“I’m So Tired. Why Can’t I Sleep?”

ADRENAL FATIGUE, BURNOUT, AND BRAIN HEALTH: WHAT’S THIS GOT TO DO WITH SLEEP?

If you’ve ever felt burned out, maybe you know how it feels to just exist, pushing yourself through your day.  Even worse is what happens at night: all day long you look forward to getting back to bed, to hopefully get at least a few hours of sleep.  But as soon as your head hits the pillow, restlessness sets in and your mind stars racing.  Do you start worrying about things you’d done today, whether you made the right call on something important?   Or maybe you’re worrying about all the things you have to do tomorrow, and as your to-do list floods over you your muscles start to tighten and your jaw clenches.  Maybe it’s happening but you don’t even realize it.  

Or maybe your mind is going a thousand miles a minute as it processes your day, or as you remember someone you love and didn’t even realize you had to worry about.  

In most of the burned out women I speak with, it’s those silent worries that pop up at night, the ones we’re not even aware of during the day that come back to haunt us at night.

Our minds can call up wild things when we’re trying to get to sleep.  This is usually because at night, our bodies are supposed to relax so we can go to sleep.  A long-anxious body is used to tightening up in anticipation of worries and concerns that usually don’t ever happen.  When we try to relax and let go at night, our mind senses the change in our bodies and sends a warning signal that we’re no longer “prepared”.  See, anxiousness and worry will deplete our adrenal glands over time by pushing them to pump out stress hormones.  As those stress hormones get higher, our bodies change.  Digestion is diminished so our nutrient status goes down, our muscles tense in anticipation of fight or flight, and our brain begins to focus more and more on potential threats or dangers (at the expense of our creativity, imagination, and rest).  

All of this seriously depletes a person’s body, but this cycle is so powerful and can be really tough to break.  Its power comes from the fact that the deepest parts of our brain, our survival centers, are constantly tapped to be on edge for threats.  So even when we want to relax, like at bedtime, our body will override the impulse to relax because a threat to our survival feels much, much more important that rejuvenation.  So the thoughts pour in, causing the worry and tension and shallow breathing that keep us from falling into restful sleep.  

There are a lot of things that can be done to break this cycle.  Focusing on nourishing the body is a critical start, because chronically stressed and burned out people are not optimally absorbing their nutrients.  

Addressing hormones is also critical.  I always look at the bigger picture when talking about hormones, so I recommend a full assessment of thyroid, adrenal, and sex hormones (like estrogens, progesterone, and androgens) to really see what is going on.  Chronic stress and burnout has very serious and very real implications for hormone balance.  While in the long run working with diet and lifestyle may help them return to normal levels, sometimes women need additional hormone support.  

It’s also so important to feed and nourish the nervous system in a chronically stressed or burned out woman.  I often use herbs and nutrients to help do this.  Ultimately, though, sleep is the absolute best way to nourish and support our nervous system.  So a wired-but-tired woman needs to be able to sleep.  

Depending on the woman, her history, and her experience at night, I may opt for one treatment or therapy over another.  Often, herbs and nutrients are helpful for sleep.  I rarely use melatonin, and will only use it as necessary, because long-term melatonin use can cause dependence and have unwanted effects on other hormone systems.  Again, it all depends on what a woman’s own body needs.  

Beginning a practice like biofeedback or meditation can also have profound effects on calming the nervous system and helping a woman sleep.  When beginning a meditation practice it’s often helpful for people to use a guided meditation, as it gives us something to focus on.  For wired-but-tired women with an inner dialogue that won’t stop at night, a guided meditation can be really helpful.  I recommend the guided meditations of Dr. Joe Dispenza, especially this one that he developed especially to help people get to sleep.  

Being wired-but-tired is no way to live; I know, I lived that way for years!  The constant depression, weight gain, fatigue, brain fog and the nightly frustration in the midst of incessant worries and to-do lists was overwhelming and totally exhausting.  It takes some major steps and lifestyle changes to get out of that cycle and start feeling better, with energy, a happy mood, and getting back my ability to focus and concentrate.  A lot of that starts with sleeping better.  When my patients are struggling with sleep, I’ll often recommend that they start with a practice like meditation while we work on optimizing other lifestyle factors and rebalance hormones.