Why can't we sleep because of stress?

When we experience stress, our body goes into survival mode. This is also known as fight-or-flight mode. The moment we are in this stress mode, our body is ‘on’ with the stress.

Stress can be very functional, if there is real danger. As soon as you are relaxed again, the body can recover from the stress reaction and you can relax again with life.

But this is where things often go wrong, so that we can’t sleep due to stress:

Nowadays we get so many stimuli and impulses to us that all activate our stress system.

We are ‘on’ all day long and have far too few moments in which we are really relaxed, without a telephone or stimuli that overloads our brain.

This makes it more and more difficult to return to a deep relaxation and this in turn means that we cannot sleep due to stress.

What factors play a role in preventing us from sleeping due to stress?

There are a number of important stress factors that play a major role in preventing us from sleeping because of the stress. Based on my own experience and the experiences of my clients, I have elaborated the factors below.

Can’t sleep because of the stress: because we worry

A frequently heard stress complaint from people who cannot sleep due to stress is that they worry a lot. The moment our head falls on our pillow and we close our eyes, an endless story starts playing in our head and we start to worry.

We can especially worry about things that are not going well in our lives.

All other factors can you read in this article.