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The Reason High Performers Wake Up at 3am And It’s Costing Them Millions
The following is a true story of Alex M, a startup account executive.
1000+ verified 5-star reviews
By Harrison Wells
March 12, 2026
One of the most gut-wrenching situations an account executive can possibly have…
Happened to me (Alex, 36) literally 17 days ago.
I'd been prepping for this meeting with a potential client to pitch the biggest deal of my entire career.
I was good at this kind of stuff. Really good. Performance reviews were always positive, praising my drive and value output.
I’ll admit it though…my sleep was far from perfect. Sometimes I'd wake up at 3am with the to-do list running through my head, sometimes just a circuit of meaningless thoughts.
Often this meant just taking the loss and crawling out of bed at 4:01am, since my body was clearly done sleeping for the night.
I'd gotten used to pushing through. That sacrifice was worth it, I told myself.
I was so close to a life-changing promotion.
I wanted to buy a nice house in a competitive market. I had my eyes on the prize.
The Turning Point
It was Tuesday night (2 weeks ago), and I'd finished my final prep for the meeting. I got ready for bed at 11pm.
"Not bad, solid 7 hours of sleep and I'll ace this presentation tomorrow morning,"
I was ready I knew the angles, I'd studied the client, and this wasn't my first rodeo.
Lights out.
I jolted awake, leaned over, checked my phone -
3:25.
*bleep*
Too early to get up.
I closed my eyes again, no luck. Adrenaline, tossing and turning. I was already in "on" mode.
4:12.
Still time to sleep, I thought. I tried to get my brain to shut off. Still no luck.
Went to the bathroom, deep breaths, scrolled for a bit.
4:50. I tossed and turned for a while more, frustrated. Then finally, 6:00. I was up and off to the presentation.
In the meeting, the board members and founder were engaged, my intro and pitch went well.
Then they asked,
"Why did your previous biggest customer cut their contract with you in half?"
It caught me off guard; my mind couldn't pivot. I just froze and couldn't think of a response. It was probably 10 seconds, but felt like a half hour.
I don't remember what they said, just their expressions losing interest after that point.
I pulled it together for the rest, but I walked out feeling like I had messed the whole thing up.
It was right then that I realized –
My sleep deprivation was catching up to me.
I couldn't hold the same energy or intensity level like this anymore.
That 3am wakeup might have just cost me everything...
Alex’s story is common, especially in corporate America, where hustle culture and 60 hour weeks are often glorified, and risks of sleep debt minimized.
Alex now knew the stakes.
If he didn't start taking sleep quality as seriously as his work, he feared he could lose his job, and everything he was working so hard for.
Finding the Answer
When I spoke to Alex after the fact, he told me,
“"My main issue was that when I was in the thick of it, I would finish a 12 or 14 hour day and it was like the work kept on going in the back of my mind. I'd be exhausted, but more and more I'd wake up suddenly at 3am running through what I had to do the next day, mind racing."
"I tried having a few drinks to relax, melatonin, even weed gummies, but everything either didn't work all night or left me groggy and tired in the morning."
Alex couldn't find anything that worked.He thought he just needed to “hustle harder,” or find a lower-stress position. Until then, he kept the coffee flowing and took emergency power naps.After this 3am incident, he contacted Janice McKinnon, a lead physician, who recommended Sleepwhale's Sleep Drops.
Then everything changed for Alex.
““Middle of the night wakeups is the most common sleep issue for people living a high stress lifestyle,” explains Dr. Janice McKinnon after we reached out to her for comment.
“Cortisol, the stress and wakefulness hormone, is normally low at night in healthy people. That’s when the body releases melatonin and the parasympathetic nervous system tells the body it’s time to get sleepy and calm.”
"When someone like Alex is working late, their stress and adrenaline are still in overdrive. When they go into a light sleep stage for REM, they are more likely to wake up with a cortisol spike. It's the fight or flight response."
Sleepwhale Changes the Equation
“"Sleepwhale is the only sleep aid I know that effectively buffers this stress response and promotes unbroken quality sleep, without heavy sedatives or hormones," Janice says.
Alex recounts replying to Janice , "I told her I didn't think a non-prescription or non-dispensary dropper was going to do anything. I was so deep into sleep issues, and nothing had worked for me before. Why would this be any different?"
"Janice told me to just trust her and try Sleep Drops, and I did," Alex recalls.
"She told me to take one dropper under my tongue 15 minutes before bed. 'And this was really going to do something?' I asked her."
"It most certainly is," Janice explained.
"Unlike other sleep aids like gummies, oils, pills, or drinks, Sleepwhale is water-soluble and highly bioavailable, so it starts absorbing under the tongue immediately.
"It primes your body and mind into a relaxed state within minutes, and keeps your cortisol system from waking you up at 3am.”
What are Sleep Drops, and how do they work?
Do you want to finally break the toxic cycle of stress affecting sleep, affecting work, building more stress?
Sleep experts like Janice will tell you, fixing sleep isn't about knocking yourself out with heavy chemicals.
People like Alex who suffer from midnight wakeups don’t have time for hour-long bedtime routines, and they definitely can’t afford to be out of it at 8am the next day.
This is why Sleepwhale is a lifesaver.
Sleepwhale is a combination of clinically proven natural sleep-supportive ingredients like Nano-hemp CBD, CBN, and Suntheanine, in a highly absorbable form.
Sleep Drops absorb instantly under the tongue, helping increase sleep resilience, improve deep sleep and REM, and buffer the overactive cortisol spikes, helping you stay asleep throughout the whole night, even when your system is in a high-stress state.
Sleepwhale’s Original Sleep Drops have over 10,000 5-star reviews, the majority of which are from high-responsibility people like Alex who have been using Sleepwhale to help them with 3am wakeups to surprising success.
"Finally, a proper night's sleep"
Jessica M. - Verified Buyer
With 3 middle schoolers and a full time job, my sleep has been a wreck for over a year. I tried all the options I could find: melatonin, CBD, blue light glasses, even Ambien. I was still groggy in the morning, still waking up at 3am, or just couldn't tell if it was doing anything or what was working. First night trying Sleepwhale -- I actually remembered what a proper night's sleep felt like. Now I have no midnight wakeups, I feel relaxed basically immediately, and I wake up actually rested and ready for the day. Absolute godsend for me.
"Irregular shifts, but getting regular sleep again"
Daniel - Verified Buyer
I work 12-hour irregular nursing shifts, so consistent sleep times just isn't an option. Even when I'd be exhausted I'd still only manage 2-3 hours and wake up again. I tried Sleepwhale to see if it could help. I did not expect it to be so helpful at signaling my body to prepare for sleep. Now I do a dropper when I want to wind down, get the room dark, and I'm out for 7-8 hours straight. Got rid of all my pills and now this is all I use. Wish I'd found this sooner.
"My secret weapon for hard days"
James S. - Verified Buyer
I don't take it every night - just when I've pushed hard in the gym, worked late, had a few drinks, or switch time zones. Normally I wake up too early regardless of when I went to bed. When I take a dropper of Sleepwhale I'm able to sleep deeper and longer and actually wake up feeling rested. Those days used to just be write offs. Now I use Sleepwhale before bed on those days, and I know I'm actually going to have energy the next day.
Trying Sleepwhale Sleep Drops
After hearing Alex’s story, I wanted to see if Sleepwhale would work for me too.
I’m a little different from Alex, having worked as a journalist for 15 years.
But I’ve also had a similar experience of working intensely to cover a story, sacrificing sleep for weeks at a time. I know from personal experience that the root cause is those same midnight sleep disruptions.
With my two kids in kindergarten and elementary school, I can’t let sleep deprivation affect how I show up as a mother for them.
I ordered the original Sleep Drops, which they recommend as a baseline to start, and Extra Strength Sleep Drops to compare its effects on my sleep.
After ordering on sleepwhale.com it arrived in a few days, just in time to cap off a day of writing an article for a big story. I was pretty wired, and felt it would be a good day to try the Sleep Drops.
I put the kids to bed, brushed my teeth and took 1mL (a full dropper) of Regular Strength under my tongue at 11pm, held it for 45 seconds, and then got cozy in bed.
I wore my Apple watch to bed to measure my sleep metrics so I would be able to test.
It was promising when I started feeling a physical sense of relaxation around 5 minutes after taking the dropper; a stark contrast to the stressed out, antsy feeling I had after closing my computer earlier that evening.
My sleep data:
To my honest surprise, I woke up as the sun came in my window (at 7am!) which is, quite surprising for me as someone who wakes up at 4am most stressful nights.
The best part was - I felt REFRESHED.
I was not expecting that.
I hadn’t really had a morning that wasn’t a bit of a struggle to get myself going in a long, long, time.
Examining my sleep data from my Apple Watch, I saw that I had only been awake for 5 minutes (barking dog), and my deep sleep was actually 1.5 times my typical figure (1 hour and 17 minutes).
This was honestly a huge surprise.
In the following week or two, I experienced similar results, with the occasional familiar early morning wake up.
After reaching out, the Sleepwhale Team promptly recommended that I try Extra Strength, or supplement with their CBN booster, to ensure a greater early wake-up busting effect.
UPDATE
6-months update: I’m happy to say that the sleep drops have STILL been working for me to this day. After I wrote the original article I was getting consistently better deep sleep and REM in particular on those tough days, and my normal issue of snapping awake in the middle of the night was basically gone. I had a night here or there, but it was night and day (no pun intended).
Because my sleep was consistently getting better, I noticed my stress was affecting me less during the day.I would normally have to stifle irritation when my son would leave his clothes in the middle of the floor after a big deadline, but I was able to laugh about it and think creatively about how to help him remember, rather than getting upset. I didn’t expect better sleep to give me more mental space.
Now my body seems to have gotten more used to finding relaxation and calm in stressful times, but I still take Sleepwhale as insurance when things get really tough. I can’t recommend it enough if you’re struggling with stress or lifestyle affecting your sleep quality.
How much does it cost?
It’s currently 58% off for new customers, and Sleepwhale also offers a 30 day money back guarantee! No brainer.
Is it worth it?
Absolutely. For Alex he used it every day to help with a chronic issue of sleep debt buildup, and I’ve been using it when I need it. For someone like this and anyone in between, having a simple dropper bottle that does this much for something as important as sleep, without a doubt it is worth trying for yourself.
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