Published: 08.01.2026
I did a 40-minute session today. Interestingly, it turned out to be one of the easiest sessions I have had in a while. Not because my mind was quiet (because it was not), but because I did not struggle with it. I could sit still, stay with whatever thoughts were running, and I was not concerned about how long the session would last. There was a sense of ease in simply being there.
It was also a powerful session. When I sat down, my heartbeat was noticeably high and I could feel a layer of anxiety in my body. The trigger for it happened just before the session when I’d looked at my sleep score in Whoop app - it showed around 75%. Recently, I have been trying to improve my sleep quality by going to bed around 10 pm and aiming for ~7.5 hrs of sleep, so seeing that number be so low felt frustrating. Two things seemed to contribute to that reaction:
- According to Whoop, I supposedly need around 9 hours and 50 minutes of sleep.
- I actually got about 6 hours and 45 minutes of sleep, instead of the planned 7.5.
The combination of these made me feel like I wasn’t getting the results I’ve been working toward. So when I sat down to meditate, that tension came with me. My heartbeat stayed high, and for the first few minutes I found myself trying to mentally solve the problem. The insight that eventually surfaced was simple. The anxiety had been triggered almost entirely by the number itself - just seeing 75%. That made me pause, and I asked myself - can a number really have that much influence over how I feel? Should it be allowed to become the source of stress? From there, I started noticing the assumptions underneath that reaction.
- First, is the number even accurate?
- Second, even if it is accurate, which matters more, the score or how I actually feel in my body today?
So much of emotional stability depends on the nature of stimulus we receive. When something comes on our terms, we respond calmly. When it happens unexpectedly, the mind is more easily triggered. Just spending a few minutes exploring this emotion helped dissolve most of the anxiety. I still care about improving my sleep, but I’m realising that a single metric may not be the right benchmark. It feels more honest to look at things more holistically, especially the inputs to it:
- How long did I actually sleep?
- When did I eat my last meal?
- Did I drink?
- How physically strained was the previous day?
- How does my body feel upon waking up?
If those inputs are aligned, it seems reasonable to assume the score will eventually improve. And even if it does not, that is fine. The score is not the truth of how well I slept; my experience is.