universal about it. Not the TV show—but the moment. That time of night when everything feels still and a little bit surreal, and you're just trying to self-soothe until the sky starts to lighten.

That 3am window is a biologically vulnerable time. Our stress hormones are rising naturally to prepare us for waking, but if sleep is fragile—due to anxiety, hormone shifts, or sleep-disordered breathing—it’s easy to find yourself caught in a loop. Wide awake, clock-watching, wondering how you'll function tomorrow.

Almost half of the law firm employees I spoke with suspected they might have sleep apnea. Some knew they snored. Others just felt inexplicably tired, wired, or foggy. And many admitted they’d never really considered that something deeper might be going on.

If you wake in the early morning hours and can’t fall back asleep, it’s worth noticing the pattern. Not judging it. And not Judge Judying it either. Just observing. And maybe asking:

Could this be more than stress? Could this be physiological?

Sometimes, the body is whispering. Not failing.

So, I’m curious now. Just between us...

What do you usually do when you wake up at 3am?
👉 Click here to email me with an answer the one-question poll

(It’s anonymous unless you want to tell me more. And if your answer is also Judge Judy… I’m listening.)

Next week, I’ll take you back to my teenage years—when I was literally getting detention for sleeping through class. We’ll talk about why teens aren't built for 7am alarms, and what happens when society ignores biology.

Until then, may your sleep feel sweet and your dreams just a little bit strange.

Sleep softly,
Sarah