When Being Awake Becomes A Battle

Have you ever had that moment when you wake up in the middle of the night, and for a brief second you think you might drift back to sleep, and then your brain goes, "Oh, you're awake? Perfect.

Let's chat." And suddenly everything you've said, done, avoided, or misunderstood is up for review.

That night, I'd been watching the news before bed, you know, just to stay informed, and it was a barrage of, you guessed it, not great news.

By the time I turned off the lights, my nervous system was fully activated, even though my body was exhausted.

So there I was lying in bed, eyes closed, but completely awake, and the courtroom opened.

It's always the same cast of characters, isn't it? The conversation you replay, the email you should've written differently, the moment from earlier in the day that suddenly feels like it's a defining mistake.

Your mind presents evidence, cross-examines, builds a case.

"And another thing," it says, as if you're on trial for being human.

What fascinates me about these moments is how convincing they feel in the dark.

At 2:00 AM, everything sounds more urgent, right? More absolute, more true.

But it's not truth, it's just volume.

The night amplifies whatever is left unresolved, and instead of letting it settle, we often start fighting it.

We try to force sleep, we tell ourselves to relax, we get frustrated, and we're still awake.

In doing that, we add another layer.

I used to think the goal in those moments was to try to fix it, to fall asleep as quickly as possible, to outsmart the wakefulness.

But what I've learned, slowly, is that the harder I try to force sleep, the further away it gets.

There's a kind of tension in that effort, a subtle pressure.

You need to sleep.

You have to sleep.

And the body responds to that pressure like it's a threat.

And what do threats do to our body? It creates tension, which is the opposite of relaxation, which we need to sleep.