Why Can't I Sleep?

You finally crawl into bed after a long day, exhausted and ready for rest. But instead of drifting off to sleep, your brain decides it's the perfect time to replay every awkward conversation, worry about tomorrow's to-do list, and wonder if you remembered to send that email three days ago.

Sound familiar?

In this episode of The Honest Pause, we're taking a pause to explore why sleep can feel so elusive, even when we're desperately tired. We talk about anxiety, stress, bedtime procrastination, the pressure of modern life, and why our minds often seem busiest when the world gets quiet. We also discuss how our relationship with rest has changed, the impact of technology on sleep, and the habits that might be keeping us awake without us realizing it.

Whether you're someone who falls asleep in five minutes or someone who spends hours staring at the ceiling, this conversation is a reminder that you're not alone—and that sleep struggles are often about much more than simply being tired.

Take a pause with us as we explore what it means to rest in a world that constantly asks us to stay connected, productive, and alert.

✨ Follow us on Instagram for more conversations and behind-the-scenes content: @thehonestpause

✨ Looking for a deeper pause from the busyness of everyday life? Follow @honestpauseretreats for retreat updates and future opportunities to reconnect with yourself and others.

🌿 Need a pause? Join our retreats.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to The Honest Pause. I'm Carol Rothri, actress, intuitive coach, and your co-host for Real Meaningful Conversations.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

And I'm Miriam Tyree, entrepreneur, business strategist, and your partner in navigating life's ups and downs.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Here we talk about what happens when you hit pause, when we reflect and embrace the messy beauty of life.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

So whether you're here to reflect, recharge, or just have a good laugh, we've got you covered. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Why, why, why can't I sleep? Do you ever have those moments where literally, I mean, and I I can be a good sleeper. Well, okay, I'm I'm I'm just out and out lying right now. I can fall asleep, but then I'll be waking up and then I can fall back, and then I wake up and I fall back. And then there are nights where I go, okay, I can do this. I can just, I'm gonna close my eyes. Oh, nice deep breaths. And then, yeah, no, it's not happening.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

I mean, uh coming from someone who has had like sleep issues most of her life, I very much relate to this. I will say my sleep issues as of like the last three years have been child related. So waking up because of children. But I've had sleep issues for a very long time. And I actually, you know, once my daughter started sleeping through the night and I wasn't constantly waking up, I was still having significant sleep issues where I was doing the 3 a.m. wake ups.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

And I spent a really long time trying to understand sleep hygiene and why I was having so much difficulty sleeping and why I was waking up. Because for me, I could fall asleep, but I was like waking up at one to three in the morning and I was just like awake for two hours and I couldn't fall asleep. And then if I would wake up- Oh, hang on a sec.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Is this pre-baby? I'm wondering, like, how would you after baby? Yeah, that's when mine started.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

She's not waking me up. Like, yeah, I would wake up if I would wake up at 1 a.m., I would be awake till 3 a.m. And if I would wake up at 3 a.m., I would just be awake until 6 a.m. And I had to get up for the day. And so I started following a bunch of influencers and sleep experts on trying to get to the bottom of this. And I have gotten a lot better, and I've studied a lot about this, and what has worked for me probably, you know, maybe will work for other people. But I've had to put in a lot of work to understand like really why I wasn't sleeping. So what did I do? So I I will say my so for me, so a lot of a lot of the research out there says like try to fall asleep at the same time and wake up at the same time every day. Yeah. That is not realistic for me because like it depends on what's gonna happen in my day with my family of when I'm going to bed and when I'm gonna wake up. I try to go to bed but by a certain time, and then I have to wake up whenever I have to wake up. But for me, a lot of it was nighttime routine. So I started intentionally doing things in the evening before bed to help with disrupted sleep. The first one was no screens, nothing after dinner.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

And that's you could actually could you stick to that? I was gonna say, how did you stick to that?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

And I would just read my books, but we stopped basically. It was like no TV or movies, or if it was gonna happen, it was very rarely, and it was books with my little cute book light, but it was no screens after a certain time, and it wasn't always realistic. So I I found that like what I could do was an hour before I was gonna go to bed. So, like, if I wanted to be asleep by 9:30, starting at 8:30, no more screens.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

That I well, that I have heard. That's that's a given. Yeah, we just have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

And I do think that helped me a lot. The other thing that I did was meditating before bed to clear my mind. I would also journal and write a lot of things down and just get it out of my brain for the things that I needed to think about for the next day. So I would sort of make a list of like tonight, I'll make a list for everything that I need to think about tomorrow. And then besides meditating, I started doing like vagus nerve stimulation, which really helped me. Um you can just use a device for it. It's it's not something I always do, but uh the other thing that I did was somatic work, so physical body movements, like rocking, for example, is a really calming thing for your body. But if you were waking up like me and you had that issue, it could be you know a stress and a cortisol issue, and your body just needs a minute to decompress a lot of people have trouble falling asleep, right? I didn't I don't have that.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Oh, so you can fall asleep. See, your mind, because I know you this is the person who can read, you know, four books at a time. Um, you are constantly going, this does this this mind of yours never stops, like it never stops. That isn't for me, I don't have that. I've been very fortunate that I think because of the meditative work that I do and all of that, where this does get quiet, but there are times sometimes where yes, I don't. If I had to start focusing in on various treatments, like you said, you do somatic, you do all these various tools, which are fabulous that there are now these tools available. My personality, if I had to start doing all of that, even just attempting to try and do one would probably set me to sleep because I'd be like, What am I doing? Okay, I'm just gonna go to sleep. I I I can fall asleep. I'm very blessed in that way. Um, but all those various things, I think I don't know if my personal, my personality would be able to do that. I'm what I'm sure there are people out there going, I'd like to try all that, but to me it wouldn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Um yeah, and that's all about yeah, figuring out what works for you.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

And I figured out what worked for me, which was no screens, meditating and calming my mind out, either gentle stretching or like somatic work. But I think if you're having or anybody is having consistent sleep issues, it does merit talking to your doctor because as we get older or as our hormones change, everything shifts in our bodies and a lot looks different. It could be, it could have something to do with when you're eating. So if you're eating later at night, it could be a digestive thing, it could be related to alcohol consumption, it could be related to if you're taking naps, it could be related to if you're having caffeine too late in the day, you might have a harder time to fall asleep. It could also be any medication that you're taking because sometimes certain medications impact your sleep. And so I always say, you know, we're not giving medical advice, but if you have some underlying condition or a chronic health issue, there are so many of those things that can cause trouble to fall asleep, trouble to stay asleep, and waking up early. So it it is possible that it's a number of factors, stress and health.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Oh, absolutely. But this whole screen thing, I really believe that is the big interrupter. It really is, because so many of us, myself included, the phone is by my bedside. And I may not look at it, but it's still there. And it's just a constant. I mean, before it was just your television set, turn it off. They would say the same thing, shut your TV off, that's going to help. But we're just constantly active, watching this box. We do this for our work, we do it for homework. We our kids are constantly do it, doing it. And I I really think for the for the fabulous things that these devices provide, it also takes its toll. And it's about us knowing when to shut it off, like you say, an hour before, two hours before, if at all possible, I think that would really help.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

And there is science behind what the light does, like the blue light actually does, to our brains and our circadian rhythm. There's recommendations not to use screens both an hour before bed and an hour after waking up because you should have sunlight in your eyes. So I think there is two components to screens. One is the physical response that it puts in our bodies, and two, I think it's what is on the screens, right? It's the doom scrolling. It's, you know, I'm just gonna watch one more episode, or I'm just gonna scroll for five more minutes, and then it's there's news, and so-and-so did this thing and didn't invite me, or am I like I haven't changed careers and I'm unhappy at work, but like I can make a hundred thousand dollars a year posting about my toes or whatever, you know what I mean? Like it's stuff that's on the devices, also.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

It's so true. We just go down that rabbit hole. My big thing is I'll get into the I'll start doing insta and looking at all the funny things that I mean, I can just I've literally had my daughter text me and say, Mom, I'm trying to sleep. I can hear you laughing, and then I'll text back, but wait, I'm gonna send this to you. I mean, that's how bad I am. But I will literally, although I have to say that also helps too, that whole laughing and releasing all of those, you know, the chemicals works for me. I uh, but that is my downfall. I like to laugh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah, it's easy to just get carried away. And I think sleep, like everybody sleeps, unless you're a vampire, I guess. But also everyone at some point does struggle with sleep. It's very normal. I think there's this important question of why is something that's supposed to be so natural so difficult. And I will say that there have also been studies that in modern day, right? We normally most people work sort of a nine to five schedule. You know, that's when school is happening, those things. So in modern day, it makes sense that you sleep in one singular, unbroken, uninterrupted period, but this hasn't been how humans have always slept. Back in Victorian times, and I've been reading a lot of books set in that era, people went to bed and slept very differently. You would sort of do a first sleep. So you would sleep for a period of time for like three or four hours, and then you would wake up kind of in the middle of the night and be up for a few hours, and then you would return to bed. And in a lot of the books I'm also reading, you know, they wouldn't go to bed till midnight, and then they would, you know, do the same thing. So there's we haven't always slept like this as humans. And we are, I think, in a way, requiring our bodies to sleep in a way that makes sense for what we have to do for society, but not necessarily what is most natural for our bodies, right? So I think ultimately we all have trouble sleeping for different reasons, but bedtime is finally when we stop moving and stop running around, and so it becomes this reflection time, and it's when things like the stress and all of that shows up. And so if you are struggling with sleep, like many of us have, we really encourage you to get curious. And if this is something that's significantly impacting your daily life and you've, you know, audited your routine and you're looking at your cortisol and you've checked out your stress, it could be worth a medical professional supporting you in this. And yeah, I highly recommend that. And if stress is something that is big for you and you want to take a pause, we hope that you will come and pause with us because we have a number of retreats and in-person experiences where we talk about things that affect our stress and our cortisol levels. And we hope that you will join us for an upcoming retreat soon so that you get a little moment of pause in your day.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

I would love that. Yes, come and join us now. Before we go.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Oh, a pickle.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Pull the pickle. I gotta pull the pickle. Pulling the pickle. Oh my child, like mine. My confidence grows with each small step I take toward my goals, no matter how long it takes. Each small step of right? And it applies. We're talking about sleep, and it's my confidence growing with each small step. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Also, I think there's you know, a lot of our listeners and us are all in these phases of transition of should I do this or you know, am I too old, or is it too late, or can I pivot, or what is next for me? And that is such a good reminder.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

It is never too old, never, and it's never too late.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Well, we will see you on the next episode. Please give us a follow on Instagram and our retreat on our book club, and we hope you'll see us in our book club too. Yeah. All right. See you in the next episode. And if you did enjoy your time with us, do us a little favor, leave a five-star review wherever you're listening, and let the world know what you love about the show.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

We'd really love to connect with you beyond the podcast. So you can find out uh all the details about staying in touch with us in the episode notes.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

And hey, if you're interested in working with us or you just want to chat, all the details are there as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

We'll see you next time. And remember, you are never too busy to take a pause.