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Originally Posted On: https://thesleepdetective.com/post/how-to-calm-your-racing-mind

How to calm your racing mind

Does your monkey mind keep you awake at night?

Either you can’t fall asleep or you wake up with your mind racing?

It’s not your fault.

In this blog post, you’ll learn the 4 main reasons why you have a racing mind that’s keeping you awake at night. This blog post was written by me (Martha Lewis) and published on The Jackson Hole News & Guide. Feel free to read it on their website, or right here on my website.

Let’s dive in!

Reason #1: Cortisol causes insomnia

Your ruminating thoughts might seem like a mental problem, but it’s not all in your head. There are true physiological reasons why you can’t control your thoughts.

Cortisol is key.

Cortisol is a very important hormone that wakes you up in the morning and keeps you alert throughout the day. Cortisol is also one of the main hormones in the fight-or-flight stress response. When you’re stressed all the time, your body constantly makes cortisol to deal with that stress. Cortisol increases your heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. It raises your blood sugar to give you energy. And it heightens your memory and concentration so that you can make quick decisions for survival.

The funny thing is our brains don’t know the difference between being chased by a bear in the woods and being too busy and overwhelmed all the time. Cortisol prepares you to run from or fight something even if you don’t need to survive in the moment.

You also release cortisol if you have stressors in your body that you don’t know about. If you have high cortisol at bedtime, it’s going to keep you from being able to sleep and can cause your mind to race even if you aren’t stressed about anything. If you have high cortisol in the middle of the night it’s going to wake you up with racing thoughts and possibly your heart beating fast. An unhealthy gut, a congested liver and low blood sugar are the most common causes of high cortisol at night.

If you’ve been chronically stressed for too long, your body won’t be able to make enough cortisol to deal with all the stress you’re under. When that happens you resort to adrenaline to deal with stress, which causes even more heart pounding and uncontrollable racing thoughts.

Reason #2: Stress depletes hormones

Both women and men can have hormone imbalances that affect sleep and mood.

Low estrogen can lead to depression, anxiety, mood swings and insomnia.

High estrogen is associated with mood swings, irritability and sleep disturbances.

Low progesterone can cause anxiety, depression, and make you feel stressed, nervous and jittery.

Symptoms of low testosterone include depression, anxiety, worry and fear.

Low melatonin can manifest as anxiety, depression, bipolar, insomnia.

As a functional health coach, I don’t just recommend supplementing with hormones when they’re out of balance. I want to know why they’re out of balance.

Hormones get depleted when your body is constantly making cortisol to deal with stress. It uses all of its resources to make cortisol and takes those resources away from making sex hormones. Your body always prioritizes survival over reproduction. Low hormones that can cause mental swings are the result of long-term stress.

My goal is to help you eliminate as many stressors as possible so your body can make sex hormones instead of making cortisol. Then you feel balanced and calm.

Reason #3: Your gut can cause neurotransmitter imbalances

The good bacteria in your gut should be making most of your neurotransmitters. A study by CalTech found that 90% of serotonin, for example, is made in the gut. If you don’t have enough good bacteria you won’t have all the neurotransmitters you need to feel calm, relaxed and sleepy.

Serotonin, the “happy and joyful” neurotransmitter, helps you fall into deep restful sleep. Signs of serotonin deficiency are depression and lack of enjoyment, PMS, inner rage, paranoia and poor sleep.

GABA, the “anti-anxiety hormone,’’ is another neurotransmitter that affects sleep. If you are deficient in GABA you find it hard to turn off your mind, leading to racing thoughts and anxiety. The most common GABA issues are anxiety, nervousness and insomnia. You need these neurotransmitters to have a calm mind.

If you have a pathogen in your gut (such as a parasite, h-pylori or other “bad” bacteria, or candida), those critters create a lot of inflammation. Your body releases cortisol to deal with that inflammation because it’s an anti-inflammatory hormone. Those creatures are most active at night, so they can cause you to wake up with your mind racing even if you aren’t stressed about anything in particular.

Reason #4: Mineral imbalances and heavy metals contribute to sleep issues

Mineral imbalances can also cause ruminating thoughts. I use a hair tissue mineral analysis test to see my clients’ mineral patterns so I know what’s out of balance.

The most common mineral pattern I see in my clients is slow oxidation. In this pattern, calcium and magnesium are higher than sodium and potassium, which can lead to insomnia as well as overactive thoughts.

The opposite pattern, called fast oxidation, is when there’s too much sodium and potassium. Then calcium and magnesium are burnt quickly, and so you easily become deficient. This pattern can cause anxiety and type A personality traits as well as a racing mind.

Copper toxicity and heavy metals can also manifest with the symptoms of anxiety, irritability, insomnia and repetitive thinking.

Conclusion

As you can see, your mind isn’t racing because you aren’t meditating enough or because you don’t know how to control your brain.

Physical imbalances are causing your mental symptoms.

Therapy gives you great tools to try to manage anxious thoughts, but it won’t help you get to the root of why this is happening

The only way to calm your racing mind without medication is to find out what’s causing it and correct it.

This is fixable.

Get 7+ hours of uninterrupted sleep a night.