Impacts of lack of sleep

Imagine a medieval king who decided their castle should be lit up like day at nighttime, hundreds of candles in mirror-walled rooms, 365 days a year, and also that the entire castle save only the bed chamber would host the finest entertainers and all the most interesting friends and strangers in the world, party games and amusements in a hundred palace rooms, and a mage who could show the king any wonder of the world in his crystal ball, and a bazaar with the finest goods on display, the best academics, et c., et c., basically on tap, and this wild best-the-world's-ever-seen carnival would never. Close. So that all the king must do is open his bed chamber door, any hour, any day, to be enthusiastically welcomed into a veritable (and sometimes literal) orgy of entertainment. 24. 7. Year-round.

Think that king might have a rather disrupted sleep schedule? It seems obviously insane to live like that, no? Instant reaction is "my god, why would you do that", right?

Consider that a totally ordinary middle class house in the West is arguably worse than that.

No wonder everyone "can't" sleep or "is just a night owl" (sure, some may actually be, not saying zero people are).

Frankly it's a miracle we get anydamnthing done, and sleep at all.

I'd encourage everyone to try candle-only lighting after sundown (or maybe extremely dim candle-temp electric lighting, though if you're just trying it briefly consider the candles, they're a bad idea for a bunch of reasons long-term but fine for a few days—you'd be surprised how little you need, I found two beeswax tapers were the minimum to read by without discomfort, but my eyes are still young-ish), no electric devices whatsoever (there's actually still a ton you can do—card games, board games, play music, read, draw, write, et c.), no whole-room lighting, just for a week or so. See if you're still a "night person" by day 7.

[EDIT] Bonus round on the thought experiment at the top: imagine the king is, despite this questionable decision, actually fairly responsible and leaves the castle to go run the kingdom during the day, most days, retiring to this ultra-carnival-home only late in the day. You'll expect that to go even worse as far as sleep is concerned, right?

I believe if you adjust your circadian rhythm accordingly, and don't face interference from external conditions (sunlight) they are equivalent.

I've struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember. I have improved it considerably in the past year (still not perfect). Out of the dozens upon dozens of things I've tried, here's what I think made the most difference, in order of importance.

1. Very consistent bedtime and wake up time. +/- 30 minutes, but ideally less. Obviously if you struggle with sleep you can't count on falling asleep at the same time, but work at it.

2. Expose yourself to bright, outdoor light every morning.

3. Keep the lights as dim as you can tolerate for ~2 hours before bed. Blue light is technically worse than red, but total light is way more important.

4. Anything you do for ~1 hour before bed should be very passive. For me, reading is good, very particular kinds of TV is okay (can't be too stimulating), or something along those lines. Anything that requires decision making, social interaction, things that get you excited and so on are completely out.

5. Breathe through your nose. It can be hard at first but it gets easier over time. If your nose is constricted you can exhale all your air, hold your breath until you feel the urge to breathe, and then draw in a big breath through your nose. It will open up your nasal passages. Do it a couple times if you need to. If you have sleep apnea that you can't fix that way get a CPAP.

6. Meditation. And it's not really that doing 10 minutes of meditation during the day means you'll magically sleep better; it's more that you learn how to divert the noisy thoughts and focus on something very simple to help you relax at night.

Also, sleep is a temporal problem. If you do everything perfectly for one day your probability of sleeping better at night will go up by some relatively small percentage. Which is discouraging. But if you really work at it for a month it will get significantly better. And by the same token, if you're in a good state, one or two days of disrupted sleep don't cause all that much damage.

EDIT: 7. Forgot to mention this one: keep the room very cold. Matthew Walker (the guy who wrote Why We Sleep, which is a great book) recommends 65F.

My sleep problem is not that I can't fall asleep when in bed, it's that I can't tell myself to go to the bed to sleep. I think it's some kind of chronic FOMO / productivity bug, but obviously it results in lowered productivity overall because of my effectiveness when fatigued.

Has anyone else addressed this issue in their own lives or know some resources tailored to this problem to learn how to better approach bedtime?