{"id":8818,"date":"2026-10-28T05:35:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T05:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceinhealth.com\/?p=8818"},"modified":"2026-11-02T05:42:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T05:42:30","slug":"tired-but-wired-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceinhealth.com\/es\/2026\/10\/28\/tired-but-wired-at-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Breathwork Facilitator Explains: If Your Tired-But-Wired Nights Keep Coming Back, It May Not Just Be Screen Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You can make your bedroom ready for sleep and still lie there exhausted but wide awake. Here’s the overlooked reason why.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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You’ve heard the advice. Put the phone away an hour before bed. Dim the lights. Stop scrolling.<\/b><\/p>

You do it, some nights properly, and you still end up exhausted but wide awake, staring at the ceiling with a mind that won’t quite switch off.<\/span><\/p>

If that sounds familiar, screen time was probably never the whole story.<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Strange Overlap Between Tiredness and Feeling “Wired”<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I’m a breathwork facilitator and embodiment teacher, 37 years old, originally from New Zealand, now living in Berlin. I founded SOULBODY BREATH\u00ae at the end of 2023, and my work since has centred on how stress actually shows up in the body, not the version people expect, but the quieter, harder-to-name version.<\/span><\/p>

I’d slipped back into scrolling before bed, and I knew exactly what the standard advice would say: cut the screens, and sleep will follow.<\/span><\/p>

So I did.<\/b> Screens off an hour before bed, properly, not the half-hearted version.<\/span><\/p>

And I still felt exhausted at night, and wired at the same time.<\/b> That tired-but-wired combination is worth paying attention to because it sits somewhere between sleep and tiredness: physically depleted, but mentally or physiologically still “on.”<\/span><\/p>

That’s when I started paying closer attention to what was actually happening underneath it.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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When You’re Doing Everything Right, But Still Can’t Switch Off<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Cutting screens addresses one input. It doesn’t address what the nervous system is doing once the input is removed.<\/b><\/p>

Cutting screens can remove one source of stimulation. But removing stimulation and shifting out of an activated state aren’t necessarily the same thing. That’s the distinction I had been missing.<\/span><\/p>

I had spent a lot of time improving the environment around sleep. I hadn’t paid nearly as much attention to the state I was bringing into that environment.<\/span><\/p>

If your body is still running in an alert state, removing the phone doesn’t automatically shift it into a state that allows for rest.<\/b> The mind can go quiet on the surface while the underlying activation stays exactly where it was.<\/span><\/p>

I know the other advice too, because I teach versions of it. Wind-down rituals. Breathwork before bed. A consistent bedtime. <\/span>These aren’t wrong, and I still use several of them myself.<\/b> But most of them ask for something specific: a mind that’s already somewhat willing to slow down, and enough leftover capacity at the end of a full day to actually follow through on one more practice.<\/span><\/p>

On the nights I needed rest most, that’s exactly when I had the least capacity left to sit through a ten-minute wind-down ritual. The advice was sound. Getting myself to actually do it, consistently, on the hardest nights, was the part that kept failing.<\/span><\/p>

That’s the gap most sleep advice doesn’t cover. It optimises the environment around sleep, and sometimes asks for more effort at exactly the moment there’s none left. It doesn’t necessarily address the physiological state the body is actually in when the lights go off.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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A Sleep-Ready Bedroom Doesn’t Always Mean a Sleep-Ready Nervous System<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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There’s a real difference between an environment that’s ready for sleep and a nervous system that’s ready for sleep.<\/span><\/p>

Screen time affects the first. It doesn’t necessarily affect the second.<\/b><\/p>

A dark room removes one source of stimulation. But the autonomic nervous system is responding to much more than the light in the room, including the accumulated demands your body has been responding to throughout the day.<\/span><\/p>

For someone who’s spent twelve hours moving between deadlines, decisions, messages and responsibilities, that activation doesn’t necessarily disappear the moment the laptop closes.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Why the Nervous System Stays “On”<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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La <\/span>sistema nervioso aut\u00f3nomo (SNA)<\/b> regulates many processes that happen largely outside conscious control. Its <\/span>sistema nervioso simp\u00e1tico (SNS)<\/b> supports alertness and mobilisation. Its <\/span>sistema nervioso parasimp\u00e1tico (SNP)<\/b> is involved in rest, digestion and recovery.<\/span><\/p>

We need both, working flexibly. The goal isn’t to eliminate alertness. It’s the ability to shift out of it once the day’s demands have genuinely passed.<\/span><\/p>

For some people, that shift doesn’t happen automatically just because it’s bedtime.<\/b> The system stays in a more activated state, tired in terms of energy, but still running in terms of alertness, which is exactly the combination people describe as “tired but wired.”<\/span><\/p>

This was the root of the distinction I’d been missing: my problem wasn’t necessarily that I hadn’t created the right conditions for sleep. It was that creating those conditions didn’t automatically change the physiological state I was bringing into bed.<\/b><\/p>

One of the main pathways involved in that shift is the <\/span>nervio vago<\/b>, the longest cranial nerve, which carries signals between the brainstem and areas throughout the neck, chest and abdomen.<\/span><\/p>

That doesn’t mean every tired-but-wired night is a “vagus nerve problem.”<\/b> But it does explain why I became interested in whether supporting this pathway could complement the sleep habits I was already using.<\/span><\/p>

If you’re curious whether this pattern applies to you specifically, a structured assessment can be a useful starting point.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Why I Was Sceptical<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I’m naturally quite a sceptical person when it comes to wellness claims, and sleep is an area with no shortage of them.<\/span><\/p>

I wasn’t interested in another app that reminded me to breathe, or another routine that asked for more discipline I didn’t have left by 10pm. What actually got my attention was research into <\/span>taVNS<\/b> (Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation), a non-invasive way of engaging the vagus nerve through the outer ear, and the fact that it didn’t require creating a separate ritual to use.<\/span><\/p>

I came into it with curiosity, not expectation. Nervous system regulation doesn’t happen through one good night. It happens gradually, through consistency.<\/span><\/p>

What interested me first wasn’t a particular brand.<\/b> It was taVNS itself, a non-invasive approach targeting auricular branches of the vagus nerve through the outer ear. More importantly for me, it didn’t require another elaborate bedtime ritual.<\/span><\/p>

That sent me looking at the devices actually using this approach. One stood out because of the research behind its technology.<\/span><\/p>

That’s when I came across Nurosym.<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What I Found: Nurosym AVNT\u2122<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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