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My Most Creative Time is 3am

The twilight assault of ideas

It’s true. My most creative time is 3am. Not that I would recommend it.

For at least three nights each week, I wake up around 3am and struggle to get back to sleep until 5am. The time in-between, the neurons in my mind go off like fireworks with new ideas and creativity. Try as I might to relax and dose off again, it seldom occurs, then waking at the usual time of 6.30am half exhausted, although brimming with new scope.

Sometimes this period is invested in resolving problems or worries, or maybe considering options to be taken, but if everything else is good or well-balanced, the time is spent purging creativity.

What are other times for creativity?

It’s easy to find bundles of posts and content telling you to go for a walk if you want to find new ideas or inspiration. Coming from a Sales & Marketing background one saying ringing true is ‘Motion means Emotion’.

If a product was retail, we would find ways to help walk the customer around the product or sales area, helping to stir engagement, interest and emotional reaction to the item they had come to view. The same principle can support everybody, especially us Content Creators.

Of course, other people say taking a shower, drinking alcohol, reading a book, etc, in fact, any form of time-out from the otherwise busy workday is usually what people lean on to help new find ideas or think things through.

Relaxation in general helps, knowing this from my Professional Training & Coaching days, where you have to put delegates at ease and in a position of psychological safety. If you didn’t, they wouldn’t enjoy the training and certainly wouldn’t learn anything from being stressed or uptight. Relaxation, therefore, helps you to be more creative and innovative, with many folks tending to list one activity over others as the best form.

All of the above do help me, although the one activity that trumps them all is climbing mountains. I now spend most of my weekends at 3,000-metres or above, being miraculous to feel how far your mind wanders over the peaks whilst trudging steep cliffs or rock falls, snow underfoot or all around you.

In fact, the mind wanders so wildly you have to remind yourself exactly where you are to concentrate, helping to avoid accident or injury. Nonetheless, if weather conditions are good, away from snow flurries or rain, the mind flies like the wind and breeze around your ears, myself arriving home with numerous thoughts and creative ideas born. I just wish that was the end of the mental journey.

The twilight coup

No longer wasting life on repetitive TV programmes or films screened late at night, I find myself retiring around 10pm these days if not sooner.

A large part of this is a loving relationship. There’s no better place I would rather be than holding my amour in my arms whilst settling down for the night, or snoozing in for an hour longer at the weekends doing the same. It also means early to bed and early to rise, with activities like running, walking or swimming commencing from 7am following a good night’s sleep.

However, twilight coups put that at risk, feeling I need to take an extra hour on those days to avoid starting the day with a sleep hangover from losing 2-hours during the night. They are such a nuisance, although very productive.

How do I know the time?

As the eyes open to a darkened room during the night, church bells ring in the distance, marking the time. For those that have connected or follow me on LinkedIn you will know where I live, precision timing running life here to the very second. When a church bell rings you know that it’s accurate, myself waking within seconds of the infamous Chime, Chime, Chime!!

At this point you still hope you can roll over and nod back off, knowing the consequences of staying awake for too long. However, whether it’s the reasonably fit and healthy lifestyle that is lived, I find my physical body is already re-charged, the mental fireworks then starting to occur. Houston I have a problem.

Come the chimes of 4am, then eventually 5, sometime around there I manage to escape back into slumber. This must be good as dreams are vivid, lively and exciting, but at 6.30am I only then want to sleep for the rest of the day. Forcing myself out of bed feels more like hangover territory, none of which is possible as I seldom drink these days.

Is this safe activity?

No. I am well aware of that and wish I could sleep through the night. From studying several levels of psychology I also know we enter deep and shallow sleep on several occasions through the night. I must therefore enter a shallow set around 3am, allowing me to wake naturally.

Another aspect is back in the day when I used to retire at midnight; I would usually sleep all the way through and wake around 7am. If I now retire at 10pm I would expect to wake earlier, but waking at 3am causes problems.

As above, despite being mentally charged with ideas, the brain is seldom then charged for the day. Physical energy declines occur, especially if this is the second or third night on the trot. My biggest fear however is the health of the brain. Believe it or not our bodies flush toxic fluids from our brains when we sleep. It's this activity that helps us wake up feeling fresh and alert.

The other concern is that studies have emerged suggesting a build-up of these fluids could be a root cause of dementia. Having had relatives suffer the same fate despite being much older, yet still cycling and walking 200-miles+ a week, this is often on my mind.

Determined not to let a sleepless night affect life I crack on regardless unless it’s three nights on the run and I can afford a lie-in. However, it’s still frustrating and starting to be a little concerning. I need to get more sleep!!

What about you?

What about yourself? What is your best activity for creating new ideas and do you encounter multiple sleepless nights in the process?

Do you even sleep well at all, or struggle getting to sleep? Personally, I believe we are at our most vulnerable when we sleep. Not because our eyes are closed and we’re not aware of what’s happening around us, but it’s when our minds go into freefall.

This is good for creativity but not good for worries, concerns or fears, allowing them to dwell due to our self-awareness being at its lowest.

Conclusion

A distinct lack of sleep is all the more reason to find points of happiness in our lives or careers, including psychological safety when we find it. The damage to our health otherwise done is too dangerous or costly to endure.

Exercise helps our general health and physicality, exhausting the body appropriately at the end of each day. Nonetheless, whether it’s to avoid groggy mornings, mood swings for those that suffer from them, protecting productivity for during the day or general health, a good, lengthy night’s sleep is well worth guarding, as I’m sure we’d all agree.

Here’s to hopefully exchanging my 2-hours of Chime Bell Creativity into Dreamscape landscapes, still waking with the same ideas, although a little more refreshed. Maybe meditation is the key, or possibly a little more writing. I’m up for trying both, so let’s see!!

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