I Built a Better Bedtime Routine With Marcus Aurelius and ChatGPT

How To Become A Stoic In Your Sleep

Jul 25, 2025

“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.” - Marcus Aurelius

Let’s cut right to it.

For a few months now, I’ve been experimenting with using AI to enhance everyday life. Not just work, but sleep, focus, fitness, peace of mind, etc. I assumed this was normal. Surely everyone’s doing this by now, right?

Turns out… not quite. I showed one of my most competent, tech-focused friends how I’ve been using it, and even he was surprised. That was a lightbulb moment for me. You don’t have to be on the bleeding edge of AI to get real value from it. Sometimes the most meaningful uses are hiding in plain sight.

A Better Way to End the Day

Stoicism has always been on my radar. But like a lot of us, I’ve found it easier to pick up a book on business strategy, marketing, or psychology than to sit with a philosophy or fiction book.

And when I finally picked up a book on Stoicism, I found that it was too dense, and the passages moved quickly without proper time for the lessons to sink in and take hold in my life.

Solution: I’ve trained AI to craft a bedtime story inspired by a single Stoic passage.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do this yourself. I’ve written this article in a way that you can easily copy/paste the prompts into your chatbot of choice.

*Stick around till the end for a bonus nugget on how to make it extra personalized!

1. Prompt Your AI

I use ChatGPT, and have a dedicated project for housing these bedtime stories. If you're using the free version, or using a different LLM (any will do just fine), then don’t worry about this, you can create a new chat thread and paste the prompts there. Here’s a basic prompt to get you going:

Write me a bedtime story based on a quote from one of the great Stoics. (think Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus) Here are a few guidelines:
- Calm, reflective, wise—like a mix of philosopher, poet, and monk
- 7–10 minutes in length
- Often third-person fables or parables, but can shift as needed
- Emotionally intelligent; soothing, bittersweet, or inspiring

If you’re picky (like me), you may want to ask for 3 quotes, and you can choose the best one to build the story around.

Here’s another quick modification I like to add in.

At the end of the story, explain how the lessons in the story connect to the quote around which the story was based.

2. Read Aloud

When the story is done being generated, you’ll want to ask the AI tool of your choice to read the story aloud. If you’re in ChatGPT, look for the sound icon at the bottom of the response. (see below)

3. Listen

Let the story wash over you as you fall asleep. This has become one of my favorite ways to end the day. Instead of my mind doing re-runs of the craziest parts of my day or replaying conversations, I have the story to focus on, and I know it’s going to bring me a sense of peace and calm.

4. Bonus! (How To Make SUPER Personalized)

If you keep a journal, here’s how you can take this tool to the next level.

When something’s been weighing on me, I often write about it in my journal. Just getting it out of my head and onto paper helps. This is a great exercise all by itself. Abe Lincoln used to do this too—he’d write angry letters to people he never sent. By channeling that anger into a letter, he was able to process the emotion better and make more rational decisions.

If your journal often captures what’s bothering you, try this:

Take a photo or scan of your journal entry. Upload it to the same chat thread we talked about earlier, but add this extra bit of text to the end.

Attached is a picture of today’s journal entry to provide context for where my head’s at. Use it as subtle inspiration for writing the bedtime story that will help me find peace tonight. Don’t use any names mentioned in the journal.

The result? A story perfectly tailored to your emotional state, without being too on the nose. I’ll leave you with a quote from the story that has stuck with me since.

“Let those who misunderstand me carry that burden. I will carry only what is mine.”

I hope I haven’t given you the impression that I don’t read books and just try to shortcut everything with AI. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, I love books so much that I wrote an article about the 4 specific ones I re-read every year.