The Sundown Spiral

The light shifts. The day winds down. Your calendar is finally slowing… but your body doesn’t get the memo. You can feel it building in the background like a storm rolling in:

Please let me sleep tonight.
I can’t do another night like last night.
What if it happens again?

By the time you actually get into bed, you’re not just “ready for sleep.”

You’re bracing.

That’s what I call The Sundown Spiral—that mounting dread that shows up as the day ends, when your brain starts scanning the horizon for night like it’s something you have to survive.

And if you’ve been there, you know how it goes:

You’re lying in bed. Eyes closed. Room at the perfect temperature. The mattress you spent way too much money on is cradling your body just right. Everything is set for sleep.

And yet.

Your eyes won’t stay closed. Your mind won’t stay quiet. And the thought creeping in—the one that makes your chest tighten—is this:

What if I don’t sleep tonight?

Not: What if I mess up the presentation tomorrow? Not: What if I forget to send that email?

Just: What if I don’t sleep?

And suddenly, you’re not just tired. You’re afraid of what tired will do to you tomorrow.

Sound familiar?

The Sundown Spiral: When Your Brain Starts “Preparing” for Night

Here’s what’s happening (in normal-human language):

Your subconscious—the automatic part of you that runs patterns without asking permission—has learned a pretty loud association:

Night = risk.

Not bear in the kitchen risk. More like:

• I won’t be able to function tomorrow.

• I’m going to mess up that meeting.

• I’ll feel so foggy I can’t safely drive.

• What if this starts affecting my health?

So your brain does what brains do when they think risk is coming: it ramps up.

More scanning. More checking. More mental rehearsal. More “solutions.” More alertness.

And that’s the twist that makes this spiral so brutal:

The thing your brain is doing to protect you… is the exact thing that blocks sleep.

You’re not sleeping because you’re afraid you won’t sleep. And the fear itself becomes the caffeine.

Why “Just Relax” Backfires (Especially for High-Performers)

If you’ve been dealing with this for months—or years—you’ve heard the suggestions:

• “Just relax.”

• “Stop thinking about it.”

• “Try some tea.”

• “Have you tried meditating?”

And maybe you have. Like, all of it. The supplements. The sleep specialists. The eye masks and white noise machines and blackout curtains. The expensive mattress (because surely that will do it).

But when your brain believes night is a threat, “just relax” can feel like telling your smoke alarm to be quieter… while it’s convinced there’s a fire.

What’s actually happening is functional and predictable:

Your nervous system learned that evening is when it needs to be on.
Alert. Ready. Problem-solving. Protecting.

Even if the original reason is long gone—divorce season, job stress, a health scare, burnout—your brain can keep running the same old program because it once worked.

And research-backed sleep psychology shows us something important: the more pressure you put on sleep, the more activated your system becomes. Your brain starts practicing vigilance at the exact time you want it to practice letting go.

But the hopeful part is still true:

What your brain has learned, it can unlearn.

The Loop Gets Louder When You’re Tired (Because… of course it does)

Let’s talk about what this does over time—especially if you’re a driven professional who still has to show up, lead, and make decisions even when your brain feels like static.

It’s not just “I’m tired.”

It’s:

• You can’t think clearly during the day.

• You feel too lightheaded to drive safely.

• You get emotional at night, not because something happened, but because you’re running on fumes.

• You start thinking, How am I still functioning?

And then comes the part that really tightens the knot:

You start fearing what the exhaustion means.

Not just being tired—what being tired could do to your work, your health, your patience, your memory, your ability to lead.

That’s the simplest definition of the spiral: you’re not only dealing with sleeplessness—you’re dealing with the fear of sleeplessness.

And your subconscious is watching all of this and going, See? Night is a problem. We should stay alert and solve it.

Plot twist: the “solving” is what keeps you awake.

Which means the way out isn’t more force.

It’s a different relationship with what’s happening.

The Reframe: Your Brain Isn’t Being Dramatic. It’s Being Protective.

I know—when you’re staring at the ceiling at 3 AM, it can feel like your brain is sabotaging you.

But here’s the gentler truth:

Your subconscious isn’t trying to torture you. It’s trying to protect you.

Somewhere along the line, it learned: If we stay awake, we stay in control.

Maybe it was a high-pressure season at work. Maybe it was parenting stress. Maybe it was a health scare. Maybe it was just too many months of carrying too much.

Your brain filed it under: Night = when we need to monitor, manage, and prepare.

So when sundown hits, it starts spinning up the system.

Not because you’re weak. Not because you’re failing.

Because your brain is doing its job—just in the wrong direction.

And that matters, because it means this is changeable:

This is a learned pattern. And learned patterns can be rewired.

That’s where hypnotherapy comes in.

How Hypnotherapy Interrupts The Sundown Spiral

Here’s what most people don’t get about hypnotherapy (because Hollywood did us dirty):

It’s not someone swinging a watch and making you “pass out.”

It’s working with the subconscious part of your mind—the part that’s running the evening program on autopilot—so it stops treating night like a threat.

When we work together, we’re not just talking about sleep hygiene or swapping tips.

We’re helping your nervous system update its assumptions.

We look at:

• when the spiral started (or when it got worse),

• what your brain thinks it’s preventing,

• and what it believes will happen if it doesn’t stay alert.

Then we do the rewiring part: guided hypnosis + deep nervous system settling + specific subconscious suggestions that teach your brain a new association:

Nighttime = safe.
Bed = recovery.
Sleep = allowed.

Because your brain doesn’t need more convincing arguments.
It needs a new felt sense.

And over time, that changes what happens at 6 PM… not just at midnight.

Breaking Free from the 'Last Resort' Feeling

If you're reading this and thinking, This is my last option. I've tried everything else: I see you.

I've worked with so many people who come to me exhausted, frustrated, and honestly a little skeptical that anything could help. They've been to sleep specialists. They've tried pills, teas, supplements, therapy. They've spent thousands of dollars on mattresses and sleep studies.

And nothing worked.

Not because they didn't try hard enough. But because they were treating the symptoms: not the source.

The source is your subconscious mind. The part of you that learned, somewhere along the way, that nighttime is when you need to be awake. And until you address that part, no amount of melatonin or white noise is going to give you the deep, restorative sleep your body is craving.

Hypnotherapy doesn't just help you fall asleep. It helps you rewrite the story your brain has been telling itself about sleep. It helps you move from fear to trust. From vigilance to rest. From exhaustion to restoration.

What Happens When You Finally Let Go

Imagine this:

You lie down at night. Your head hits the pillow. And instead of that familiar tightness in your chest: the What if I don't sleep tonight? anxiety: you feel… calm.

Not forced calm. Not the kind of calm you have to white-knuckle your way into. Just… quiet.

Your mind doesn't race. Your body doesn't tense. You don't check the clock every twenty minutes, calculating how many hours you could still get if you fell asleep right now.

You just… drift.

And when you wake up in the morning, you feel rested. Not perfect. Not like you just came back from a spa retreat. But rested. Like your body did what it was supposed to do. Like your brain finally got the memo that it's okay to let go.

That’s what’s possible when you soften The Sundown Spiral—when you stop treating sleep like a test you have to pass, and start giving your subconscious a new role: not night-watchman, but nervous-system ally.

The Sleep Switch: The 8-Week Deep Sleep Reset (So You Stop the Sundown Spiral)

If evenings have started to feel heavy—like your body tenses up before you’ve even brushed your teeth—I want you to know there’s a way to come out of the Sundown Spiral without forcing yourself to “calm down.”

The Sleep Switch: 8-Week Reset is an 8-week journey designed to help your nervous system remember how to rest. Not as a performance. Not as a pass/fail test.

As a skill your brain can relearn.

Find Out When the Next Cohort Begins

And because I know how tender this work can feel when sleep has been hard for a long time, here’s the promise we make inside the program:

Guaranteed results: if you don’t see a measurable shift in sleep quality, you’ll get lifetime access to the portal and you can join any future live cohort at no extra cost.
In other words: we stay in the work with you until you’re sleeping better.

If you’re ready to reclaim your nights and soften sundown for real, join the waitlist or sign up at jazziesmith.com/thesleepswitch.