My Story – How I beat insomnia

This is my personal story…I’m NightFood founder, Sean Folkson:

It was about 15 years ago when I seemingly forgot how to sleep. How does that happen to somebody? Good question!

For me, there were a handful of factors in play: I recently quit my job (which had me working overnights semi-regularly) to focus entirely on my internet ventures. So, I started with a messed up sleep schedule, and then removed all structure from my life. I could stay up late with my face in front of the computer, go to bed when I finally felt exhausted, and wake up without an alarm clock, whenever my body decided it had enough sleep, often after 11AM.

On top of that, I started playing in a recreational hockey league called “Midnight Hockey”. The games would usually start at 10:30 PM, and we’d get off the ice close to midnight. From there, I’d be starving, so I’d eat junk to fill me up, and I’d sleep poorly on those nights (no surprise with vigorous exercise so late, followed by Taco Bell drive-through, right?).

I kept that up for a couple of years. I was exhausted from not sleeping, and I also started getting fat. I was up to 195 lbs. Finally, I decided it was time to do something about my situation.

I started paying attention to my diet, and my sleep patterns. I noticed differences in my sleep based on different variables. Hockey night vs. non-hockey night, how much did I work into the late hours, what did I eat before bed, etc…

As I started to take the weight off, and work towards getting healthier, I integrated nutrition bars into my diet. They were convenient, portion controlled, and healthy.

However, I still wasn’t sleeping very well. And now, when hungry late at night, instead of eating fast food or leftovers, I’d eat a bar instead. I started to wonder why there wasn’t a bar on the market that was specially formulated for nighttime nutrition. I knew our bodies do different things during sleep, and have different needs. It seemed like a bad idea to keep eating these “workout” bars at all hours, and then trying to go to sleep. But, that’s what I was doing.

Years passed, and I waited and waited. I figured eventually somebody would come out with a night bar, and when they did, I would start buying them Well, more than 10 years later, and there was still no snack bar for nighttime nutrition. During that time, as I continued to learn more about sleep, study after study was released shedding light on the dangers of sleep deprivation, and the amazing statistics of how poorly we’re sleeping as a nation.

I finally decided it was time for a product like NightFood™ to exist. If nobody else was going to get off their butts and do it, then I would. Creating the product and bringing it to market was a long, arduous and rewarding process.

Having changed my habits, and incorporated NightFood bars in to my normal routine, I now get great sleep on a regular basis. The couple of nights of hockey each week, and having a 1 year old son present challenges from time to time; but I definitely sleep better than most people these days. I am so proud of the product we’ve created here, I want to share it with the world.

Too many of us have not been living our best lives because of insufficient quantity and quality of sleep. My goal with NightFood is to help everybody feel a little bit better each day because of a better night’s sleep the night before. If we can do that, I’ll have made the world a better place.