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Why You Can't Sleep Even When You Have the Perfect Bedtime Routine · The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed that some of our most healthy routines, for instance, our nighttime rituals, can actually keep us stuck in stress mode.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not because of what we're doing, but because of how we're doing it.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Body Rhythm Podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to stop pushing through and start feeling like themselves again.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm CJ, Ayurvedic Wellness Guide, helping women reconnect to the natural rhythm their body has been craving.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't that long ago that I was exhausted in a way that sleep didn't fix, loaded no matter what I ate, and lying awake at 3 a.m.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: with my mind already running tomorrow's to-do list.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I just needed to be more consistent, more disciplined.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that my body wasn't feeling me.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was completely overwhelmed because you're not broken.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: You've just been living outside your natural rhythm for a long time.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the body rhythm.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I am so glad you're here.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't already, please like or subscribe, do all the things.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get into it.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed that some of our most healthy routines, for instance, our nighttime rituals, can actually keep us stuck in stress mode.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not because of what we're doing, but because of how we're doing it.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was reading an article a while back in Marie Claire, and the author of the article was trying out a new nighttime routine that she had seen on TikTok.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it even had a name.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: The acronym was REST.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was review, reflect on your day, exhale, dim the lights, lower all the external stimulation, soothe, do a calming ritual, maybe a bath, stretching, reading, a nice hot shower, and then trust.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let the sleep come and don't force it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So the author started tracking it every night.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: She was checking all the boxes.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't want to miss a step.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what she noticed wasn't more rest.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was more pressure.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Pressure to perform a nighttime routine that was supposed to keep her rested and calm and provide a good night's sleep.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the pressure came from what if I miss a step?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: What if I'm not doing it correctly?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: What if I don't get to the soothe ritual tonight?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: What if that doesn't work?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the routine, the thing that was supposed to help her relax, the thing that's been all over TikTok that was supposed to provide help actually became one more thing that she had to get right.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And one more thing that didn't meet her expectations.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And on the surface, this rest routine, this TikTok craze, right?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's all good.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's good advice.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: But there's nothing wrong with any of it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's our approach to it.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we engage in healthy routines, but they become one more thing that we feel like we have to manage or that are more on our plates, then those routines actually aren't doing us any good.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're keeping our body stuck in the same pattern and the same imbalances, and we can't move forward with feeling better in our body.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at the rest routine.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's actually walk through it because each of the pieces is actually really important and can help with a better sleep routine, can help with better night's sleep, can help with the tossing and the turning or the falling asleep longer and better.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the first part was the rest or the R.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Review your routine, review your day.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this is to get out of your head and onto the page.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually been prescribed this medicine myself because I could never fall asleep and I tossed and turned and I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh I've used this medicine myself and I've prescribed it to clients that I've worked with who can't seem to shut down the noise in their head, who are always worried about what's going to happen tomorrow or the next day or the day after that.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've noticed in myself and in others that this works.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: The E, the exhale, the external stimulation, dimming the lights, turning off the screens at least 30 minutes before bedtime, getting off of the phones, not having any digital devices around you.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: This all matters.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: This all signals to our nervous system that we're safe, that it's safe enough to fall asleep.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: But what you take in before you go to bed affects the nervous system.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: The scrolling, the Netflix binging.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for myself anyway, it was watching Dateline before bedtime and then getting so freaked out about these women like being murdered by their significant others that I couldn't sleep.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so your body doesn't know the difference between the Dateline show and you actually living it.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: It experiences it in the same exact way.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is when getting away from in front of screens can really help bring the body back into balance, back into a state where it feels safe enough to rest.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then the soothing rituals, right?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love a good hot bath at night.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I find it very relaxing and soothing.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is actually part of my medicine many years ago that was prescribed to me was to journal and to do the hot bath as part of my nighttime routine, and it really helped.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Also, maybe some light stretching, reading.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not, if it's not too activating, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: These send a signal that the day is ending, that you're safe, that it's safe enough to rest.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then trust.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Trust that your body knows what it's doing, that it has this innate intelligence, and that it can allow sleep to happen instead of forcing it, instead of tossing and turning.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in a perfect world, right, all of this would happen.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know about you, but I don't live in a perfect world.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that when I've been caring a lot, some of these things just didn't work.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or the pressure to perform, each and every one of them, each and every night, just wasn't the medicine that I needed at that time.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens when we do the routine and we still lie there?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're still wired, we're still watching the clock.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're wondering why it's not working.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then the pressure to perform each of these steps.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if I don't perform each of these steps in this rest routine, then I'm leaving something off the plate.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I won't have the restful sleep that I want.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it just becomes this perpetuating uh routine that puts more pressure on us, right?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: On top of the pressure that we're experiencing from everyday life, from work, from the coworker, from the kids, from our spouse, from ourselves.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we don't begin to address the pattern that got us here in the first place, we're still exhausted in the morning.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or we give up halfway, right?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're like, uh, we didn't do it perfectly.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Perfection becomes the death of progression.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, especially when I was tossing and turning and couldn't sleep, there was no way that I could put one more thing on my plate to do.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was taking the things that felt the most uh easiest to fit into my schedule, into my routine that weren't a big lift for me and use those.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And those actually worked.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: They'll let you in on a secret that has been the hardest, hardest, hardest thing to do is to let go of the digital devices before bedtime.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this goes to how I grew up.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up with the TV always on to block out noise from the outside, what was happening outside the bedroom, and to keep me company when I was home a lot by myself.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so this pattern has just been so, so hard to let go of.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's better than others.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I can do it no problem.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I create the soothing environment and damn the lights and no screens, and other times I just I can't.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do it.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I put on the YouTube and fall asleep to that, but I try, do my best.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's all we can do, right?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is our best.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what's missing in this rest routine is that our nervous systems don't respond to checklists, right?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: They respond to what's happening in our life, they respond to our patterns.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like me, maybe they're responding to what happened in childhood.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so it doesn't respond to checklists, it doesn't respond to perfect routines, it responds to a felt sense of safety.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you choose one of these things, you're already beginning to signal to your body that it's safe enough to transition from go mode, do mode, into rest mode and sleep mode.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at what might be happening in the body.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Cortisol, which is known as the stress hormone, cortisol is really high when you wake up in the morning.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really high because it's gonna help you deal with all the threats that you encounter throughout your day.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And cortisol is supposed to fall little by little as you move throughout the day until it falls enough at night for you to go to sleep.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: But if your nervous system never powers down, if you've been dealing with threats all day long, if the thoughts continue to run, if you're thinking about the emails, if you're thinking about the boss, if you're responding to put out this fire, if you're responding to put out that fire, and then you go to lie in bed, well, the cortisol never had a chance to lower and lower throughout the day.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just stayed elevated.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what can happen when your cortisol is elevated, you can't fall asleep, right?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you can do the bath and you can do the hot shower with aromatherapy, and you can do the book and you can do the stretching and all that stuff.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's just not enough because the cortisol is just too elevated.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we can address that with herbs and with teas and with different routines throughout the day.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: So sleep is important, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think most of us can agree with that.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: It matters though more than we give it credit for.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we sleep, your brain has its own detoxification system, it's called the lymphatic system.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it clears out cellular waste that your brain has accumulated throughout the day.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And some researchers now are hypothesizing that when this brain cleanup system, the lymphatic system, is disrupted night after night, and we're not getting sleep, it might be connected to things like brain fog, memory lapses, slower thinking, perhaps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, these long-term health concerns that so many of us are worrying about.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when I first heard this, how important sleep was, how the brain has its own detoxification system, I just realized that this is where we need to focus on.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we need to address.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because sleep isn't just about, oh, my body is tired, but it's about maintenance, maintenance of our brain, of our thinking, of our body, and it helps us prepare for tomorrow to feel good, to feel energized.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're stuck in flight or fight mode, right?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: In sympathetic activation, you're not getting enough of the sleep.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you did the routine right, even if you followed the TikTok craze, right?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so in Ayurveda, we might call this uh Vata Pitta imbalance, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we have too much running on in our mind, and we have too much fiery energy that's fueling the thoughts and burning up the body and makes it feel a little bit too intense and tense muscles and all the things.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when we overthink, we replay the day's events, when we rehearse for tomorrow, when we rehearse for the next day, when we uh answer the emails, right?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is excess vata.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we try to do the routine perfectly, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: That perfectionism, when we try to make sure that there's no stone left unturned, that's excess pitta.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: These two energies come to got together in the body and make it hard for us to fall asleep.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: When we're, you know, half watching the latest Netflix show, or we're half thinking as we're scrolling through TikTok or Instagram or tomorrow's to-do list, we have both of these energies combined in the body at the same time.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then when that happens, our whole system begins to slow.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And imagine this happening night after night, month after month, year after year.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can begin to see how it might be affecting our body, our ability to heal, our ability to feel good, our ability to live the longest, best life that we want.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we put this stress on ourselves to be perfect, to create the routines um of perfection, right, to get the right amount of steps, or when we optimize wearing um the health watch that tells us all the stats, right?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I think actually inherently we know how we're sleeping.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: We know if we feel good in the morning, we know if we're tossing and turning, we're knowing if we slept soundly or we were a little bit awake.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: So as you begin to look at your evening routine, at what might be a fit for you.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of asking, what is the latest craze, what is the the evening routine I should be doing, perhaps begin to ask, what could make my body, my mind, my soul feel better when the day is over?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because your body doesn't need the perfect routine, right?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: It needs a rhythm that works for it, it needs a rhythm that it can come back to night after night, the same time, the same small action, the same thing that the body recognizes that signals to itself it's safe and supported.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And dimming the lights at the same time every night can help.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: A nice cup of tea, perhaps some chamomile, maybe a tea with a little bit of skull cap and valerian in it would be really nice.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or lavender.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Banium's has a really lovely Ashwagandha latte that I love, which I'll put the link in the show notes.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: A nice hot bath, maybe dimming the lights in the bath with some candles, would be really soothing.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when um my niece was really small, and all I wanted to do was have some moments of time for myself.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so that would be in the bathroom, the lights lowered, candles on, doors locked, and my niece, I love her so much, she would just beat on the door.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: When are you gonna get out of there?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: When are you gonna get out of there?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was not quite as peaceful as I wanted, but it was a little, little something that I could do for myself that I actually enjoyed, even with her beating on the door.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is it for you?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it's prayer, gratitude journaling.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is putting down the thoughts of everything that's on your mind, of everything that's on the to-do list, putting that on paper so it doesn't come with you when you sleep.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're giving the mind the thoughts somewhere to go.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it doesn't matter which one of these you do.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: What matters is you start somewhere, same time, each night, night after night, that you can commit to.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because that matters more than keeping up with the entire thing, than keeping up with something that just produces more stress and overwhelm in your body that's already stressed and already overwhelmed.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And these small routines, these small evening rituals give the body something to trust, right?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: It begins to learn.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if this is you, but there was a stretch in my life, talked about it briefly earlier, right?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Where I was tossing and turning, and every single night I knew that I would be up around 2 a.m.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: and I would go down to the kitchen, I would get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was my soother.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would go back to bed, turn on the TV, watch TV for two hours, and then before you knew it, I had two hours before I had to wake up for work.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was my routine for many, many, many nights.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, until I discovered Ayurveda.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it used to create this anxiety and overwhelm because I would be there laying in bed, looking at the clock, wondering why I couldn't go to bed.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I understand now, today, after studying Ayurveda for many years is that that 2 a.m.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: wake-up call, the racing mind, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, all of it was my body trying to find some kind of stability, some kind of trust that it was okay to move from stress mode into a rest mode, which at that time was very, very hard for me.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was trying to process everything that was happening throughout the day, everything that felt like too much, all the emotions, all of the thoughts that aren't dealt with during the day.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then the body looks for something to soothe it.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that was the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was the sound of the TV that brought me back to my childhood soother.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And waking up, that pattern was the clue.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was the clue that you know something wasn't right.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was the clue that my nervous system was just too overwhelmed.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if this sounds like you, if the racy mind, the getting up at two, the inability to fall back asleep, the wondering how you're gonna feel when you get up to go to work.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I created something just for you.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a 13-minute yoga nidra designed exactly for nights like these.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'll link it in the show notes, but it's something to turn on and to get you back into the body so that the body feels safe enough, the mind feels safe enough to drift off into sleep.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're curious about what might actually be your pattern, what might actually be disrupting your sleep, I created a quiz that walks you through the hidden stress patterns.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's three of them.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the quiz takes about three minutes, and it might explain more than just sleep.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: It might explain why your body feels the way it does, what stress pattern you're in, and some simple ways to start moving out of that pattern.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode landed for you, go back and listen to episode 21.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's about waking up at 2 and 3 a.m.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it might explain a little bit more about what's going on with the emotional side of things and what it might actually be telling us about our life experience, our day-to-day experience.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know someone who's doing all the right things and still can't sleep, send this to them or hit follow so the next one finds you too.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that we're not trying to fix your sleep.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to build a rhythm that the body can trust.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we live longer.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we feel better in our bodies.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me on this episode of The Body Rhythm, be well and nourished.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's it for this edition of The Body Rhythm.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me, be well and nourished.