Weaponizing Wellness: What They Never Taught Us About Recovery

by Rob Sweetman, Former Navy SEAL, Sleep Scientist, and Veteran Advocate

We trained to be machines—deadly, focused, relentless. We were told to sleep when we’re dead. And most of us took that mindset straight into war. Some of us brought it back home, buried it deep, and kept grinding until the wheels came off.

The thing is, I believed it too. That toughness meant pushing through, outworking pain, outlasting fatigue—until I watched it break the strongest guys I knew.

This is a call to the warfighter. Not the uniform, not the ribbon rack—you, the man or woman who spent years running on fumes, chasing excellence in a system that called sleep a liability and rest a weakness. It’s time we call it what it is:
Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor. It’s a silent killer.
And it’s costing us our edge, our people, and our lives.

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The Lie We Lived

Nobody ever handed us a manual for what to do after the missions were over. We learned how to carry the weight, but never how to put it down. And so we normalized the grind.

I don’t need to tell you what that feels like. You’ve lived it:

• Falling asleep in the front seat with your weapon still slung.
• Waking up mid-patrol with your eyes open but your brain offline.
• Going days on end without REM sleep because of nonstop ops, loud generators, cold racks, or just the buzzing hum of adrenaline that never quite shuts off.

We got so good at ignoring it, we forgot it mattered. But here’s the reality: when you operate for years in a sleep-deprived state, it changes you—biologically, psychologically, spiritually.

It strips away reaction time.
It clouds decision-making.
It burns through testosterone, wrecks memory, shortens your fuse, and digs a trench for depression to crawl into.

You don’t notice the slope until you’ve slid too far to climb out without help.

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The Proof Is Everywhere

I’m not just speaking from memory—I’ve gone deep into the research, because I had to. Because I watched brothers in arms break down in real time, and I couldn’t accept “That’s just how it is” as an answer.

Let’s talk facts:

• RAND’s 282-page report on military sleep found systemic deprivation across every service.
• The GAO confirmed that fatigue was a factor in fatal naval collisions that killed 17 sailors in 2017.
• JAMA, BMJ, and Military Medicine all link chronic sleep loss with higher rates of suicide, anxiety, PTSD, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and early separation.
• Some units average 5.25 hours of sleep per night—and that’s considered “normal.”

If you showed up to watch drunk, you’d face Captain’s Mast. But showing up underslept, which affects cognition the same way? That’s just “being a team player.”

We’ve built a culture where exhaustion is the expectation—and that needs to end.

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This Isn’t Self-Care. It’s Combat Readiness.

Some will say, “We don’t have time for sleep. Missions don’t pause for circadian rhythms.”

And they’re right. I’m not advocating for fragility. I’m fighting for lethality—because that’s what this is about.

Sleep isn’t a luxury. It’s a force multiplier. The same way you zero your weapon or prep your kit, you have to prep your brain. A sleep-deprived warfighter is a compromised warfighter.

Think of sleep as your own internal fire support. Miss it, and your next move might land you in the wrong building—or worse, put a teammate in a coffin.

When a high-performing unit I worked with started underperforming—missing targets, hesitating in drills—it wasn’t training, it wasn’t fear. It was fatigue. We implemented tactical sleep protocols: controlled light exposure, cut caffeine at the right time, optimized sleep spaces with blackout and noise control.

Results? Within 48 hours, their performance jumped 30%.

This is science, not speculation. It’s physiology, not philosophy.

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The System Won’t Save You. We Have to Change It.

The military system talks about resilience, but it’s still running on a Cold War playbook. Despite guidance from the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Army medical branches, most units can’t—or won’t—prioritize sleep.

Why? Because the culture doesn’t value it.

• We glorify the guy who goes longest without rest.
• We laugh about sleeping in body bags, humping packs for 36 hours, racking out in port-a-shitters.

But that culture has consequences:

• Accidents on the flight deck.
• Missed targets on a night raid.
• Suicides back home.

We need a shift in doctrine, yes—but more than that, we need a shift in mindset.

Commanders have the power to fix watch schedules. To build sleep into training cycles. To give rest the same respect we give rifle qualifications.

But until that happens, we—the veterans, the operators, the leaders who know the cost—have to speak up.

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The Human Weapon System

You are a system. Your body, your brain, your hormones, your nervous system—they all require maintenance. When we ignore that, we destroy the very weapon we rely on most: ourselves.

Lack of sleep doesn’t just make you tired. It drives:

• Testosterone depletion → loss of strength, drive, resilience
• Cortisol overload → anxiety, fat gain, burnout
• Reduced hippocampal activity → memory loss, emotional reactivity
• Compromised immune function → increased illness, injury, and delayed healing

That’s not weakness. That’s physics. You can’t out-tough biology.

But you can fight smarter.

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The Tactical Sleep Stack

So what do we do?

Start with the basics. What I call the Tactical Sleep Stack:

1. Light Discipline – Blue light crushes melatonin. Use red light or darkness at night. Use daylight early in the morning.
2. Noise Control – Earplugs, white noise, or sleep earbuds. Silence is a weapon.
3. Temperature Control – Cool the room or use cooling bedding. Ideal sleep temp is 60–67°F.
4. Caffeine Cut-Off – No caffeine 8–10 hours before bed. It lingers longer than you think.
5. Nutrient Timing – Heavy meals too close to bed disrupt deep sleep.
6. Sleep Opportunity – 7.5+ hours in bed, aligned to your natural circadian rhythm. Don’t just block time—align it.

If you’re on deployment or in a field setting, these can be adapted. We’re developing sleep pods designed for austere environments—blackout capable, thermally regulated, noise-insulated. The same container you use for gear could be retrofitted to recover warriors.

And yes—there’s wearable tech that tracks your sleep cycles, alerts your COs to fatigue risk, and builds predictive models of unit readiness. That’s the future we’re building. But it starts with you giving a damn about your own sleep.

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Reclaiming the Warrior

You may be out of uniform. But you’re not done. You’re still a leader, still a warrior, still responsible for those around you—your family, your community, your fellow vets.

And if you’re waking up groggy, fighting through brain fog, angry for no reason, snapping at your kids, or drinking to sleep—you’re not broken. You’re exhausted.

There’s no shame in that. There’s only mission failure if you ignore it.

Reclaiming your sleep means reclaiming your edge.
Reclaiming your edge means reclaiming your life.
You’ve done harder things. This is the next mission.

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The Call to Action

I’ve submitted a plan to the Secretary of Defense—a real one. It proposes the creation of a Director of Resilience and Human Factors, along with a Sleep and Readiness Advisory Council to ensure that every service member gets the rest they need to fight and survive.

But I’m not waiting on the Pentagon to save us. I’m talking to you.
Because the culture won’t change until we demand it.

We need:

• Operators willing to speak truth to command.
• Leaders willing to model rest, not just readiness.
• Veterans willing to reclaim their bodies and minds, and help others do the same.

This isn’t soft. It’s surgical.
It’s not about weakness. It’s about winning.
And I’m not backing off this fight—because it’s the most important one we have left.

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Let’s Fight Smarter

If you’ve ever been downrange, you already know how to survive.
Now it’s time to learn how to recover, how to thrive, and how to lead in a new way.

We’re not done. Not even close.
Let’s weaponize wellness together.

To support our mission with DoD go to www.sleepgeni.us/dod
Have a great sleep deprivation story? Want to be on the “Running on Fumes Podcast?” Find more details at www.sleepgeni.us/running-on-fumes-podcast
Download the Sleep Genius Community App for iPhone or Android today.

—
Rob Sweetman
Former Navy SEAL | MBA | Sleep Scientist | Founder, Sleep Genius
Rob@sleepgeni.us

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As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.