Why You're Still Tired Even When You're Doing Everything Right — Part 1 of 3

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I've been wearing the aura ring for two weeks now. I go to bed at a reasonable time and wake up at a reasonable time. But the middle is filled with tossing and turning. And in the morning, when I look at those numbers, it shows me yet again that I'm not resting. So I decided to block off my weekend, take time to myself. I didn't work. I sat around in my pajamas, binging a show. But when Monday rolled around, I didn't feel any more rested. And I certainly didn't feel ready to take on the week, but I will because that's what I've been doing for years. Maybe if I had that two-hour morning routine I heard about on that one podcast, I would finally sleep better at night. I think it had something to do with tuning into my circadian rhythm. As if I had two hours for a morning routine, I barely have 30 minutes to make dinner in the evening. Hi, I'm Superkate. Welcome to Connecting with Super Kate for women who have too many job titles, too many commitments, and are done just getting through. This is the first episode in my three-part series, Why Rest Isn't Working. And before we go any further, I've created a free worksheet to go along with this entire series. You can download it now from the link in the show notes and have it open while you listen. Each episode has its own section, so you have one place to track everything as we go. I was in this place for years, pushing through it and hoping it would just get easier, or that I would finally have a long enough break to get the real rest I needed. At one point, I actually had a hotel room with a view of the ocean, and I literally sat and stared at that ocean for four days straight. I didn't even have the capacity to read a book or watch a TV show. I just sat and stared. But at the end of the four days, I didn't feel any more rested. In fact, I almost felt more anxious because I knew how much work was waiting for me when I got back. That was nervous system exhaustion, but I didn't know that yet. And perhaps if I did, I'd have reasons for why that wasn't really what was going on. Or perhaps I'd think it was just one more thing to add to my never-ending list. So I'd just deal with it later. Nervous system exhaustion goes beyond regular sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is a deficit. You just need more sleep. So you get more sleep, you feel better. Nervous system exhaustion is a state. You can't sleep your way out of a state. No matter how many hours you get, no matter how good the aura ring numbers are, you stay exhausted because sleep alone can't complete what stress started. Stress isn't an event, it's a cycle. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And most of us are living in the middle of it. Can you feel it? We have so many things to navigate: family, relationships, work, the everyday things any human has to deal with, like traffic and bills and other people's expectations. Due to this, our stress response never finishes. We just keep adding to it. Those stressors accumulate, and it seems like you can see a finish line, but it keeps getting farther away, like one of those camera tricks in movies where someone is standing at the end of a corridor and it just keeps stretching farther away, no matter how fast they run towards it. Most of the stressors you can see, you've turned into to-do list items, things you can tangibly check off. But the ones that are really draining you, they never make the list. Shit, how many to-do lists do you have? I'll show you mine if you show me yours. But even all of those lists don't touch what's actually draining your energy. You don't write down, worry about my kids' science test. You don't write down brace for the three times my employee is going to interrupt me today. And you certainly don't write down how many times you replay that one thing you said in a conversation, the thing you wish you'd said differently, and what it might mean, and what the other person is thinking, and what their reaction is going to be. That is a mental load. That's the hypervigilance, the constant low-level scanning for the next shoe to drop. And I bet you can feel the weight of all of that just from listening to me describe it, let alone whatever's running in the background of your own life right now. If you have the worksheet open, this is a great moment to jot down those invisible things that are running in the background of your life right now. Try not to judge them. Just write them down. That invisible weight is costing you energy. Your nervous system is supposed to be storing for the things that actually matter. And no amount of sleep, no pajama weekend, no four days staring at the ocean is going to touch it because none of those things complete the stress cycle that's been running underneath everything else. So here's what I want you to do this week. Just notice. When your mind is racing, do you reach for your phone? When you're trying to calm down at night, do you convince yourself that answering one more email will help? When you're trying to fall asleep, is any part of your body still clenched? Don't try to change any of it yet. Just notice what you do instead of resting. And bonus points if you write it down. And I want you to know, none of this is wrong. You learned these patterns from other people, from society, from years of doing what you had to do to get through. So while it's easy to look at any of this and judge yourself, I'm asking you not to. This is just a moment to notice. I've created a worksheet to go along with this series. So you have one place to track what you're noticing. The link is in the show notes. And tune in on Thursday when I release part two. We're going to talk about what your body actually needs before it can rest. Because once you understand that, things begin changing. And if you're interested in how I support women like you to feel more rested, book a sales call. I look forward to connecting with you.