Latest / The MODERN YIN Podcast / Why Anxiety May Be Worse At Night

Transcript

Why Anxiety May Be Worse At Night · The MODERN YIN Podcast

• 0:00
  Why does anxiety sometimes feel worse at night?
• 0:04
  This is what I want to talk about.
• 0:07
  If you've been listening to my previous podcast episodes here
• 0:11
  on the Modern yen podcast, I've been really diving deep into
• 0:15
  sleep and so many angles around why we're not sleeping well.
• 0:21
  What can we do to sleep better? But now I want to tie it in with
• 0:25
  anxiety. And I'm not saying that anxiety
• 0:28
  doesn't happen or it isn't worse in the morning because it
• 0:31
  absolutely is for some women. But I want to talk about today
• 0:35
  specifically why anxiety feels worse at night.
• 0:41
  So there's something that many women, especially over the age
• 0:46
  of 40, experience, but they don't always understand it.
• 0:51
  Anxiety that feels stronger at night.
• 0:55
  Well, here's the spin. During the day, you're managing,
• 1:00
  right? You're functioning, you're
• 1:02
  distracted by responsibilities, you've got things on the go.
• 1:07
  But then evening comes after you've, you know, had your meal,
• 1:12
  you've done your chores like you've cleaned up.
• 1:16
  The house starts to get a little quieter and your body starts to
• 1:20
  slow down a bit. And then suddenly your mind
• 1:26
  speeds up, The worry starts to increase, the restlessness
• 1:31
  rises, sleep feels further away, and it actually starts to feel
• 1:36
  stressful because you're stressed and worried and
• 1:40
  restless about Oh my God, am I going to sleep.
• 1:44
  So today I want to talk about the connection between anxiety,
• 1:48
  sleep, and your nervous system because it's all tied in.
• 1:55
  It's all connected. Because often what feels like
• 1:59
  anxiety is actually a body that hasn't had a chance to regulate
• 2:05
  yet. And this is something that I've
• 2:08
  really been working on so deliberately and so consciously
• 2:14
  in my own life about not just taking time at night to pause
• 2:20
  and to regulate and restore, but also during the day.
• 2:24
  Because here's the thing, often people think that sleep, you
• 2:30
  prepare for it just before you go to sleep.
• 2:32
  But the reality is, especially in our day and age and then this
• 2:36
  hustle culture that we're still in, you need to prepare
• 2:41
  throughout the day. So anxiety is often a nervous
• 2:49
  system state. It's not always a thought
• 2:54
  problem. Sometimes that's a physiological
• 2:58
  state. Your nervous system is
• 3:01
  activated, the body is scanning. Remember, like the body is
• 3:06
  always communicating with you and it's always trying to
• 3:09
  protect you, so it's always scanning looking for danger.
• 3:14
  Your stress hormones are elevated, your breath is
• 3:19
  shallow, and so your nervous system feels unsafe with that.
• 3:24
  Then your mind kicks in and tries to explain that feeling so
• 3:32
  it generates thoughts like oh what if this happens?
• 3:37
  Oh my God did I forget to wait? What if tomorrow goes badly?
• 3:48
  And the thoughts, they may be secondary, but the body state
• 3:53
  came first. And This is why it often can get
• 4:00
  worse at night. Your anxiety, because as I said
• 4:05
  before, during the day you're busy, you're stimulated, you're
• 4:10
  moving. At night there is space.
• 4:18
  And what's been suppressed or postponed during the day begins
• 4:23
  to surface. Fatigue lowers your resilience.
• 4:32
  You still might have cortisol patterns that may be off that
• 4:37
  haven't been flushed out yet. Your nervous system no longer
• 4:43
  has distractions, so your unresolved activation in your
• 4:49
  nervous system becomes noticeable.
• 4:52
  And that can feel like sudden anxiety, heart racing, busy
• 4:59
  thoughts, the inability to settle.
• 5:04
  And you know what? I know exactly what that feels
• 5:07
  like and it's awful. And I know for me, anxiety
• 5:13
  doesn't typically hit me in the morning.
• 5:16
  I'm more of an anxiety at night type of person.
• 5:19
  So if I don't regulate my nervous system throughout the
• 5:23
  day, then I noticed for sure that my anxiety is worse at
• 5:28
  night. And it makes sense because if I
• 5:33
  haven't regulated during the day, then I haven't had an
• 5:36
  opportunity to really restore. And you know what?
• 5:43
  In this day and age, we actually need way more time to restore
• 5:48
  than we've given ourselves credit for.
• 5:53
  So now I want to talk about sleep tied in with anxiety.
• 6:01
  So if you've been sleep deprived, So if you've built up
• 6:04
  what I call sleep debt, right? Like if you track your sleep in
• 6:09
  any kind of way, whether it's like through a watch or a
• 6:13
  software program, through a ring, like I wear an aura ring
• 6:17
  and it tells me exactly if I have any sleep debt.
• 6:22
  But sleep and anxiety, they feed each other.
• 6:28
  Poor sleep increases nervous system sensitivity.
• 6:33
  I'm going to say that again because I want you to really
• 6:35
  think about this. Poor sleep increases nervous
• 6:41
  system sensitivity. You become more reactive when
• 6:49
  you have not slept well. Less resilient, more easily
• 6:56
  overwhelmed. Don't you know about that?
• 6:59
  Because I sure do. It literally could be the
• 7:03
  smallest thing that I react to, but because I had crappy sleep,
• 7:09
  I'm now all of a sudden sensitive to it.
• 7:14
  And then you know what? You compound the anxiety that
• 7:18
  makes the sleep harder, and then you end up in this cycle.
• 7:23
  It's kind of like the hamster is on the wheel and it's hard to
• 7:29
  get out of that cycle. And that's why supporting sleep
• 7:35
  is often one of the most effective ways to support your
• 7:38
  anxiety. Not because sleep is magical.
• 7:43
  I mean, it is magical, but it's not because the sleep is
• 7:46
  magical. It's because rest restores
• 7:50
  nervous system regulation. Your rest restores regulation.
• 7:57
  This is why it is so important to take time throughout the day
• 8:03
  to regulate. And that doesn't have to look
• 8:07
  like half an hour an hour. I will tell you that several
• 8:12
  times a day I will just drop in to 5 minutes, 5 minutes of
• 8:18
  breath work, 5 minutes work. Sometimes I just close my eyes.
• 8:22
  I don't even focus on my breath. I just sit there and I breathe
• 8:27
  whatever way my body wants to breathe.
• 8:29
  Sometimes I do a 5 minute meditation.
• 8:33
  Sometimes I'll just step away from all the activity, all the
• 8:38
  devices and everything and just walk around my apartment for 5
• 8:42
  minutes. Or sometimes I'll just sit on my
• 8:46
  couch and stare out the window. These little pockets of rest
• 8:55
  throughout your day add up. They accumulate, they have a
• 8:58
  ripple effect. And suddenly it's like, oh wow,
• 9:02
  I just spent like 15 minutes. Or I just spent like 20 minutes
• 9:06
  or I spent an hour regulating my nervous system throughout the
• 9:10
  day instead of trying to fix it all and cram it in all at night.
• 9:15
  Because I'll tell you, it's just not that effective.
• 9:19
  It doesn't work as well. So your body needs safety before
• 9:26
  sleep. This was something I talked
• 9:28
  about a lot in my previous podcast episode, Why You Can't
• 9:34
  Sleep. So most women try to solve night
• 9:40
  time anxiety with more thinking, more actioning, more planning,
• 9:45
  more trying to oh God, I'm just going to try and figure that
• 9:48
  out. But night is not the time for
• 9:52
  strategy. You've had a full day, you're
• 9:55
  exhausted, your brain isn't even functioning properly.
• 9:58
  This is not the time for planning and execution.
• 10:02
  Night is the time for safety because if your nervous system
• 10:08
  and your body don't feel safe, you are not going to sleep.
• 10:12
  You will be on guard and your body might need some things to
• 10:23
  feel safe. Slower transitions from your
• 10:28
  doing to your being. Less stimulation.
• 10:31
  Like hello let's get off of Netflix and scrolling on insta.
• 10:37
  What about some grounding practices like breathwork,
• 10:41
  meditation, yin yoga, acupressure, reflexology, even
• 10:49
  little mantras that you say to yourself like oh I can let go
• 10:55
  now, I'm safe. It's OK for me to release.
• 11:03
  Sometimes what I'll even do, especially when my anxiety is
• 11:07
  high, is I will sit and I will stare and I will look at three
• 11:12
  things in front of me and I will say them out loud, like for
• 11:18
  example, salt, lamp candles, plants.
• 11:26
  And what that does is it brings my mind into the present moment.
• 11:31
  And honestly, truly, it sounds like it's such a silly thing,
• 11:36
  but it actually really works. So I want you to try it and then
• 11:40
  let me know. So let's spin this now into the
• 11:46
  modern yin perspective. Because if you've been with me
• 11:49
  for a while, you know I'm all about the modern yin
• 11:53
  perspective. Because here's the thing,
• 11:58
  sometimes your anxiety isn't asking for answers.
• 12:02
  It's just asking for rest. It's asking you to be a little
• 12:07
  bit more gentle and compassionate with yourself.
• 12:12
  It's asking for regulation. We're not meant to be on 247365,
• 12:21
  right? Like we're not robots.
• 12:28
  So when you stop treating your body like it's a problem and you
• 12:34
  start supporting it, that's when the whole experience of nervous
• 12:41
  system regulation, sleep, and even anxiety changes.
• 12:50
  And this is exactly the kind of support that I share inside my
• 12:54
  Patreon space. I have an entire collection on
• 12:59
  sleep and deep rest. I'm all about nervous system
• 13:03
  regulation. I've got reflexology rituals on
• 13:08
  there. I've got acupressure, I've got
• 13:11
  calming routines, breathwork, meditation.
• 13:14
  I even have healthy recipes that help to support stable energy
• 13:21
  and calmer evenings and nervous system regulation.
• 13:25
  So I don't just give you a recipe and then go, hey, make
• 13:28
  this. I give you the why you should
• 13:30
  make it. How is this going to help you?
• 13:34
  How is this going to make you feel?
• 13:36
  How is this going to impact your nervous system?
• 13:40
  And of course, on my Patreon, I have my podcast.
• 13:46
  And if you've been there and you haven't checked out my free
• 13:50
  anxiety acupressure practice, I highly recommend you go and do
• 13:56
  it. It's right at the beginning
• 13:58
  under my Start Here collection. And stay tuned because I'm
• 14:03
  actually going to be launching a anxiety guide that's going to
• 14:10
  have all kinds of things in it to help you with anxiety and to
• 14:16
  help support and regulate your nervous system.
• 14:22
  So if your body has been asking for more support and especially
• 14:28
  if you're a woman over 40, you are more than welcome to come
• 14:32
  and join me on my Patreon. You can come in as a free member
• 14:37
  or you can come in as a paid member.
• 14:39
  I have two membership options. So if your anxiety is been
• 14:47
  louder at night, I want you to know that it doesn't mean
• 14:50
  there's something wrong with you.
• 14:52
  Because especially with anxiety, a lot of women think if I'm
• 14:56
  anxious, there's something wrong with me.
• 15:00
  Honestly, there isn't. It's just that your body is
• 15:04
  actually being heard now and it's communicating with you and
• 15:10
  it's asking you to listen a little more.
• 15:14
  And when you learn to listen with some compassion, not with
• 15:19
  like harshness or I should be doing this or I should have done
• 15:25
  that, your rest becomes possible again when you start to tune in
• 15:33
  and take those little 5 minute moments throughout the day
• 15:39
  because they do compound. And then this is when rest
• 15:45
  becomes possible again. This is modern yin, and it's
• 15:53
  where stillness does the real work.
• 16:00
  Sometimes your anxiety isn't asking for answers, it's asking
• 16:07
  for regulation.