Episode 329: Overthinking, Self-Doubt & Fear of Falling Off Track

So, "Hi, Jessica and Trisha.

Yes, I have a question.

Sometimes when I wake in the night, I get into a severe overthinking spiral.

I question what I have done the day or what I need to do the next day, and doubt myself and my abilities.

I try to challenge my thoughts, and even am aware there is no evidence to support their negativity, yet I go round and round and I am exhausted by morning.

Please help."

Uh, this is a very familiar, uh, thing to me.

It's certainly was, uh, uh, I don't know what stage of life this, uh, person is at, but definitely, um, oh, I had a horrendous time during perimenopause of waking up, like being able to go to sleep and then waking up and being wide awake, and then going into rumination.

I don't know if that's where this person is, but, um, you know, going into rumination and overthinking.

And certainly when you're tired and your body has no defenses, it's really hard to employ any kind of, I think, self-regulation to yourself where you kinda feel like, "I can pull myself back from the brink." The dead of night seems to be, uh, a time for all of us, where it's, it's hard to really employ things that you would be able to employ when you're feeling in the whole of your health or not feeling tired.

I feel that, um, what could I say? I mean, from a, from a health point of view, if you're, if you're in perimenopause or, I, I would be looking at it from, from that point of view in terms of looking at maybe things that you could employ, uh, natural or not natural, or whatever you feel for your, for your hormonal balance.

But I found, and it's something that I used to recommend to clients as well, Yoga Nidra is something that you can, uh, you can access it even through YouTube or whatever.

Um, it's a very calming, calming, uh...

There's, there's different apps for it, but there's also, you can just go onto YouTube and you can get these free.

Um, and it's something to listen to, and it's something that will bring your body back into an emotional state of regulation.

I, I, I find myself, uh, whatever way my brain is wired, I can't go off to sleep now without some noise.

Uh, so trying to make that, uh, a more relaxing kind of noise that I listen to, whether that's Yoga Nidra, some kind of relaxation.

Sometimes it's a true crime story, which I, is bananas for people [laughs] to actually believe.

But I actually do listen to true crime, which is not something that, that's, that's like something that elevates your system rather than lowering your system.

But I'm just listening to noise-

Mm

... to kind of, uh, drown out the noise in my head.

The healthiest way of doing that I have found is some kind of sleep app or Yoga Nidra, N-I-D-R-A, if you want to Google it.

That's so interesting to talk about this, because I always thought that, and it just goes to show that everybody's different, that having a really strict-

Yes