u/AdImpressive291

In 2025, I experienced depression, repeated burn out, mood swing, insomnia. So I decided to make 2026 a year focused on becoming happier and more stable.

Now I paused depression medication, stabilized circadian rhythm, and perform cognitive heavy tasks consistently without burning out. A lot of small wins lead to this transformation, and I want to celebrate all the small wins by sharing my experience.

To achieve this, I re-engineered my life in 3 aspects: Sleep, Environment, Work.

I shared about Sleep in my previous post with title "[Method] How I consistently get up at 5:30 am as someone suffered from insomnia in the past 10+ years". Now it is time to share how I chose the environment and why it works for me.

The context

I have been living in 4 different countries over the last 8 years. Constant moving has been taxing my mental health and disrupting productivity. In 2025 alone, I moved 4 times across 3 countries. I also lived with parents for 2 months, I love them, they love me, but we had a lot of conflicts. Therefore I decided to settle down in 2026, in an environment that works for me.

I searched for several places and ended up settle down in a coast city in Kanagawa, Japan. Rented a hotel room for 1 year.

The new environment

Turns out it works perfectly for the following reasons:

• Minimal decisions to make. No need to decide what to wear (limited options), what for breakfast (offered by hotel). So I can start my day with minimal cognitive friction, and use the saved mental energy on the important decisions. Although those decisions sounds easy, they tax the prefrontal cortex nonetheless. And that is why you see people wear the same outfit everyday.
• Approximate to the Pacific Ocean. I find ocean brings me peace, and it only takes 15 mins for me to walk to the beach. And knowing the accessibility to my favorite environment is relieving. 
• Variable environment. I can work at lobby when I want to be surrounded by people, or at my room when I want to be alone.
• Low-effort maintenance. My room gets cleaned every 3 days. No cooking. All I do is laundry.
• 2-meal a day, and I only eat 1 meal after breakfast. To further reduce decision-making, I set a schedule of where to eat on each day.

Overall, this lifestyle significantly reduced cognitive friction and preserved more cognitive resources for work, reflection, providing the foundation for me to strengthening my neurological stability and improve long term well-being. And as a result, I have finished more work in the last 3 months than the last whole year.

This is not the money-saving lifestyle, but also not too expensive. I am spending less than $2500 a month, thanks to the affordable price in Japan. And considering the productivity boost and happier mood, it is a really good deal for me.

I started to sleep at around 9 pm and get up at 5:30 am since March 24th, 2026. Till now it's ~50 days. As someone who had no confident in his sleep ability and trapped in insomnia and rhythm shift, I am confident that I learned to sleep early and get up early consistently.

I was never an early person in my adulthood. And as someone with ADHD, my routine has been doom scrolling all the way till I became really tired and fell asleep unconsciously. And I would feel very tired in the other morning. Below are the assumptions I had about myself:

• I might have a longer than 24 hour rhythm, as I kept pushing my sleeping time (e.g. 1 am, 3 am, 4 am, 6 am, 10 am, 1 pm, 3 pm ...).
• I am thinking more clear at night than in the day time. So I might be a night person and getting up early may not be a good strategy.
• I must be bad at both falling asleep and entering deep sleep (REM), because I always feel tired in the morning.

I had several attempts to try to get up early, because in many of the successful stories, getting up early or at least consistency seems to be the premise. And I love the idea of having clarity in the early quiet morning, having the confidence to get up early, no suffering falling asleep like when I was before 16 years old. So I did my research and found the following strategies:

• Digital detoxing 2 hours before sleeping - stay away from screens, giving brain time to winding down
• No food 4 hours ahead of sleep
• Sunlight exposure right after getting up
• Create good sleep environment - dark curtain, comfortable mattress, quite

All these suggestions worked, they are good to maintain the good schedule if you have already achieved it. They fall short at helping me entering the sleep-early mode.

It was a coincident, I was sick due to inflammation, and slept the most day, and got up early at 5 am the other day.

I tried to take the opportunity to install consistency, so I asked chatgpt what should I do. With several iterations, my morning routine converges like this:

1. 15-min walk outside for sunlight exposure
2. Light meal (greek yogurt) and supplements - provide initial energy for the morning, hydration
3. Light exercise (30 pushups) - activate the neural system
4. 5-min shower end with cold water - activate the neural system
5. 15-min meditation
6. Proper breakfast - provide energy for the morning

It takes about 2 hours, and it works for me. Previously, when I woke up late, the mindset was trying to catch up the 'lost time' by jumping into my first task as soon as possible. However, my brain was not ready, therefore I concluded I might be a night person. Which is obviously not the case anymore. Now I woke up with the mindset - it's a small win, I have a lot of time ahead, let me do what's needed to maintain consistency. Turns out this is the right way to play the long game.

It is normal when I get up early, sleepiness builds up early. To help me sleep, I listened to boring history podcast / youtube videos (but just listen, do not watch). I found out somehow the history of Germany works for me really well. Till today, I still do not know the history after Frederick I 😂

Sometimes, especially at early days of building this habit, I feel like to sleep in 9-10 am. I either push it through or took a 30-min nap at ~12pm. Avoiding sleep in the morning is crucial to not confuse my body. Had I took naps at 9-10 am, my body might treat it as wake up time.

Now, I consistently wake up at 5:30 am, my days are significantly better. There were 2 or 3 days that I had sleep difficulty, (sadly I did not listen to Germany’s history), slept at ~12 am. But I was still able to wake up at 5:30 am - 6:00 am. It was challenges like this, to help me gain confidence in my ability to wake up at the right time. Such confidence is also very important to maintain the early schedule.

So that is how I shift my daily rhythm. It is a great experience. I hope you find it useful if you are in the same challenge.

----

PS. I started to wear my Fitbit to track sleep quality, surprisingly, my REM period is actually not bad, I can get over 2.5 hours REM on a 7-hour sleep. Therefore, all 3 assumptions I had about myself are proven invalidated, they are nothing more than negative thinking.

For years, my work pattern looked like this:

1. Could not start working, anxiety builds
2. Finally get started and gained momentum
3. Enter hyperfocus mode, fatigue builds, could not stop
4. Work way past my capacity and crashed into burnout or depression
5. Spend weeks to months to recover

Last March, while I was in a gym trying to recover from depression, a thought popped into my mind: Why I barely get hurt at the gym but constantly collapse from work?

Here is the reflection of things I did well at the gym:

• Rest between sets
• Clearly define what to do
• Adjust workload based on physical conditions
• Know my limit and avoid exceeding it
• Gradually increase the training load/weight
• Not setting goals, but trust the process

So I decided to borrow these ideas into my work life, see if I can build consistency.

I first built a tiny Apple Shortcuts app, which asks me how long do I want to work/break and a daily goal. Followed by a focus session timer that prompted me to define what I'd work on, ran a countdown, asked for a reflection afterward, and logged everything to Notes app.

First version built with Apple Shortcuts

I used that rough version on 116 days since last march (when I built it) — mostly on the days when I felt lost, overwhelmed, depressed, avoidant, or stuck in perfectionism. (I always forget about the app on good days)

https://preview.redd.it/xzzk6m359mzg1.jpg?width=2212&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0183a9b8037b5aa8621569c3c4db9e8b4f03fe11

I found it extremely useful when I felt lost or do not want to start. I guess it is because, the system reminds me to come up with the first tiny step, which in most cases are good enough to get me going.

But then I found the following problem: once I started, I often couldn’t stop.

So I built a full Mac app around this idea: not just a focus timer, but also visualize your work data.

The idea is, by observing the pattern of your work, it might be clear that taking a day off is the better strategy for productivity in the long run.

The app is called Focura.

Screenshots of Focura running

It helps me plan small work sessions, take breaks, leave a next-action note for future-you, and notice when focus turns into overwork.

Not sure if it works for all ADHD minds, but I built this tool from my own pattern: can’t start → hyperfocus → burnout → recovery.

I’d love feedback from people who experience the same loop or want to experience this product.

If anyone wants to see it: focura.io

https://preview.redd.it/wu8sq7hv9mzg1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a9f884e3f6115e33a9e5f2c7950ed94073f6ba6