Tired But Wired: Why You Can't Switch Off at Night (and What Helps)

It’s 11pm. You’ve been running since 6am and you can barely keep your eyes open on the couch. Then you get into bed and your brain switches on. Tomorrow’s meetings, an email you forgot to send, a launch idea, a conversation from three days ago.

That’s tired but wired. What’s going on underneath: when you’ve been in go-mode all day, your stress response can stay switched on even when your body is exhausted.

What does tired but wired feel like?

Women describe it in very similar ways:

• a second wind around 9 or 10pm, right when you should be winding down
• racing thoughts as soon as your head hits the pillow
• waking at 3am with your mind already working
• dragging yourself out of bed and needing coffee to function
• feeling flat at 3pm, then oddly alert after dinner

If you know this pattern, you’re not imagining it, and you’re not broken. It’s one of the most common things women describe when they’re running on empty, and it usually makes sense once you understand what’s happening underneath.

Why do you feel tired but wired at night?

Your body has two systems pulling in different directions. One is sleep pressure, which builds the longer you’re awake and makes you feel tired. The other is your stress response, which keeps you alert so you can deal with whatever’s in front of you.

When you’re stressed, your body releases adrenaline and cortisol. That’s the fight or flight response, and it’s useful in short bursts. The trouble starts when the stress never really ends.

Your daily cortisol rhythm can flatten

Cortisol normally peaks in the 30 to 45 minutes after you wake, then falls through the day to its lowest point at night. A 2017 review of 80 studies linked a flatter curve, with less difference between morning and night, to poorer health, and the researchers suggested chronic stress as one cause. The links were modest, but the pattern is a good match for tired mornings and alert nights.

Your brain hasn’t been told the day is over

If you answer email in bed, scroll before sleep or plan tomorrow at 10pm, your brain never gets the signal that it’s safe to power down. Research on more than 38,000 workers linked mentally switching off from work after hours to better sleep and recovery.

Why do founders feel it more?

Founders stack up almost every trigger at once:

• always on, with no clear end to the workday
• phones in bed and email at night
• caffeine late in the day to push through the afternoon slump
• skipped meals, then a big dinner late at night
• no line between work and home, especially if you work from home

Caffeine is easy to underestimate. In a small study of healthy sleepers, a large dose of caffeine (around two to three cups of coffee) taken six hours before bed cut measured sleep by more than an hour, and the participants didn’t realise.

What are seven habits that help many women wind down?

You don’t need all seven. Start with the two that feel easiest.

1. Have caffeine before midday only. Given how long caffeine can affect sleep, an early cut-off is a simple experiment.
2. Get morning sunlight. A few minutes outside soon after waking helps set your body clock, so sleepiness arrives on time at night.
3. Eat a real dinner. A proper meal at a reasonable time beats grazing at your desk and a late snack.
4. Dim the lights an hour before bed. Lamps instead of overhead lights tell your body it’s evening.
5. Keep your phone out of the bedroom. The Sleep Health Foundation recommends screens off one to two hours before bed and, where possible, out of the bedroom altogether.
6. Do a brain dump before bed. Write every open loop on paper: tasks, worries, ideas. Your brain doesn’t need to hold them overnight.
7. Keep the same bedtime most nights, including weekends. A regular rhythm makes sleep easier to fall into.

What does a wind-down hour look like?

Here’s an example for a 10pm bedtime. Shift the times to suit you.

Example wind-down hour

The details don’t matter much. What matters is doing roughly the same thing at roughly the same time, so your body starts to recognise the routine as the signal that the day is over.

If an hour feels impossible right now, start with 15 minutes. A short ritual you actually do beats a perfect one you skip.

What can you do when you’re lying awake?

If you can’t sleep after what feels like 20 minutes, the Sleep Health Foundation suggests getting up, leaving the bedroom and doing something calm in low light until you feel sleepy, then trying again.

A slow breathing practice can also help. In a 2023 trial, five minutes a day of cyclic sighing (two inhales through the nose, then a long, slow exhale through the mouth) improved mood and lowered breathing rate more than mindfulness meditation. It was one study, but it’s simple and safe to try.

How do hormones play into it?

For many women, sleep gets worse in the week or two before a period. Health bodies list poor sleep and tiredness as common premenstrual symptoms. In your 40s, perimenopause can add night sweats and broken sleep. If your tired-but-wired nights cluster at the same point in your cycle, that’s worth tracking and taking to your GP.

When is it more than habits?

Sometimes good habits aren’t enough, because something else is going on. See your GP if:

• poor sleep lasts more than a few weeks or is affecting your work, mood or safety
• you snore loudly, gasp or stop breathing in your sleep, or wake unrefreshed despite enough hours
• you have night sweats, hot flushes or big changes in your cycle
• you feel anxious, low or unable to cope

Your GP can check for causes such as sleep apnoea, thyroid problems, low iron or perimenopause, and refer you to a sleep specialist or psychologist if needed.

How does Hormone Magic help with the bigger picture?

Tired but wired is rarely just a sleep problem. It’s often a sign that your days, your food, your stress and your hormones are all pulling against you. Hormone Magic is my 100-day, self-paced program that looks at the whole picture through my EDGE framework: Eat, Decide, Ground and Exercise. Ground is all about calming your nervous system, and it’s often where women feel the shift first.

“My energy is much more consistent throughout the day, my stress is far more manageable... Sleep is better in quality and quantity!”

If this is one of several signs, read the signs of burnout female founders often miss.