Can't relax, can't sleep

[Moopsi]

A month or so ago I went through a very stressful time. Things are better now although I still have a lot of underlying anxiety about the future (mainly health related).

Now that things have calmed down though I actually feel worse. My pulse is continually racing and I am only sleeping 3/4 hours at night. Its like my body went into fight or flight mode 4 weeks ago and can't calm down.

What can I do to calm down my body? I've tried yoga, deep breathing, meditation. All of these things usually work but now aren't. I generally feel better when I'm busy and distracted but think that's just papering over the problem.

How can I turn off the adrenaline?! I eat healthily, don't drink caffeine etc.

Are you speaking to anyone eg a counsellor? That may be something to look into.

Other suggestions are- no screens an hour before bed, set times to go to bed and to get up. I'd also recommend taking some kind of non prescription sleeping pill (and go to GP for stronger if necessary).

When I've been having a hard time, I sometimes go to sleep listening to audiobooks, do you think that would work?

I read a CBT based book about insomnia and it helped me with sleep hygiene but also to learn to not panic if I wasn't sleeping well (that just perpetuates the cycle!).

If your heart is pounding like you're in fight or flight, put your hand on your chest/below collar bones- touch soothes and can allay the danger signals. Deep breathes. If you have a dog or cat, hug them lots!

I’d go and see your GP. It might be that a short course of medication will be able to stabilise you and bring the adrenaline down.

Thanks. I'd rather avoid medication as I was on sertraline for 2 years, got gastro problems from it and it was awful to come off. Perhaps I will look at herbal remedies or something like that though. I will also look at audiobooks.

I'm wondering if some intense exercise might exhaust me enough to help my body relax.

I've also had CBT and hated it, didn't find it helpful at all. I think the problem is that I was in an actual scary situation so it wasn't really unhealthy thinking, just a bad patch of life that has caused this.