You’re So Unhappy Because You Have Sleep Trauma | Books By Tony Mudd

It amazes me how we actually don’t sleep anymore. I don’t mean the half-rest where you lay down for seven or eight hours but wake up groggy, dragging, and in need of caffeine just to function. I’m talking about real rest the kind of sleep where your body relaxes, your mind quiets, your phone is off, and nothing interrupts you. The kind of rest where you wake up not just awake but alive. Refreshed. Energized. Ready to live.

But most of us don’t sleep like that anymore. That’s why so many of us live our lives in Starbucks drive-thrus and Dunkin’ lines, chasing coffee to replace what we should be getting naturally. It took me years to realize that unhappiness in my own life wasn’t always about stress, money, or even circumstances it was about sleep. Or more honestly, the lack of it.

Sleep is our body’s built-in repair system. It is as natural and essential as breathing, walking, or thinking. Yet we’ve forgotten how to give it priority. Somewhere along the way, we stopped treating rest as a necessity and started treating it like an inconvenience. But I learned the hard way: sleep controls everything.

Your mood. Your appearance. Your weight. Your creativity. Your income. Your relationships. Even the way you see yourself. Sleep is the quiet foundation holding your entire life together, and when it crumbles, so does everything else. We live in a culture that mocks rest. “Sleep when you’re dead,” people say, as if exhaustion is strength and rest is weakness. We glorify grind culture, celebrate late nights, and measure our worth by productivity instead of peace. But in the process, we destroy the very thing that allows us to live with joy.

For years, I fell into that trap. I believed success meant sacrificing sleep. I thought ambition required late nights and early mornings. I thought being tired meant I was “working hard.” But all it meant was that I was breaking myself down mentally, emotionally, and physically. I became a modern-day zombie, my body desperate for repair. The soreness, the daydream drifts, the constant mistakes they were all signs of sleep trauma. And yet, I pushed through, afraid that resting meant I’d miss my “big chance.”

We live in what I call the culture of exhaustion. A world where financial gain, appearances, and endless productivity are praised above well-being. A world where good health is rarely considered success. When was the last time you saw someone brag online about eight hours of deep, uninterrupted rest? We don’t. Instead, we see cars, clothes, vacations things that look good on the outside but crumble if the inside is falling apart.

We joke about needing coffee to survive. We laugh at memes about being “dead inside” at work. But beneath the jokes is the truth: we are a generation running on fumes. Hustle culture tells us that if we’re not busy, we’re falling behind. But what good is money, status, or recognition if you don’t have the health to enjoy it? What good is a full calendar if you’re running on empty?

So what happened to us? As kids, we fought sleep like it was punishment. We begged for five more minutes, one more show, one more game. But our parents knew better. They knew that rested kids were happy kids full of curiosity, laughter, and energy. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, the script flipped. Now we treat sleep like weakness. We brag about late nights. We romanticize exhaustion. We wear our tiredness like a badge of honor. My son once asked me, “Dad, why do so many people drink coffee?” And I told him the truth: because they don’t sleep. The fact that a child noticed says everything about the culture we’ve created.

We confuse suffering for success. We chase happiness in careers, in relationships, in vacations, when maybe happiness has been something simpler all along. Maybe happiness is the act of feeling safe enough to rest. Maybe it’s allowing yourself to sleep deeply, without guilt. Maybe it’s waking up with peace in your body and mind.

We need to redefine success. Not as the job title, the salary, or the recognition. Real success is health. Real success is presence. Real success is having the energy to enjoy the life you’ve built. Right now, sleep is treated as an obstacle, but it is actually the foundation. No amount of money can replace your health. No promotion can fix a marriage broken by exhaustion. No award can undo years of neglected rest.

So what do we do? We rest. Not halfway, not distracted, but deeply. We rest like babies phones off, TVs off, in quiet, cool, dark rooms. We give ourselves back the nights we’ve been giving away. We stop treating rest as wasted time and start seeing it for what it is: borrowed strength. Because happiness isn’t just found in what you chase during the day. It’s created in the hours of rest you give yourself at night. And if you want to feel alive again, if you want to reclaim the joy you’ve been missing, maybe it’s not another hustle you need. Maybe it’s sleep.

Thank you for reading, and remember — you have the power to be your own hero. For more information be sure to check out the podcast, From Zero To Hero. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhG4zy7Rrf8

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