I remember when I was having serious sleep issues I would be up tossing and turning at night, almost all night.
I was so restless and anxious. I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Have you ever felt that? It’s a strange feeling that’s hard to describe.
I was constantly stirring and moving my body until I could get comfortable.
That would last for 5 minutes then I’d feel agitated and move my body again to another comfortable position.
This whole process might last hours.
This was around the year 2000. At that time I was working in a nationwide data center on the 13th floor (it’s incredibly unhealthy to work in a Highrise like that) from 3pm to 12am. My sleep was pretty good before I got that job.
After that job I turned into a “night owl” and my circadian rhythm was forever changed. I’d go to bed around 3am but lay there tossing at turning at night until maybe 5am or 6am. I’d finally fall asleep for a couple hours and wake up around 7 or 8am.
Getting fitful sleep like this really broke my body and my health down.
Thankfully I’ve managed to get rid of my insomnia naturally by resetting my circadian rhythm and healing my mitochondrial health through diet, nutrition and nature based principles.
Why You’re Tossing & Turning At Night
There are many reasons (too many to explore in one article, otherwise it would be a book!) about why you’re tossing and turning at night. But I would like to highlight a few of them that you can look into and correct.
We don’t know which reason will the THE reason for you tossing and turning at night but through following your own internal intuition and testing, you’ll find one that speaks to you.
Mineral dysregulation
Minerals run the human body. Without minerals you’d fall over and die within minutes. The human body needs roughly 92 minerals coming in per day to keep biological processes functioning.
There are specific functions that require minerals to happen. Here’s an example, without the mineral magnesium, you cannot create adenosine triphosphate (ATP or energy) in complex 4 (cytochrome c-oxidase) in your mitochondria. Without magnesium that process doesn’t happen.
If you don’t have energy, you can’t digest food or assimilate it. You can’t think a thought or repair cellular damage. Everything in the body require energy (not just doing a workout). Even blinking your eye, requires energy.
There’s a hierarchy of minerals. Some minerals do more, some less. Some do only a few jobs but those jobs are critical to life. Some do lots of jobs that are not that critical, but they’re all required for life (and sleep) to happen.
If you have too much of one mineral but not enough of other minerals you have mineral dysregulation. That’s like having a basketball team where every player is a 7 foot center. Who’s going to dribble the ball up the floor and start your offence?
There are key tests to see if you have mineral dysregulation that could the cause of your tossing and turning at night.
Room Temperature
This is a big one for not getting sound sleep. If you’re too hot or too cold, you’ll be tossing and turning all night long. You’ll never feel comfortable. You will definitely not sleep soundly at all. For most people heat is more of an issue than cold. The ideal bedroom temperature should be right around 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
We’ve invested in a high quality air conditioner along with a cool product from SleepMe called the Chilipad Cube. This allows for individual customization of temperature in the same bed. I sleep cold while my wife sleeps more hot.
Broken Circadian Rhythm
If you have restless nights, insomnia, or you’re just tossing and turning all night, most likely you have a broken circadian rhythm. Your circadian rhythm is primarily controlled by being a diurnal creature that’s tied to 24 hour light dark cycles of the sun.
Most likely you’re not watching the sunrise, blocking blue light by wearing blue blocking glasses and you’re not using software on your computer to lower blue wavelength of light hitting your eyes. This color temperature of light (blue from tech devices) enters your pupil, travels through your central retinal pathway going to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (your master clock) in your hypothalamus in your brain.
This sends circadian mismatches and biological timing errors to ever cell in your body, which adversely affects what hormones get released at what times. Think cortisol, adrenaline and melatonin.
Eating Too Late
The primary regulator of your SCN and circadian rhythm is light. But other inputs definitely affect your circadian rhythm as well. One of those is food. Eating a late night snack before bed can definitely alter your circadian rhythm and cause you to lay in bed tossing and turning at night.
I don’t recommend anybody eat after the sun sets, at least not on a regular basis. It’s not healthy and can phase shift your circadian rhythm in a negative way, cause you to have too much night time movement in bed and sleep interruptions that can keep you awake.
Parasites
Dogs are not the only animals that have parasites. We all do. All humans have parasites. If your diet is not clean or you consume the wrong foods, you’re feeding them. What happens when you feed life forms?
They grow.
Some people have foot long rope worms living inside of them. Have you ever considered that your addictions are not yours? They’re your parasites emitting chemicals that are causing cravings. Parasites have been implicated in cancers, heart attacks, digestive disorders, insomnia, restless leg syndrome and every disease known to man.
I would HIGHLY recommend doing a once a year parasite cleanse just for your overall health and well being. You’ll probably notice less sugar cravings, less restless leg syndrome (if you have that) and less tossing and turning at night when you’re trying to go to sleep.
Napping
If you’re older yo might be more of a napper. I don’t recommend naps longer than 30 minutes and ideally the nap is where you’re just closing your eyes resting instead of actually sleeping. But if you’ve taken a long nap or you’ve taken a nap too late in the afternoon (or both!) that could phase shift your 24 hour circadian rhythm and cause you to toss and turn when you’re in bed, preventing you from falling asleep when you want.
How To Stop Tossing & Turning
For most people simply correcting the causes of tossing and turning by doing what I mentioned above will be enough to get your sleep back on track. I would put a primary focus on resetting your circadian rhythm and see how far that takes you.
I’ve noticed that even though some people may have parasites or even heavy metal overload, by correcting their circadian rhythm that fixes their sleep. For the other 3% of insomnia sufferers it might fix them 90% and then they do a parasite cleanse or fix their mineral dysregulation and they’ve not healed their mitochondria and sleep great like I do now.
When To See A Doctor
If you’ve been tossing and turning at night for more than 2 weeks, it might be time to see a doctor skilled and knowledgeable in natural medicine that focuses on sleep issues. With that said, I’m a big proponent of taking responsibility and doing self education to fix our own problems. 🙂
Conclusion
If you’re tossing and turning at night, just know you can fix it. You can restore your sleep and stopping feeling restless and hopeless. It does require effort and it does require learning a new set of skills and values.
But in the end it’s worth it. I now sleep 9 hours per night and feel absolutely amazing every morning when I wake up.
I wouldn’t trade that for the world.
Questions:
- How long have you been tossing and turning at night?
- What have you tried to fix it?
- Did it work?
Comment below!
