Tired but Wired

I bet most of us have had this feeling. Where you haven’t slept well for a couple of days, and you feel so bleary-eyed and exhausted, sure you could fall asleep at a moment’s notice, but then when you lay down…no dice!

What gives!? If you’re body is so exhausted, why won’t it let you sleep? Well, dear friends, that’s because there is a difference between being sleepy and being tired, or fatigued. Let me explain:

–Sleepiness refers to the propensity to fall asleep when you have the opportunity to sleep. In other words, it’s when you feel that you’re on the verge of falling asleep. You know, where your eyelids are super heavy and you feel you couldn’t keep yourself awake, even if you tried.

–Tiredness means your body is fatigued and you have low energy. You probably need to rest, but tired does not necessarily mean your body will be able to produce sleep at that time. 

A paradox people with insomnia often have: they’ll feel sleepy (or even fall asleep) in front of the TV while winding down at the end of the day. But then when they get into bed they feel tired but wired. This is because you have what’s called conditioned arousal to your bed. In other words, your bed is a cue for being awake. This can happen for a number of reasons, maybe because you’re upset tossing and turning worrying about not getting enough sleep. You can also contaminate your bed by doing other things (e.g., reading on your phone) while lying in bed. 

Luckily, there’s a way to cope with this! CBT-I is a powerful and effective treatment that can treat you to retrain your brain so it doesn’t have this association between bed and wakefulness.  Contact me here to learn more about CBT-I today!