Alright, troops, it’s time to throw your sleep schedule onto the negotiating table and cut it up like junk bonds. Listen up, because if you’re not alpha-ing your bedtime like you alpha your portfolio, your brain’s about to start aging faster than a subprime mortgage. We’re talking cognitive tenement housing, people. Forget blue-chip brains — you’re trading for neurons straight from the bargain bin. Here’s the insider tip: a team of white-coat Wall Street wannabes in Sweden just conducted the most aggressive hostile takeover of your sleep habits ever attempted. They scanned more brains than there are spreadsheets in an investment bank, and let me tell you — the numbers don’t lie. Turns out, if you treat sleep like a rookie analyst treats their lunch break (i.e., avoid it at all costs), your brain goes into liquidation mode. Let’s break it down like a leveraged buyout. Step one: You refuse to quit Doomscroll Capital at 2 a.m. because you think you’re impressing somebody with your 24/7 hustle. Step two: In come the symptoms — snoring louder than a boardroom full of old men, insomnia that makes your Bloomberg terminal crash, and enough daytime sleepiness that you confuse the elevator for the trading floor. Step three: Your brain, which used to be pure Grade A, gets downgraded to junk status by the inescapable rating agency known as time. That’s right. One minute you’re Michael Milken, the next you’re selling penny stocks out of a van in New Jersey. We’re not just talking aesthetics either, pal. We’re talking straight-up internal sabotage — chronic inflammation mounting a hostile proxy fight against your gray matter. You think the SEC is scary? Wait ‘til you see what C-reactive protein can do. Platelets running rampant, white blood cells forming hedge funds, granulocytes shorting every neuron in sight. It’s a total bloodbath! Every time you kill an hour of sleep, your body basically schedules a hostile M&A with “early retirement,” and not the kind with a golden parachute. Picture this: your brain’s asset-to-liability ratio tips the wrong way. Suddenly, you’re experiencing the cognitive equivalent of an accounting scandal. Not pretty. But wait, there’s more. Your body’s waste disposal — the glymphatic system — goes out on strike like a union during bonus season. Normally, it takes out the trash at night, but if you’re skimping on REM, you’re letting toxic assets accumulate until the entire floor smells like three-day-old delivery. Your poor neurons can barely keep up with the regulatory paperwork! And if you think you can outsmart poor sleep just by drinking more coffee — buddy, that’s like trying to save your portfolio by buying more Enron. Cardiovascular health tanks, blood flow to the brain dries up, and next thing you know you’re getting margin-called by reality. So, what’s the big play? Get eight hours of sleep — nothing more, nothing less. Don’t let insomnia finagle your books or let snoring become your latest scandal. If you don’t, you’re setting yourself up for cognitive bankruptcy — and that, my friend, is one risk not worth taking. Sleep is for winners, and I only buy winners. Greed is good, but sleep is better. Now get to bed and start compounding that cognitive interest.