Problems with sleep when coming home late

Hi guys,

I noticed that this topic was discussed before but after yet another restless night, I thought I would ask anyway.

Came home last night at 3am (2am the day before) but couldn't fall asleep until 4.30am because I couldn't stop thinking about stuff like:

(1) Did i incorporate all the comments?
(2) What if the intern f*cked up but i didnt notice?
(3) Why is this company trading at xx
(4) Why am i doing investment banking?
(5) Did the amount of snow in the alps really change so much because of the global warming?
(6) When will Elon Musk go to Mars? Will it be successful?
(7) Are we alone in this universe?

It doesn't happen often but when it does, i don't feel quite up to the job the next day.

So would be interested to see how many other people experience this form time to time?

 
Most Helpful

This sort of stuff pops in my mind all the time at night. This is how I address these questions.

(1) and (2): At 3am, there's really not much you can do about it now. Just trust that you did the best that you could. Better to just sleep right now, wake up in the morning and see if anything went wrong. If it did, learn from your mistake.

All the other questions are things that won't give you an epiphany at 3am. If you're really curious about any of these days, take some time when you aren't sleep deprived to think about them. Also, you will probably have different thoughts about (4) at 3am compared to times when you get your comp.

If you think there is a question you have that you might forget, then write it down. I've found writing things down will mentally assure me that I don't forget it and that way, I can "forget" about it for the night.

 

Oh yeah.

Started reading before bed for a half hour, print only (no screens), and it helped a little but not enough.

Smoking and anti anxiety meds work the best ime, though I don’t like feeling dependent on a substance.

 

Probably you already considered this, but if the same things repeatedly keep you up at night just stay 15-30min more in the office to double check your doubts. Cross-check some numbers the intern ran and go over the mark-up of the MD another time. If you already did this, then that is all you can do and you theoretically should have peace of mind to sleep.

Have an anecdote for you: I lived alone for one year with a neighbour throwing parties at random days in the week, through the whole night, at least once or twice a week. It didn't bother me that much that it made me unable to sleep, hence I slept straight through them. However, when my girlfriend moved in with me she was annoyed by the parties. This changed my mindset towards the parties and I became unable to sleep through them. Little side note: we had quite a heated argument with the neighbour over his parties which made the neighbour-relationship suffer. After that I became even more annoyed and couldn't even watch Netflix peacefully without feeling the annoyance. After some time my neighbour moved out and was replaced by a nice woman. She also throws a little party sometimes, yes we do hear the music but because of our good relationship I - and my girlfriend - feel more at peace with the music and we sleep like a rose, even though the volume is similar to the previous neighbour. My lesson: when you feel at peace with things, you will not find yourself having trouble to sleep over these things. Hope this helps you in your quest to sleep.

Array
 

I know the anecdote sounds like stating the obvious but when I dug deeper and read some articles about why I suddenly couldn't - and afterwards could again - sleep, it helped me.

There are some things you can change and some things you can't change. If you already put in all the effort to change the things you can change then there is no need to worry about it overnight. Maybe this doesn't apply to your philosophical questions but there I am not the right person to talk to.

Array
 

1) once you've done the usual (print out and highlight) there's not much more you can do. Most higher ups get angry a lot so if you get yelled at for something minor don't take it personally. It's part of the job 2) If the intern acted like a complete idiot at the end of the day he's going to be kicked. There are other lower tier divisions of finance that exist for those that really mess up the attention to detil part. 4) No need to be sleepless about this one. You are doing it for the money, prestige, and exit opps (and possibly you like your coverage group) The other ones seem to be mind wandering issues but here is some general tips: After midnight/1am in the office turn the brightness of your comp down to where it is similar to the office lighting. The blue light in electronics is known to stimulate the mind and mess up your sleep cycle. It's true doing this will make you a little less alert at the time but the saying goes "penny wise, pounds foolish" You also should reduce the amount of caffeine you intake. Starbucks is super popular these days but it has WAY too much caffeine to be chugging that at 11pm/12am. Get some generic brand or something like Folgers instead. Again you'll be less alert but sleep better

 

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