Hi everyone,
Frustrating experience here. After months of prep, couldn't sleep before an MBB final round and blew the interview. Happened for the first time a year ago, and then again last week with a different MBB.
Before both first rounds and final rounds, my body jolted awake in the middle of the night and I was unable to fall back asleep. I ended up going into the interviews with 3-4 hours total. At that level I retained some level of function, enough to get through first rounds, but as you can imagine my ability to articulate, brainstorm, draw insights, perform mistake-free math, etc. is diminished relative to what I practiced at.
I've tried the obvious solutions- OTC sleep pills, doing a heavy workout the day before, reading something relaxing, 4-7-8 breathing, etc. No luck with any of that.
Anyone else have this experience or have any suggestions? Grateful for any advice.
Interview anxiety night before final rounds
You're lying in bed and it's 2 am. You can't sleep and have to be up in a couple of hours to interview for your dream job. What do you do?
First, it's important to establish that this anxiety is completely natural. It's very easy to think about all the possible issues when you are lying still in bed. There are a few ways to combat this fear.
Tips for good sleep hygiene
The best way to ensure you're rested is to establish a good sleep regimen. Go to bed at about the same time every night. You'll need to build a routine that tells your mind it's time to sleep. Stop all work an hour before bed and stop using electronics as well. Make some tea, meditate, read, or write. Whatever activity you do be sure to do it every night. This usually takes 4 to 6 weeks to get into a rhythm. Eventually, once you do activity x you'll become tired instantly.
Staying in the present
Champion fighter Ben Askren has anxiety before some of his biggest fights. He said in an interview that all his homework for the prize fight had been done but he would still obsess over it. So he flew his friends in from out of town to joke around and have fun before the fight. You don't need to fly people out but you can apply this same mentality. Be confident that you know the material. Stop preparing the day before your interview. In fact, do whatever takes your mind off the interview.
Some ideas from the community
Natural sleep remedies
from certified user @IlliniProgrammer"
- Exercise the week and the night before.
- St. John's Wort or Ashwagandha. Both available at your local pharmacy. Warning: do not take if you take SSRIs.
- Melatonin
"Normal" people state of mind.
from certified user @Myron-Ghains"
But OP what I did prior to some interviews that I hyped up was I surrounded myself with "normal" people. The type of people that don't know / care what MBB vs. BB TMT vs. PE is. It helped remove the mentality that I absolutely needed this position or my life was over as I knew it.
"This is your anxiety speaking"
from user @LReed"
Just remember that these interviews basically determine the rest of your life and any given interview could very well be the difference between you being a 30 year old virgin accountant who hates his life versus being a 28 year old Consultant whose seen the world, had the best women and lives in a Tribecca high rise.
A lifesaver is to watch TV in bed. I put on Family Guy because I've seen every episode. It's mindless watching and it takes my mind off everything, I just lie with my eyes closed and listen. Knocks me out very quickly, give it a try.
That is the sole purpose of my iPad - just rewatching sitcoms with my eyes half closed. Great stuff if you want to fall asleep!
Not disagreeing that this works for you and may very well work for OP so it's worth a try. However, there's lots of articles that say not to do this. Again, not saying it doesn't work for you and won't work for the OP, just be aware the nerds say it's bad.
It somewhat depends. While the point of the bright light (read, a certain shade of blue that has been proven to do this) is true, the point of your brain waiting what will happen not, as we are watching reruns. For the bright light you can do 2 things: - just mostly listen to the show with your eyes closed, like aspirer - download f.lux, a tool that actually filters these bright lights out (it is actually something that I believe everyone should have on their laptop).
Listening to audio books has been actually known to even improve sleep as you won't panic/stress about random stuff that has happened to you, and is something I want to try as well. Only problem is that you won't know where you have to continue when you wake up :)
I usually just jerk off and let one loose if I can't fall asleep. Works every time.