“How can I be exhausted all the time but have so much trouble sleeping??”
If you’ve found yourself saying that a lot, then you’ll be happy to hear the actual answers to that question which I’m about to share.
Click the video or keep reading to learn what’s probably causing you to feel wired and tired.
[Learn more about the Intuitive Health Assessment]
I’ve recently helped several clients break out of this exact pattern of chronic fatigue + sleep issues—using intuitive ways of pinpointing exactly what the problems were and making sure they were being corrected.
Why you feel wired and tired
It’s confusing and frustrating to be tired so often—to feel like you need to rest, but when you try you just lie there, unable to fall asleep. It seems…illogical, doesn’t it?
Here’s the likely explanation for what’s been going on in your body. When you hear it, it will make logical sense.
The problem is probably that your body isn’t making enough energy—that would cause fatigue. Remember high school science class where you learned about mitochondria being the “powerhouse of the cell”? Well, you probably feel tired all the time because there hasn’t been enough power coming out of those powerhouses.
If you’re not making power—by which I mean energy—then you’re not using it. And the way your body was designed for sleep is based on using energy. In other words, from your body’s perspective, if you’re not using energy then there’s no reason to rest—it doesn’t matter why you’re not using energy.
Which I’m sure is a REALLY dissatisfying answer, because you WANT to make energy and you WANT to rest.
So let’s get you a satisfying answer that explains why your mitochondria aren’t making enough energy and what it would take for you to sleep better.
Does melatonin control sleep—or does something else?
I want to start with the sleep part and work backward.
When it comes to understanding how and why we sleep, melatonin gets a lot of attention, but it doesn’t deserve as much as it gets. It’s stealing some of that attention from adenosine, a compound that builds up in your brain as you use energy. It’s the byproduct that’s left when your body uses ATP, the energy molecule made by your mitochondria.
In fact, ATP stands for adenosine triphosphate. The word adenosine is right in there. Adenosine goes into making ATP, and adenosine is left after using ATP.
Adenosine accumulating in your brain as you use ATP will eventually signal you to feel sleepy. Sleep is the most common way that our brains get rid of adenosine. While you sleep, there are certain mechanisms that kick in which either recycle adenosine back into your body to create more ATP or send it to one of your elimination pathways to leave your body.
So if adenosine is what makes you sleepy, then what does melatonin do? Melatonin creates your daily cycle of WHEN to sleep. My take on it is, melatonin tells us what time to sleep so that we don’t end up wanting to take a nap every time a little adenosine builds up. So yes, having your melatonin be off can also be part of the picture.
How energy production is restored
If the key to relieving fatigue and improving sleep is restoring your body’s ability to make energy, then how is that done?
So far, the answer for my clients has been correcting insufficient protein metabolism. The exact formula differs a little from person to person, but the general picture has been the same so far:
- Chronic stress over years or decades perpetually keeps their bodies in a slowed-down state of repair and maintenance, because those types of functions are automatically slowed down or turned off when the nervous system is in fight or flight mode.
- Meanwhile, ongoing production of stress hormones depletes nutrients which are vital to digestion and metabolism, causing those functions to struggle when they’re actually given time to run.
- Neurochemical production slows, affecting mood and therefore adding to the chronic stress.
- These factors combine to create a downward spiral that leads not only to greater fatigue and sleep issues but eventually symptoms in other systems.
How to break the downward spiral
My answer for how to break that downward spiral is a two-pronged approach:
- resolve the root causes of chronic stress
- restore the nutrient deficiencies
We have to do both, because just working with stress won’t restore nutrients, and just restoring nutrients doesn’t mean they’ll have enough chance to be used.
We deal with chronic stress first, because giving more raw materials to a body that doesn’t have time to build anything with them (because it’s in fight or flight mode too often) is not only a waste but might lead to stomach upset and other issues.
The role of Core Wounds
The way I help my clients resolve chronic stress goes much deeper than meditation and journaling or even Reiki. It’s not just about the method but also what we’re targeting: your Core Wounds.
Core Wounds are the deepest root cause of EVERY emotional issue that triggers stress, and almost ten years ago I was guided to create a very precise framework for healing them. Along with the feelings of unworthiness, unlovability, and lack of safety at the root of your emotional triggers, this framework also addresses blocks in your relationship with your body, how you process your emotions, and how you receive support, so working on those first makes you better prepared for the physical solutions when we add them in.
Restoring nutrient depletion
By “physical solutions” I mean the second phase where we restore depleted nutrients. I typically recommend a combination of foods and supplements, because while food is typically the more bioavailable source of nutrients, supplements enable us to get more into your body very fast (and within safe guidelines, of course).
With supplements we can also measure your intake more precisely and adjust it according to your needs as you go through the healing process.
With my clients I monitor that progress through weekly intuitive check-ins, so that we know right away if an amount needs to be increased or decreased.
If you’re looking for a list of nutrients that need to be restored, it’s not something I give out in public content, other than to spotlight a specific nutrient like in my recent molybdenum post. I believe that sharing a recipe of nutrients as if they’re the same for everyone can be ineffective, even unsafe.
Where to start
The need to accommodate individual variations is why my first step with each client is an Intuitive Health Assessment, in which I work with your body’s wisdom to verify the specific root causes of your chronic fatigue (and/or any other conditions you’re experiencing) and the exact plan to resolve them. I go through every individual step in protein metabolism and other processes to get the thorough picture of where your body hasn’t been getting what it needs and what’s been in the way of healing itself.
And while it is my hope that this assessment is the first of three steps we’ll take together, it is designed so that you could work the Action Plan alone or with other practitioners, if that’s your preference.
So if you’re tired of feeling “tired and wired” and you’re ready to feel energized during your days and rest well at night, then an Intuitive Health Assessment is the right place to start.
Click here to learn more about the Intuitive Health Assessment and get started.