From 3AM Wake Ups to Sleeping Through the Night
I may have successfully solved my sleep issues.
I'm a little nervous to write about this triumph because I'm not 100% sure I've actually cracked the code on my chronic sleep issues, but I'm going on two months of regularly falling asleep easily, sleeping through the night until my alarm goes off, and having relatively good energy throughout the day. I am not at a perfect place pertaining to sleep, but I'd say I'm at a place where I'm satisfied and it is MUCH better than it has been the past few years.
I know so many people who struggle with sleep, so I wanted to share my journey here in the event it helps you. Here's hoping it sticks. (If you want to just skip the journey and go to the resolution part, scroll to the end of this section.)
Mexico and Yoga
I can pinpoint the start of my sleep struggles when I moved to Mexico for a year for a job when I was 28. I discovered yoga during this season because the birth of my sleep issues prompted me to start searching the internet for things like, "Yoga to help you sleep." Most of my struggle at that time consisted of difficulty falling asleep. I might lay awake for hours before finally drifting off.
I believe my sleep issues arose around this time because I'd moved away from my hometown; I was no longer chronically being abused, and I was geographically separated from my abuser.
Wait...did I say the sleep issues STARTED with this change? Yes, I did. Before moving to Mexico, I was in a state of chronic stress and survival. I hadn't yet started healing from over two decades of trauma. I believe the sleep issues I incurred upon my first step into a state of safety were one of the first signs my body was starting to figure out how to live in a non-survival mode. I also might have started to notice my sleep issues in Mexico because, while I worked hard every day, I was no longer exhausted from living in a constant state of survival.
Grad School and Exhaustion
My sleep issues took on a different form while I was in seminary, going to school full time and working 25 hours or more a week. I probably averaged 5-6 hours a night, woke up exhausted, and crashed in bed at night. While I didn't struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep, I definitely did not get enough of it.
DC and Screen Time
My struggle to fall asleep returned when I moved to DC. I deduced this might be because I'd taken up writing on my computer when I got home from work. After spending all day staring at a screen in the office, another couple hours before bed did not seem to help me nod off at an appropriate time. So I switched to writing in the mornings before work. While I once again definitely did not get enough sleep, the pattern of waking up in the middle of the night didn't start until I moved to LA.
LA and the 3AM Wake Up
My lifestyle became a mixture of high-activity and sedentary. Some days, I'd stay in the office doing admin work. Some days, I was out all day, meeting with students (I worked in youth ministry), attending lacrosse matches, or connecting with volunteers. Sometimes, I worked late into the evening. Sometimes, my workday would end at 3PM. While I enjoyed the diversity of schedule and how no day was the same, I don't believe this chaos supported healthy sleep patterns.
A few months into my job in LA, I discovered the church I worked for was toxic and, in some instances, abusive. I did not make the connection at the time, but one symptom of the toxicity that showed up in my body was the new pattern of waking up around 3AM. I'd lay awake for a few hours before I would fall asleep again. This pattern continued for several years, long after I left that job.
Figuring it Out
I could never solve the reason for this pattern of waking up in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I'd wake up starving, and wondered if it was because I wasn't eating enough. I'd try to eat a snack before bed, even though all the health specialists said this wasn't a good idea. Even with the snack, I still regularly woke up. I tried to solve it with a yoga wind-down every night. I stopped looking at a screen hours before bed and put in great effort to destress. My therapist said this sleep pattern was a common difficulty with a lot of people and nobody seemed to know how to fix it.
However, I knew there had to be something behind it, because it wasn't always like this.
Miraculously, I came across this article about the 3AM wake up that attributed this chronic issue to high-levels of cortisol (a stress hormone). Our body begins to process cortisol around midnight. The peak of this processing will usually occur within three hours, which is why we often wake up around 3AM, regardless of what time we went to bed. Most people wake up a little around this time every night, but folks with normal levels of cortisol production typically fall back asleep easily. Or they don't remember waking.
I knew immediately that this was what I was experiencing. Years ago, I remember my mother having trouble sleeping and discovering it was due to high cortisol. It made sense I'd struggle with the same thing, considering the layers of trauma from abuse and the chronically stressful lifestyles I'd led for the past decade.
The article suggested someone with high cortisol levels needed to work on managing their stress throughout the day, not just trying to destress at night, as I had been doing. It also suggested that screen time increased cortisol levels, so it was important to take breaks from screens throughout the day.
I went on a hard-core, solve-my-sleep-issues journey and began keeping a sleep journal to document what helped and what didn't. My results were inconsistent and I got discouraged.
While I was navigating this sleep journey, I was simultaneously addressing trauma incurred through nearly a lifetime of abuse and oppression. While it made sense trauma could be at the foundation of the sleep issues, neither I nor my therapist made this direct connection. Rather, we deduced it was probably stress, and I actively worked to whittle my extremely over-extended schedule into something more manageable.
Phase I-Naps
During one season of burnout, where my body shut down and I had to focus on only the most pressing matters in my life—work at my day job and few scattered social events, I discovered my barometer for taking a break was exhaustion—I only rested when I was about to crash, and that wasn't sustainable. I started documenting how much time I spent working on nonprofit stuff, ending each day with the words, "You've done enough today." While I knew I was working a lot for the nonprofit, seeing it written down notified me that I was doing far more than I realized.
After about a year of using tangible data (rather than exhaustion) to signify it was time to rest, my sleep issues persisted, but I wasn't working quite so hard, so I suppose the impact wasn't quite as severe. I'd work on catching up on sleep on the weekends.
Phase II-The Long Walk
Then I hit another season of burnout, brought on by having my trauma activated. I entered a season of high-functioning depression and started sleeping a lot. I'd take several short naps a day and spend most of my weekend in bed. I wasn't sleeping well at night, but I committed to not put pressure on myself and to sleep when I felt tired and not stress if my night sleep was disrupted and agitated. Also, naps are incredibly good for you!
Then one day, as I felt myself nearing the end of this season, I walked to a coffee shop about a quarter of a mile from my house. It was an absolutely gorgeous Sunday morning, so after retrieving my coffee, I decided to keep walking.
And walking.
And walking.
I meandered around my neighborhood for over an hour. When I got home, I did a stretching video, took a shower, and got in bed, preparing for the all-afternoon nap I'd been taking every Sunday for the past two months.
But something strange occurred. As I lay in bed, I recognized an energy and lift in my spirits that was starkly different to the depressive, lethargic season I'd been in. I realized my body did not need the nap.
Was it the walking? I couldn't be sure, so I tried it out the next day. And the next. The long, slow walks, in the morning sun, on a crisp spring morning were incredibly relaxing and rejuvenating. The rest of the day, I sometimes still felt tired and I still took naps, but my mood was almost back to normal.
I also noticed, for the first time in years, I was consistently sleeping through the night. Like, EVERY night.
A month or so prior to this, I also started taking ashwagandha, as the primary use of this supplement is managing stress and boosting your mood. Since I theorized my sleep issues were connected to both chronic stress AND trauma, when I'd go on my long walks, I'd listen to bilateral stimulation music and walking meditations. Sometimes I'd listen to a podcast or audiobook, but I realized I wasn't as relaxed when I finished if I tried to be productive while walking. Currently, it's more for my mental and physical health. It feels good and I'm seeing results in my mood and in my sleep. It's worth it!
I don't believe solving sleep issues that are due to chronic stress and trauma will happen with just one thing (i.e. magnesium). I related so hard with this bit by Taylor Tomlinson about sleep. Melatonin might not work for someone who has PTSD—and it can be incredibly invalidating if someone says, "Just take this pill!"
Current Lifestyle Habits That May Be Helping My Sleep
walk somewhere around 20-30K steps per week across 4-6 days.
listen to walking meditations and BLS beats while walking.
take ashwagandha every morning as well as lemon water.
eat a relatively healthy and balanced diet.
working to increase my vegetable intake by incorporating veggies into more meals, like putting spinach in my smoothies.
do some sort of resistance training (20-30 minutes) twice a week.
try to stretch every night before sleep.
usually watch a couple shows or read until I start to feel sleepy.
give myself a regular evening foot massage with lotion combined with lavender oil.
attempt to manage my stress throughout the day, not just winding down at night.
try not to power through tiredness. If I feel tired, I try to give myself space to take a power nap or rest in some way.
overall, listening to my body and giving it what it is telling me it needs!
Katherine Spearing MA, CTRC is the founder of Tears of Eden, a nonprofit supporting survivors of spiritual abuse and is a Certified Trauma Recovery Practitioner working primarily with clients who have survived cults, high-control environments, spiritual abuse, and sexual abuse. She also provides specialized trauma informed career coaching, as folks with trauma often need extra support for interviewing and networking.
Katherine is the author of a historical romantic comedy, Hartfords, a novel that challenges gender roles in a patriarchal society that will appeal to fans of Jane Austen. Her next book on Spiritual Abuse addresses the survivor’s recovery journey, coming in 2025.
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