You’re exhausted…but your body feels alert. Your mind might want sleep, yet your nervous system feels wired. You lie in bed and suddenly notice your heart beating, your thoughts racing, your muscles holding tension.
If you’re trying to calm your nervous system at night and finding it difficult, you’re not alone. In an age when we’re always ‘on’ night-time anxiety is common and it isn’t a failure of willpower. It’s actually physiology.
Why the Body Feels Wired at Night
During the day, distraction often masks nervous system activation. Work, conversation, movement and digital stimulation keep attention externally focused.
At night, when stimulation reduces, internal sensations become more noticeable.
If your nervous system has been operating in low-grade fight or flight throughout the day, bedtime is often the first moment the body realises it hasn’t fully settled.
Stillness can expose underlying activation. This doesn’t mean something is wrong.
It means your system hasn’t yet received strong enough cues of safety to take things down a level.
The Nervous System and Sleep
Quality sleep requires parasympathetic dominance, particularly healthy vagal tone.
When the sympathetic nervous system remains active, you may experience:
- Racing or looping thoughts
- Sudden alertness just as you drift off
- Muscle tension in the jaw, shoulders or abdomen
- Restlessness in the legs
- Light, easily disrupted sleep
And if you’re hoping to address things, simply by trying to “force” relaxation, that rarely works. Instead, calming the nervous system at night requires gradual down-regulation.
How to Calm Your Nervous System at Night
When it comes to calming your nervous system, the goal isn’t immediate sedation. Instead, it’s all about signalling safety.
Here are practical, science-informed approaches:
1. Lengthen the Exhale
Inhale gently for four counts. Exhale slowly for six or eight. A longer exhale stimulates vagal pathways and encourages parasympathetic activity.
2. Gentle Rhythmic Movement
Slow rocking, subtle side-to-side movement, or even lightly swaying while seated can stimulate regulation reflexes. The nervous system responds well to rhythm.
3. Orient to Your Environment
Slowly look around your room. Notice neutral objects. Allow your eyes to land softly on shapes and colours. Orientation signals “no immediate threat”.
4. Warmth and Containment
A warm shower, herbal tea or weighted blanket can provide cues of safety and grounding.
Consistency matters more than intensity. Small, repeated inputs build trust within the system.
Why Relaxation Alone May Not Work
If your nervous system is chronically dysregulated, traditional relaxation techniques can sometimes increase awareness of discomfort.
Stillness may amplify internal sensations rather than soothe them.
The reality is, regulation is different from relaxation, because regulation builds capacity first, so the body feels safe enough to rest.
Over time, this improves sleep not because you’ve forced calm, but because your nervous system trusts stillness again.
If you’d like structured guidance, download the Somatic Starter Pack for gentle nervous system practices designed to support regulation.
If you’re interested in understanding the deeper physiology of vagal tone and parasympathetic activation, the Certified Somatic Release Facilitator training explores these mechanisms in detail.
