STRUGGLING TO SLEEP? WHAT YOUR BODY IS TRYING TO TELL YOU
When sleep won’t come, it’s rarely just about habits. Often the body is trying to say something we haven’t yet heard.
By Maureen Callister | Kinesiologist & Author, The Gift of Self-Worth
Lying in bed unable to drop off or waking in the small hours and being unable to return to sleep, can be quietly soul-destroying, especially once it becomes a pattern. Good sleep is critical for our health and wellbeing.
Sleep is more than rest. It’s the body’s repair time and the mind’s opportunity to process and integrate the day. It is a nightly transition in which we move from activity into stillness, from doing into being, allowing the whole system to restore itself.
And perhaps there is something else about sleep that we don’t talk about enough: sleep requires surrender.
We can’t really make ourselves sleep. We have to let go of conscious control and trust the body to take over. For someone whose nervous system has learned to remain vigilant (through stress, trauma, responsibility or simply years of having too much to manage) that letting go may not be as easy as it sounds.
Over more than twenty-five years of practice, I’ve supported many people back towards more restful sleep. And while the reasons for poor sleep can vary enormously, one thing I see repeatedly is the importance of restoring a sense of safety, rhythm and balance within the body.
(For more about how this body-based approach works, see Part Two of this series —What Is Kinesiology.)
Why sleep matters so much
Sleep is one of nature’s great reset mechanisms.
While we sleep, the nervous system has an opportunity to rebalance, the body carries out essential repair and restoration, and the brain processes and consolidates information from the day.
When sleep is repeatedly disrupted, we feel the effects quickly. Fatigue and foggy thinking are obvious, but poor sleep can also affect mood, digestion, concentration, emotional resilience and our ability to cope with stress. Everything can begin to feel harder when we are exhausted or experience burnout.
The reassuring part is that whatever your sleep pattern, it doesn’t necessarily mean your body has forgotten how to sleep but it is more likely to mean that something is interfering with the natural conditions that allow sleep to happen.
Understanding what is interfering is where things become interesting.
Three types, three stages
Not all sleep struggles look the same.
The three patterns I see most often are difficulty falling asleep, often accompanied by a racing mind; waking during the night and being unable to drop back off; and broken or unrefreshing sleep, where you may spend many hours in bed but still wake feeling tired.
It can also help to recognise the stage your sleeplessness has reached.
1\. Reactive sleeplessness is usually short-term and connected with something specific —such as a deadline, illness, a heavy meal, travel, excitement, worry or a major life event. Once the trigger passes, sleep generally returns to normal.
2\. Habitual sleeplessness is where people often begin to worry. Poor sleep is occurring regularly and anxiety about sleep itself starts to creep in. You go to bed wondering, *Will I sleep tonight. You check the clock when you wake. You calculate how many hours are left before morning.
Gradually, bedtime itself can become associated with stress.
Caffeine, alcohol, screens or irregular routines may also creep in as ways of coping with exhaustion and can quietly make the cycle worse. The good news is that with the right support and some gentle resetting, balance can often return.
3\. Chronic sleeplessness runs deeper and longer, sometimes persisting for years. There can be many contributors, and trauma or prolonged stress may be among them.
When the nervous system has learned that it needs to remain alert, the body can continue behaving as though something might happen even when the original danger or difficulty has long since passed. The person may consciously know they are safe but the body isn’t quite so convinced.
This is closely related to the braced, protective nervous-system state that can sit beneath daytime anxiety Anxiety and the Nervous System. And a body that believes it must remain watchful may find it difficult to surrender into deep sleep.
It doesn’t need more forcing. It needs help remembering that it is safe to let go.
Your sleep rhythm begins long before bedtime
Sleep is also intimately connected with our natural hormonal and circadian rhythms.
One small but important player is the pineal gland, a tiny gland located deep within the brain. It helps regulate our sleep-wake cycle through the production of melatonin.
As daylight fades and darkness increases, melatonin normally rises, helping signal to the body that it is time to prepare for sleep. Light in the morning helps reset that internal rhythm again, telling the body that a new day has begun.
But melatonin doesn’t work in isolation.
Our sleep-wake cycle is influenced by the interaction between light, our internal body clock, nervous-system activity and hormones such as cortisol. Ideally, cortisol helps us become alert and active during the day while the body gradually moves towards a quieter state as evening approaches.
When stress keeps the system activated, that natural transition can become more difficult. This is why sleep isn’t simply an eight-hour event that begins when your head hits the pillow.
Your preparation for tonight’s sleep actually begins when you wake up this morning.
How kinesiology can help uncover what lies beneath
When sleeplessness becomes persistent, your habits and routines may be only one part of the picture.
In kinesiology, I use gentle muscle testing to explore the body’s responses and look for patterns of stress or imbalance that may be contributing to the problem. Rather than assuming that everyone who can’t sleep has the same problem, I am interested in what is happening for this particular person. Kinesiology treatments are uniquely personal.
Is the nervous system struggling to switch out of alert mode?
Is there an emotional stress keeping the mind active?
Are hormonal rhythms involved?
Is there an energetic imbalance or a recurring time of waking that gives us another clue?
Or is the person simply carrying far more than their system can comfortably hold?
The quiet and stillness of night can remove many of the distractions that keep us occupied during the day. Thoughts, feelings and unresolved concerns that have been pushed into the background can suddenly become much louder.
For some people, the very moment they are supposed to switch off is when their inner world switches on.
This is particularly relevant for people who spend their days doing, achieving, caring for others, solving problems and holding everything together.
When all the activity stops, there is suddenly nothing left between you and yourself.
This is where deeper patterns can sometimes emerge.
The influences I regularly explore include unconscious emotional conflicts; unresolved grief or fear; the inner pressure to “get it all right”; energetic timing imbalances, where a repeated waking time may correspond with a particular organ or meridian in Traditional Chinese Medicine The TCM Clock and Your Wake-Up Time; a disconnection from meaning or purpose; the identity fatigue that can develop when we feel pulled between too many roles; and the emotional residue of relationships or early experiences that may still be affecting the nervous system.
The question isn’t simply:
Why can’t I sleep?
A more useful question may be:
What is preventing my body from feeling safe enough to let go?
Gentle ways to support sleep tonight …. and tomorrow
Good sleep habits still matter. Looking beneath the surface doesn’t mean overlooking the basics.
Keep your sleep and waking times reasonably consistent and let evenings become progressively quieter. Read, stretch, take a warm shower or create a simple ritual that tells your body the day’s work is finished.
Reduce heavy meals, excess sugar, alcohol and stimulants later in the day. Dim bright lights and screens as evening approaches. Make your bedroom as calm, comfortable and uncluttered as possible. Calming teas, gentle scents or grounding oils can also become useful signals that it is time to slow down.
Slow breathing can be particularly helpful because it gives the nervous system a very simple message: there is no emergency here.
And don’t forget the morning. Getting outside into natural morning light helps set your internal body clock and supports the natural rhythm between daytime alertness and nighttime sleepiness. Moving your body during the day can help too.
But perhaps the gentlest advice of all is this:
Allow yourself to rest even when sleep won’t come. Rest still heals.
Sometimes the thought “I have to get to sleep” becomes another source of stress. We start fighting wakefulness, checking the clock and calculating how terrible tomorrow is going to be.
The body hears urgency.
Taking away that fight can be the first step towards helping the nervous system feel safe enough to surrender to sleep.
Remedies worth considering
Sometimes we need a little help to create that transition between the busyness of the day and the surrender of sleep. Two remedies I particularly like when an overactive mind is part of the problem are White Chestnut Bach Flower Remedy and Altearah Turquoise — Serenity.
White Chestnut is the Bach flower traditionally associated with repetitive thoughts — those conversations, worries, plans and mental arguments that seem to go around and around without reaching a conclusion. It can be particularly relevant when you’re physically tired but your mind simply won’t stop. The intention isn’t to suppress thinking, but to help restore a quieter mental space so that thoughts can settle rather than continually looping. White Chestnut can be taken according to the directions on your Bach remedy product, either on its own or as part of an individually chosen combination.
Turquoise — Serenity is one of my favourite Altearah colours for that feeling of being mentally “switched on” when you would rather let go. Altearah associates Turquoise with serenity, relaxation and letting go, with an aromatic blend that includes Ylang-Ylang, Sweet Orange, Bergamot, Lavender and Palmarosa.
If the problem is short-term — perhaps you’ve had a particularly busy or stressful day and your mind won’t settle — I would reach for the Turquoise Parfum de Soin spray. Spray it and breathe in the fragrance slowly and consciously, allowing the breath itself to become part of the ritual. Altearah recommends its Parfum de Soin for an immediate olfactory ritual and notes that it can also be used as a pillow mist.
If sleeplessness has become more chronic or your whole body seems to have forgotten how to unwind, I prefer the Turquoise body oil. Massage it gently into the body in the evening, perhaps after a shower or bath, and make the application part of your wind-down ritual. The massage, scent and conscious slowing-down all reinforce the same message: the day is finished; I don’t have to do anything more now.
I particularly like these remedies because they address two slightly different experiences. White Chestnut is for the mind that won’t stop thinking; Turquoise is for the system that needs help letting go.
Neither replaces investigation of persistent sleep problems, but they can become gentle signals of safety and transition — small ways of reminding the mind and body that it is finally time to rest.
You are meant to sleep deeply
Sleep isn’t something you should have to fight for. It is a natural rhythm your body was designed to experience. If you’ve “tried everything” and sleep still doesn’t come easily, perhaps the next step isn’t to try even harder. Perhaps it’s to become curious:
What is keeping your system alert?
What hasn’t been allowed to settle?
What does your body need in order to feel safe?
And what might it have been trying to tell you all along?
Sometimes restoring sleep is less about controlling the night and more about restoring balance during the day, within the nervous system, the emotions, the body and our relationship with ourselves.
Sleep comes when the body finally knows it is safe to let go.
Through kinesiology therapy I can help you identify the cause of the disruption whether it is subconscious, neurological, hormonal or emotional. I like to check it all for you, my approach is holistic; healing to wholeness.
If sleeplessness is severe or persistent, or you’re experiencing symptoms such as loud snoring, gasping during sleep or significant daytime sleepiness, it’s important to speak with your doctor as well. Kinesiology can sit alongside appropriate medical investigation and care.
Book a session—The TCM Clock and Your Wake-Up Time