Nothing’s going right. Stressed to the max. Depressed. Anxious. Irritable, Sick again. Can’t focus. No interest in doing anything. Feeling like a failure.

A client of mine was at the end of his rope with those symptoms during the winter. On top of that, he was focusing all his stress and anxieties on work. He was ready to quit his promising job and trade it in for an easier life.

The depression, the anxiety, the physical symptoms all felt so real.

Then we explored things a bit. He’s a CPA working for a big 5 accounting firm in a large city. It was “busy season”, meaning tight deadlines for the year end.

It meant leaving the office as late as midnight, and reporting back by 8 am.

He was lucky to get 5 hours sleep each night for several weeks in a row.

We averted a crisis.

He didn’t leave his job. He wasn’t going crazy. He wasn’t the failure he thought he was.

He needed more sleep.

Thankfully busy season came to an eventual end. When he returned to healthy sleep patterns, the world looked different to him.

We search for complicated answers to things.

We seem addicted to complex answers here in the US. High tech, expensive, and a bigger is better attitude rule our thought.

Maybe the answer you’re looking for is simple.

Maybe the only thing wrong is that you need more sleep.

Thanks for reading. Now go get some sleep.