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If you’re stuck in constant hyperarousal, this episode is for you.


You’ll learn:

  • What constant hyperarousal really is (and what it’s not)
  • Why your nervous system won’t exit fight-or-flight
  • And what actually has to change for sleep to become possible again


I also share the story of a client whose sleep fell apart almost overnight — and why what looked like “anxiety” was actually something very different.


Matt’s episode: 

Primal Trust Program for nervous system regulation: https://cathleenking.simplero.com/products/143239-Membership-PRIMAL-TRUST-Academy?ref=47099-martha-Lewis


Episode Transcript


[00:00:00] If you are stuck in constant hyperarousal, this episode is for you. You're exhausted, but your body won't shut off. Your mind is alert at night. Your sleep is light or broken, and no amount of calming down actually works. What makes this so frustrating is that most people are told this is anxiety or stress, so they try to relax harder.


But if you're in true hyperarousal, that advice can actually keep you stuck. I've worked with hundreds of people who have tried everything, meditation, supplements, breathing exercises, even medications, and they're still wired at night, and there's a reason that keeps getting missed. In this episode, I'm going to show you what constant hyperarousal really is, why your nervous system won't exit, fight or flight, and what has to change for sleep to become possible again, both in the body and in the nervous system itself.


But first I wanna tell you about [00:01:00] my client, Matt. So Matt was 31 years old when his sleep just suddenly fell apart, not gradually, not after years of struggle. Pretty much overnight. So one week he was sleeping fine, like he always had the next, he was lying in bed at night, wide awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering why his body wouldn't shut off.


It didn't make sense because he's super healthy. He ate well. He works out. As the weeks went on, of course something else crept in this anxiety that didn't make sense, and it wasn't worrying about work. It wasn't racing thoughts about life.


It was just this constant internal alertness that he felt. It's like he said, it was like adrenaline was running in the background for no reason.


After about six months of this, Matt had reached a breaking point, and so the only thing that would knock him out was a benzodiazepine. And it worked, but he knew it wasn't good for him.


Here he was in his early thirties needing a powerful [00:02:00] medication just to fall asleep. And he knew deep down, this can't be what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life.


And what made it even scarier for him was that sleep problems ran in his family. His dad struggled with sleep, his grandmother did too. And so now he wasn't just exhausted, he was afraid that this was going to be permanent, that this was genetic, that something had just switched on in his body and could never switch off.


So addressing what was happening in Matt's body was a big piece, and it created the space for his nervous system to finally be able to calm down again. And so that's where his story becomes really important for understanding hyperarousal.


So hyperarousal is a state of the nervous system. It's not a personality trait like being anxious or something. It's actually the body has become stuck in fight or flight, that stress response. And of course, we can't sleep in this state, [00:03:00] right?


And so the nervous system can get stuck when it feels like there is this constant threat. And threat doesn't just mean emotional threat, right, or emotional stress. Internal stressors can be just as powerful as external ones.


And so I want to introduce you to something called the cell danger response. And what happens here is that when the cells in our body perceive a danger, they perceive a threat, the body shifts into this protection mode...


this is triggered whenever a threat is encountered.


Martha Lewis: And what happens here is that this affects the mitochondria in the cell.


Then what happens is that the body can't detox appropriately. It can't absorb nutrients from food like it's supposed to, and it goes one step farther and it warns other cells throughout the body.


And so then those [00:04:00] cells get into this cell danger response, and then they spread that signal to other cells.


And so this should stop when the threat goes away, but it can get stuck and lead to chronic illness.


This is also going to lead to increased cortisol because the body's constantly stressed. It's going to lead to increased adrenaline and noradrenaline our other stress hormones. And so the body's goal becomes survival. It thinks that it's, it's literally threatened all the time, and so it can't rest when this is happening.


Now, I'll be right back to the show in just a second, but have you been trying all the things to sleep better, and yet you're still lying awake at night and tired every day? If you're ready to stop guessing and fall asleep easily, stay asleep all night and wake up feeling rested, that's exactly what I help people do in the Complete Sleep Solution Program.


To get started, you can apply at the link in the [00:05:00] description.


Okay, back to the cell danger response. So again, some of the most common threats that are coming in that are triggering this are going to be pathogens in the gut, like h pylori, like parasites, like candida, like bacterial overgrowth.


Any kind of inflammation, whether that's coming from foods, you know, pesticides and things in foods, or just eating processed foods which are very inflammatory, whether it's toxins, um, environmental chemicals, things like that. And especially mold. The mycotoxins from mold are another big one. Our blood sugar being unstable, and if we don't have the minerals and vitamins and other nutrients that we need, then all of these the body sees as a threat.


Again, when the body is in this hyperarousal state, it's releasing cortisol all the time, day and night, because that is the brain's [00:06:00] way of trying to protect you. It's constantly scanning your environment to see where the threat is and to try and keep you safe. But of course, when that's happening all the time, it's gonna be happening at night too, which is going to lead to not being able to fall asleep, really light fragmented sleep, or waking up at 2, 3, 4am and not being able to go back to sleep.


And so this becomes this real feedback loop where the poor sleep is leading to increased cortisol, increased inflammation. That inflammation is then creating stronger, dangerous signals to the cells. Those dangerous signals cause high cortisol, that higher cortisol leads to lighter and more fragmented sleep, and it just becomes this vicious cycle and explains why it gets worse over time.


Then what happens is that repeated nights of this poor sleep just reinforce this threat, [00:07:00] especially around sleep. And so the nervous system starts associating bed and rest and nighttime and darkness with danger, with threats. And so that hyperarousal then becomes conditioned in the mind. So what was more of a physical problem is now becoming more of a mental problem.


And so because of this, this is why one-sided approaches to this fail. So calming techniques, which we all talk about and know about. If you have trouble sleeping, you know, meditation, breathing techniques, tapping, which I recommend, all kinds of things. They can offer temporary relief, but they're not enough to totally switch off that cell danger response if the causes of that cell danger response are still in the body.


And then fixing those imbalances in the body won't completely resolve the problem either because the mind is [00:08:00] still and the nervous system is still stuck in that hyperarousal.


We really want to be addressing both at the same time. So what we wanna do is lower the stresses in the body that are causing this and retrain the nervous system, how it's perceiving that threat.


Back to Matt, he didn't just have anxiety. His body was sending real dangerous signals and that's why he couldn't sleep. And so when we started addressing what was going on in the body, that helped lower the baseline threat and it created the space for his nervous system to be able to calm down again.


And then I also helped him with the mental part of not feeling anxious about sleep as well.


And so his recovery illustrates how this hyperarousal unwinds and that we can't force it to do this without looking at both the body and the mind.


What was actually driving Matt's hyperarousal was he was [00:09:00] experiencing significant mineral depletion, especially magnesium and calcium.


Now, he also had low neurotransmitters, so he had less serotonin and dopamine support. And those are some of our calming neurotransmitters.


He had a parasite and h pylori, so they were constantly releasing toxins and causing this inflammatory signaling.


, And he wasn't detoxing well.


So if he only had one of these things, they might have been manageable, right? But by the time his sleep was affected, these multiple different imbalances were showing up and affecting his sleep.


You know, people a lot of times are confused as a why sleep issues just happen to them overnight. And it's like, I see it as kind of like scales, right?


So we're getting more and more outta balance.


And finally, the scales tip enough that sleep is affected. And so even though it seems like overnight because one night you can sleep fine and the next night you [00:10:00] can't, the body's been getting out of balance over time for a long time. It's not actually happening overnight.


So the good news is, is that Matt wasn't broken. This wasn't something he had to live with forever, even if there is a genetic component to insomnia and to not sleeping well.


Once his nervous system was responding appropriately and those signals were reduced, then cortisol lowered, adrenaline lowered, and his nervous system didn't need to stay on high alert anymore.


And then retraining the nervous system actually works.


So now Matt is sleeping normally again, and he no longer needs a benzodiazepine to fall asleep. His anxiety has gone way down. His adrenaline symptoms are pretty much gone because his nervous system is stable again. And so sleep issues didn't continue despite his family history.


And when he does have an occasional difficult night, he recognizes it early, he knows how to support [00:11:00] his body. He doesn't panic about sleep anymore, and he doesn't need to take a benzo anymore.


So what actually changed is that his nervous system was no longer in high alert because we addressed the imbalances in the body that were causing his system to be in fight or flight.


So cortisol's no longer spiking at night and he's able to sleep normally again, which is amazing.


Trying to fix this yourself becomes really hard at this stage because again, it's turned into this body and this nervous system problem, and when you're in that chronic hyperarousal, you can't objectively as assess what's driving it. It's so easy to, you know try and take a certain supplement or do or make some kind of diet change or exercise change or something and see if it works.


And if you get a better night's sleep, then you try it again the next night and then you don't sleep well the next night. And it's just like maddening trying to [00:12:00] figure this out. And that's because we need lab testing to get to the bottom of what's actually going on. And we need to address both the physical and the nervous system side.


Doing one is only going to lead to a little bit of improvement or temporary improvement, right? Where it's like, oh, it helped when I tried this breath work for a few nights, I slept better and then I'm back to where I was before.


And that's because there are still things in your body causing cortisol to be released and and causing lots of inflammation.


So this is exactly what I do with my clients, is I identify those hidden imbalances in the body so that I can reduce the danger signals that are keeping cortisol high. And I guide nervous sig system regulation at the right time in a way that feels very safe. So there's no guessing because we see what's going on in your body from the lab tests.


There's no one size fits all protocols because everyone has different threats or dangers, [00:13:00] what the body sees as danger that are happening. And we're not trying to force calm. And you know, I'm never gonna say, oh, just meditate before bed and you're gonna be just fine. Because it does involve more than that.


So, you know, same with Matt. He didn't just calm his nervous system. He didn't just fix the labs, we addressed both at the same time.


Now for some of my clients, I do recommend programs like Primal Trust, which really help with nervous system retraining for those people who need more like daily support. That's something I assess for as soon as we start working together.


And Primal Trust is one of my favorite programs for that. So I will link to that in the description. I.


So if hyperarousal is keeping you from sleeping, if you've tried calming techniques and supplements without getting much improvement, if you want help addressing both at the same time, then working together is the next step, and you can apply for the Complete Sleep Solution Program at the link in the description.[00:14:00] 


So I just want you to know that hyperarousal is reversible. This is not something that is permanent. We can get out of this. Your body is not broken. It's actually. Doing what it thinks it needs to do to protect you. But when the right signals are addressed in the right order, then you will be able to sleep normally again.


You'll be able to fall asleep, easily, stay asleep all night and wake up feeling rested and amazing. And if you want to hear Matt's story, I interviewed him on this podcast and you can see that in the next video.

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