it's 1:47 am. you have to be up at 7. your eyes won't close.
body's exhausted. brain's going full speed.
replaying conversations. building tomorrow's to-do list. worrying about the email you forgot to send.
most people call this insomnia. it's not really. it's your nervous system stuck in "something is wrong" mode — hours after the day ended.
and the harder you try to force sleep, the worse it gets. trying to sleep while your brain is on high alert is like trying not to think about a pink elephant. the effort itself keeps you awake.
melatonin helps for a few nights. white noise gets tuned out. cutting caffeine doesn't touch it. because none of that addresses why the brain won't settle.
it's not a sleep problem. it's a regulation problem.
there's a technique called neurofeedback that helps the brain learn to calm itself down — no medication, just your brain slowly recognising what "calm" actually feels like. been researched at harvard and ucsf, used by nasa. places like brain & co. in india are doing exactly this kind of work.
anyway. if you've been tired but wired for months, it's not a character flaw. your nervous system just got stuck.
stuck things can be unstuck.
