INSOMNIA - by Carey Ann George
INSOMNIA
Carey Ann George
Feb 27, 2026
When the Body Refuses to Surrender
Substack
Insomnia is not simply a sleep problem.
It is not just melatonin deficiency, blue light exposure, or too much caffeine. Those things matter, yes. But when sleep will not come, when your eyes are heavy yet your mind will not release, something deeper is often asking to be seen.
Sleep is surrender.
And surrender requires safety.
When the body does not feel safe, it does not sleep deeply. It does not let go. It does not power down into full repair mode. Instead, it hovers. It scans. It replays. It anticipates.
Insomnia is often the nervous system saying, “I am not ready to turn the lights off.”
During the day, you can distract yourself. You can move. You can work. You can speak. You can suppress. But when night arrives, the nervous system slows just enough for what has been avoided to rise. Thoughts you pushed aside return. Emotions you postponed knock on the door. The body finally has space to process, and if there is backlog, it will try to clear it.
The inability to sleep is rarely random. It is usually overload.
The liver, in many traditional systems of medicine, is most active in the early hours of the night. Biologically, nighttime is when detoxification, tissue repair, and immune recalibration intensify. If the liver is overwhelmed by inflammatory burden, stress hormones, poor diet, alcohol, or unresolved emotional tension, the system may become agitated rather than restorative. Heat rises. The mind activates. You wake between one and three in the morning with thoughts that feel urgent.
But the liver does not only process toxins. It also processes stress chemistry. Suppressed anger, chronic frustration, and control patterns all increase sympathetic tone. When sympathetic tone remains elevated into the night, the body cannot fully downshift into deep sleep.
Then there is the nervous system itself.
Chronic stress recalibrates baseline alertness. If you have lived in prolonged vigilance, trauma, instability, or emotional unpredictability, your system may associate sleep with vulnerability. The brainstem remains partially alert. The body resists collapse into rest because collapse once meant danger.
Insomnia is sometimes protection.
You may feel exhausted yet wired. This is the hallmark of a dysregulated stress response. Cortisol rhythms flatten. Adrenal signaling becomes inconsistent. The body has forgotten the rhythm of day and night.
The gut also plays a profound role. The majority of serotonin is produced in the gut, and serotonin is the precursor to melatonin. If digestion is inflamed, dysbiotic, or stagnant, melatonin production can falter. Emotional suppression affects digestion. Stress tightens the abdomen and reduces motility. Incomplete digestion increases inflammatory signaling, which can further disturb sleep architecture.
Your sleep reflects your terrain.
The heart carries another layer. When grief is unprocessed, when worry is chronic, when your internal world feels unresolved, the chest often feels full at night. Racing thoughts are often racing emotions without language. The mind attempts to solve what the heart has not expressed.
Insomnia asks different questions than most people are willing to answer.
What am I trying to control instead of release?
What am I avoiding during the day that rises at night?
Do I feel safe enough to let go completely?
Is there something unfinished that my body wants to process?
You cannot force sleep. You can only create the conditions for it.
Regulation is foundational.
Deep diaphragmatic breathing lowers heart rate and increases vagal tone. Long exhalations signal safety. Gentle abdominal massage releases stored tension in the gut and diaphragm. Heat applied to the abdomen or lower back can soften bracing patterns. Journaling before bed allows thoughts to exit the mind and land on paper instead of replaying internally.
Grounding practices stabilize excess activation. Evening walks in low light. Stretching that unwinds the hips and spine. Reducing screen exposure to allow melatonin to rise naturally. Weighted blankets to provide pressure input that signals containment.
Nourishment matters. Warm, grounding foods in the evening support digestion. Herbal teas such as chamomile, lemon balm, or passionflower calm the nervous system. Magnesium supports muscle relaxation and nervous system balance.
But the deepest shift is emotional.
Sleep returns when the body trusts that it no longer needs to stay alert.
When you allow yourself to feel what was postponed. When you release control where it is no longer needed. When you forgive yourself for not solving everything before nightfall. When you practice surrender not as weakness but as biological wisdom.
Sleep is sacred because it is the only time your body fully lets go of conscious control.
If you cannot sleep, it is not because you are broken. It is because some part of you is still guarding something.
Listen gently.
Release gradually.
Create safety repeatedly.
When the nervous system learns that night no longer equals threat, sleep will follow.
Sleep is not just closing your eyes. It is trusting the darkness enough to rest within it.
https://youtu.be/vhIbE3EeuWY?si=2ZDPkRPIowrR9x-y
Carey Ann George | TheGeorgeMethod.com
COMMENTS
Richard Luthmann
This is For Real.
1h
This is helpful and insightful because it reframes insomnia not as a failure to sleep but as a signal from the nervous system. Too many people treat sleeplessness like a mechanical defect — pop melatonin, blame caffeine, scroll harder. But the idea that sleep requires safety explains a lot. If your system is wired from stress, trauma, litigation, deadlines, or unresolved conflict, your body won’t power down just because the clock says midnight. “Exhausted but wired” isn’t weakness — it’s dysregulation. The practical tools here matter, but the bigger takeaway is this: sleep returns when vigilance drops. And vigilance drops when safety is rebuilt.
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