Entrepreneur’s Purgatory

[ahn-truh-pruh-nurz pur-guh-tawr-ee] - noun: A place of being or state of mind and body such that an entrepreneur is unable to sleep, but is too tired to accomplish productive activities.

I conceived this term in the wee morning hours one day after tossing and turning endlessly in my bed all night; unable to sleep because of my brain racing at 500mph with ideas for my various businesses, but also unable to actually accomplish anything due to being incredibly tired. It is a terrible place to be. I was interested to see if other folks experience this same phenomenon, and what they did to avoid it so I posted this question on Hacker News. The answers were varied and interesting. Below are some of my favorite suggestions for avoiding Entrepreneur’s Purgatory.

“imho, you should try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savasana worked for me - better sleep ‘quality’, no more waking up feeling tired or those sudden jump from the bed from a nightmare.” - justlearning “Meditate until my minds stops wandering around. And smile, this may sound ridiculous, but whenever I feel stressed out, scared or when I can’t sleep I try to put on my biggest forced grin for a few seconds. Bonus points if you do it in front of a mirror. Seems to work for me.” - c1sc0 “1. Write everything which you are thinking about. 2. Read something totally non-technical and off-topic 3. a hot bath and a hot glass of milk.” - hgarg “I find it’s impossible to keep feeling like this once I turn off _all_ the lights in the house, including computers. Reading by candlelight (real ones… or just really weak yellow light) works.” - radu_floricica “1. If in bed, focus on breathing with silent mind. 2. Otherwise, one can take a walk, or lie down and do #1.” - crazydiamond “I play Angry Birds.”  - uptown