Retrain Your Nervous System To Sleep Through The Night

If middle of the night wake-ups have become your normal nightly routine,

I want to gently offer you a different way of understanding what's been happening,

One that actually leads you toward more sleep.

If you've tried a bunch of things,

Maybe supplements,

Maybe sleep hygiene,

And you've found that nothing has made a lasting difference,

That actually makes complete sense because what's actually driving this pattern goes much deeper than anything a supplement or a sleep routine can reach and that's exactly what we're going to explore in this video.

My name is Meredith Loudon.

I'm a sleep coach and I dealt with insomnia for 16 years and everything I share in this video was key to my journey to getting back to sleeping naturally again.

So in this video,

We're going to dive into the three shifts that will stop middle of the night awakenings from happening at the root cause.

The first two shifts retrain your mind and body to stop waking up altogether and shift number three,

Make sure that this result stays with you long term.

So relax,

Get comfortable,

And let's dive into it.

And let's start where the problem actually starts,

Which is not at night.

Shift one is about lowering your cortisol during the day and this one can surprise people because the reason you keep waking up at the same time every night has everything to do with what's happening in your body during the day.

Here's what's going on.

Cortisol is your body's stress hormone and it naturally starts to rise in the early morning hours to prepare your body to wake up.

That's completely normal.

But when you're carrying excess cortisol in your system from chronic stress,

That gentle rise turns into a spike and that jolts you awake at 2 or 3 a.

M,

Hours before you actually need to be up in the morning.

This can also happen when your blood sugar drops in the night.

Your body releases cortisol to bring it back up,

Which can trigger that same wake-up response.

So if you tend to wake up feeling really hungry or you eat very little in the evenings,

It might be worth experimenting with a slow release protein snack before bed to help keep your blood sugar stabilized throughout the night,

Something like a small handful of nuts or some Greek yogurt.

And this is where the cortisol-melatonin relationship becomes really important.

Cortisol and melatonin work like a seesaw.

So when cortisol goes up,

Melatonin goes down.

Melatonin is the sleep hormone that keeps you asleep.

And you're not low on melatonin because your brain forgot how to make it.

You're low on melatonin because when cortisol is high,

Your brain thinks you're in danger and it makes zero sense to fall asleep when you're in danger.

So your brain simply doesn't produce it in that moment.

So the question becomes,

Why do you have excess cortisol in the first place?

And the answer is almost always rooted in how you're operating during the day.

Your survival brain has one job,

Which is to keep you safe.

And it does that by constantly scanning your environment for threats.

But the problem is,

It can't tell the difference between an actual life or death threat and the pressure you're putting on yourself to answer every email,

Finish every task,

Be everything to everyone,

And never slow down.

To your survival brain,

All of it feels like danger.

There's something that I call the importance level.

Your survival brain is attaching a level of life or death importance to things like an unanswered email,

An unfinished task,

A difficult conversation you need to have.

And that keeps cortisol high all day for things that aren't actually dangerous.

Some of the most common patterns I see in people who struggle with this are those who are more of a type A personality that's maybe gone a little bit too far.

Perfectionism,

A need to control every outcome,

A go-go-go mentality where resting or slowing down makes you feel lazy or guilty that you're not being productive.

And I say this with so much compassion because that was me.

I genuinely didn't realize that my own personality and daily habits were keeping my cortisol so elevated that my body had no choice but to keep me awake during the night.

And so the shift is this.

Start catching yourself when you're over attaching importance to things that don't deserve that level of emotional charge.

Ask yourself,

How important is this really?

Is this actually life or death?

And on the rare occasion that it actually is,

Trust me,

You will know.

It will not feel like an item on your to-do list.

When you notice yourself rushing,

Slow down deliberately.

When you notice you're multitasking,

Pick one thing and do just that.

Start building small moments of rest or pause into your day.

A few minutes of stillness,

A slow walk outside,

Eating lunch without your phone.

These small things send a powerful signal to your nervous system.

We are safe.

We have time.

Nothing is on fire.

The perfectionism and control tendencies are worth looking at here too,

Right?

So your 50% effort is probably someone else's 150%.

Most things are already good enough.

And reminding yourself of that regularly starts to retrain your brain out of that constant high alert state.

Because when your brain stops treating everything like an emergency during the day,

Your cortisol levels naturally start to balance out.

And the lower your cortisol is during the day,

The less excess there is to spike at 3am,

Which means you stay asleep longer.

And if you do happen to wake up,

Falling back asleep quickly is no issue.

Shift two is to show your brain it's safe before you sleep.

Because your evening is another really powerful opportunity to bring that cortisol down even further so that spike at 3am never even happens in the first place.

Think of it this way.

Your brain is going to take stock of everything that happened today right before you go to sleep.

Everything that's still pending,

Everything that's unresolved,

Everything on tomorrow's to-do list.

And if your survival brain looks at all that and decides there's still something urgent to deal with,

It's going to keep cortisol elevated going into the night,

Which sets you up for that 3-4am spike all over again.

So your job in the evening is to deliberately send your survival brain the message that everything is okay,

That the day is over,

And that it's completely safe to rest.

There are two really simple ways to do this.

The first is to just slow down your evening intentionally.

It's not about following a perfect routine.

It's simply about creating an off-ramp for your brain.

A transition from being on all day to now being allowed to rest.

So just slow down your physical movements in the evening.

Slow down your pace.

How you move through your home actually signals to your nervous system whether it's time to wind down or stay alert.

So move slower.

Be more deliberate.

Let your body know that the day is over.

Also avoid stimulating content in the evening,

Anything that triggers strong emotions,

Urgency,

Or problem solving.

Your brain doesn't know the difference between a stressful TV drama and a stressful real-life situation.

So be intentional about what you're feeding your brain in those last few hours.

And if your mind tends to race when you wake up in the middle of the night,

Try doing a brain dump before going to bed.

Just grab a piece of paper and write down everything that's still on your mind.

Any pending task,

Any worry,

Everything that you don't want to forget.

Just getting it out of your head and onto paper tells your survival brain that it's recorded,

It's handled,

And you don't need to stay alert to remember it.

The more consistently you do these things,

The faster your brain learns to associate the evening with safety,

Which naturally lowers cortisol before you even get into bed.

The second way that you can send a signal of safety to your brain before going to sleep is a simple visualization exercise.

Before you close your eyes to sleep,

Just take a few minutes to imagine anything that's been on your mind,

Anything unresolved,

Anything your mind keeps coming back to.

And in your mind,

Imagine it resolved,

Fixed,

The best possible outcome.

Feel the relief of it being done,

Finished.

You can also do something even simpler for your to-do list.

You can just close your eyes and imagine a check mark next to all of the outstanding tasks on your to-do list.

Sometimes I'll see like the green emoji check mark next to everything.

It's super quick and simple.

Your subconscious can't tell the difference between something you imagine and something that actually happened.

So when you show your survival brain the best case scenario,

It receives the message that everything is okay.

So that level of importance drops,

Cortisol drops,

And your body can finally relax and to rest.

This is you intentionally changing the message that you send your survival brain before going to sleep.

And when your survival brain gets the message that everything is safe and resolved,

It starts to lower your cortisol level so there isn't an excess that needs to spike during the night,

Which means you sleep through the night or you fall back asleep really quickly if you happen to wake up.

Now the third shift is about what you actually do in the moment when you wake up.

Because if you continue lowering your cortisol during the day and you continue lowering it before bed by showing your brain it's okay to sleep,

You will absolutely retrain this pattern over time.

But there is one more piece that ties it all together because you don't want to accidentally undo all of that great work the moment that you wake up during the night.

Shift three is to change your reaction when you wake up.

Here's something really important to understand first.

Waking up in the middle of the night is actually a completely normal part of your sleep cycle.

Throughout the night your brainwaves naturally move through cycles of deep sleep and lighter sleep.

And during those lighter phases of sleep which tend to happen in the second half of the night,

Your brainwaves naturally speed back up into what's called the alpha brainwave state.

The alpha brainwave is the same brainwave you're in when you're falling asleep at night or waking up in the morning.

So when you wake up in the middle of the night you are already in the perfect state to drift right back off to sleep.

You don't need to do anything to get there.

You're already right there.

Because the moment you wake up and your first thought is,

Oh no not again,

Am I ever going to fall back asleep?

Your survival brain goes threat detected and it just floods cortisol into your system.

So your brainwaves speed up.

You're no longer in the half asleep alpha brainwave.

You're now in the wide awake beta brainwave.

And so falling asleep feels nearly impossible even though you're still tired.

So here's what I want you to do instead so that you stay in the alpha brainwave where falling back asleep happens naturally.

The first thing is mindset.

When you wake up remind yourself,

I already got the deepest sleep of the night.

The most restorative sleep happens in the first half of the night.

So whatever happened before this moment,

Your body already got the good stuff.

You already got the deep sleep.

Then remind yourself that being awake during the night isn't bad.

It's not wrong.

It's just a moment in the middle of the night.

It just happens to be dark outside.

It just happens to be quiet.

All of that is perfectly okay.

Finding peace with the night,

Making friends with the night,

Is one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your sleep.

And the second thing is to remember this.

Your only job right now is to rest.

Not to try to fall back asleep.

Not to calculate how many hours are left before your alarm is going to go off.

Just to continue resting and relaxing.

Most people lie they're frustrated battling with their own mind and that frustration is exactly what makes falling back asleep feel impossible.

But when you genuinely take the pressure off and make rest the only goal,

Your nervous system finally gets the signal that there's nothing to solve,

Nothing to fix,

Everything is perfectly okay.

And before you know it,

You'll drift right back off to sleep.

If your mind is too activated to just lie there quietly,

Just put something gentle on in the background like an audiobook,

A meditation,

Something calm to listen to with your eyes closed because that will keep your brainwave in the alpha state so that sleep happens easily.

And if worry thoughts start to pop up,

Don't engage with them.

Just notice them and let them pass.

Remind yourself that that's just my survival brain trying to protect me.

But look where I am.

I'm in my home.

I'm in my bed.

I'm safe.

There's nothing urgent to attend to right now because here's the truth.

Your true self,

The real you,

Is not threatened by being awake at 3 a.

M.

That's just your survival brain running an old pattern.

And now that you can see that pattern for what it is,

You don't have to keep engaging with it.

Be patient and compassionate with yourself as you start applying these shifts.

Change doesn't always happen overnight,

But it can happen much faster than you think.

And every time you catch yourself,

Every time you choose calm over panic,

Every time you slow down and signal safety to your nervous system,

You are retraining your one moment at a time.

You've not lost the ability to sleep.

Your body knows how to rest and you're already on your way back to it.