You’ve survived a brutal week. You’ve been up at 5:00 AM every day, fueled by caffeine to survive the midday slump, and crashing late at night. Finally, Saturday arrives. You tell yourself, “This is it. I’m sleeping in until 9:00.”
But at 5:00 AM sharp, your eyes snap open. You’re wide awake, your mind is racing, and you can’t get back to sleep. Then, the “crash” hits around 9:00 AM. You feel like the walking dead—a total zombie—just as your family responsibilities and errands begin.
Week after month, year after year, the exhaustion piles up. You start to see clinical burnout looming on the horizon. You think, “If I collapse and have to take six months off, how will I pay the mortgage?” That thought alone creates a secondary layer of stress that makes sleep even harder to find.
The Failure of Melatonin and Sleep Trackers
I know this cycle because I lived it. A few years ago, I was waking up at 4:00 AM, unable to rest. I tried everything:
- Melatonin tablets and herbal teas.
- Sleep tracking apps and wearable tech.
- Optimizing sleep cycles and bedroom temperatures.
Nothing worked. Why? Because you cannot “hack” a nervous system that is stuck in survival mode. It turned out that my insomnia wasn’t a biological glitch; it was a result of deep-seated inner stress that had been with me since early childhood. I had no memory of when it started—it was just the “background noise” of my life.
Cleaning the Subconscious Program
The shift only happened when I stopped looking for external fixes and started subconscious therapy. I hired specialists to help me work through childhood traumas and “clean” the programs that kept my nervous system on high alert.
Slowly but surely, the magic happened. The “obnoxious” thoughts quieted down. I became a calmer person. My body finally felt safe enough to rest.
What “Putting Yourself First” Actually Looks Like
Today, my relationship with sleep is entirely different. For example, recently I woke up at 6:00 AM after seven hours of sleep. Previously, I would have forced myself to stay up and start my “to-do list” out of guilt or anxiety.
Instead, I checked in with myself. I realized I needed more energy. I had a warm drink (hot chocolate—I’ve been coffee-free for a month now!) and went back to bed. I slept until 8:30 AM.
That is what putting yourself first looks like. It’s the ability to look at a long to-do list and say, “My nervous system needs rest more than the world needs these errands done.” You can only do that when your nervous system is balanced. When you heal the root cause of your stress, you regain the ability to be calm enough to actually rest.
