Too Exhausted To Sleep? Understand More About Why.
It’s 2 am and Susan can’t sleep. She keeps tossing and turning in bed. The feeling of restlessness keeps her awake. Her body feels tired. Part of her mind even wants to go to sleep. She feels tired, very tired. But her mind continues to stay active. The steady stream of thoughts keeps her from shifting into sleep. It feels at times that she is too tired to sleep.
Susan, like many peoples, suffers from insomnia. Despite her body being tired, her mind wishes to keep her awake. It’s a condition many people seek help for and we are going to explore some of the reasons she may be in this situation.
Feeling Too Tired To Sleep Has Many Causes
Insomnia or sleep disorders can have many causes. Your circadian rhythm could simply be off. You could be going through withdrawal from a substance like cannabis. Your diet may be off or you may be consuming too much caffeine. It could be a symptom of a more serious medical condition.
It’s important when seeking help for insomnia or a sleep disorder, to visit a doctor or a sleep specialist first. Feeling too tired to sleep can be indicative of a larger problem. They can assess your situation and determine if the cause is related to diet or a medical condition.
The Body Is Too Tired, But the Mind Won’t Go To Sleep
However, sometimes when doctors or sleep specialists aren’t able to help a person’s insomnia, they often turn to a hypnotherapist to see if the problem is subconscious. Being too tired to sleep is an indication that the body wishes to sleep, but the mind has some reason for keeping the person awake.
I’ve seen many clients where an inability to fall asleep was one of the presenting problems. However, beyond this problem, what I found in all cases was an unresolved emotional conflict. There was some traumatic event or interpersonal conflict the person was avoiding dealing with or addressing. Why this translates into sleep issues has to do with the brain wave changes that occur during the process of falling asleep.
Too Tired To Sleep, Because Of Brain Wave Changes
When we fall asleep, our brain makes a transition through the four different types of brain waves: beta to alpha to theta to delta. You can learn more about these types of brain waves here, but for right now, just understand this. Beta is the brain wave when we are active and figuring out the world. Delta is the state of sleep. Alpha and theta are the brain wave state of what hypnotherapists call a hypnotic state.
Alpha and theta waves are the waves of relaxation, stress release, emotional release, and integration of ideas. We use hypnosis to transition people into this state for our therapy work because working with people in these states allows us to achieve rapid emotional healing and growth. This is particularly true of the theta brain wave, which is notorious for emotional release. This is the state you are in right before you fall asleep and when you wake up in the morning.
Can’t Go To Sleep When Painful Emotions Release
Have you ever woken up feeling very sad? How about feeling afraid? Perhaps, you’ve woken up in a state of panic or anxiety. These emotional states you are in have to do with you waking up in a state of theta brain waves. When in this state, the mind begins to attempt to release and discharge painful emotions we may have been avoiding during our waking life.
The same is true for when we fall asleep. Right before we fall asleep, we shift into theta brain waves as well. This means any painful emotions we have been repressing or suppressing may start to come out. This can lead to the condition of feeling too tired to sleep because the body wants to fall asleep while the mind wishes to stay awake to avoid confronting emotional pain.
Thus, insomnia is often a symptom of a greater emotional problem left unresolved in the subconscious mind.
Resolve the Conflict To Fall Asleep
Ready to start getting to bed when you are too tired to sleep? Then, the answer is to resolve the underlying emotional conflict. Once the conflict is resolved and the pain is no longer lurking in the shadow of the subconscious, falling asleep becomes quite easy.
Hypnotherapists can help you resolve this conflict by deliberately taking you into a hypnotic state to bring it up. We can use powerful disassociation techniques and emotion desensitization techniques to manage and lessen the intensity of the experience. We can identify the root cause of the conflict and bring the mind to resolution in possibly just a few sessions.
If you found this post on being too tired to sleep helpful, you might find some of my other posts on insomnia to be helpful. Check out these on waking up anxious, sleep maintenance insomnia, and reoccurring dreams.
