Why a thought can keep you awake at night

31 May 2024 · 1 min

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Caroline Cavanagh explains how repetitive thoughts trigger the same fight-or-flight response as physical danger, keeping your body stressed for hours or days instead of minutes. This prolonged activation causes insomnia, IBS, and other illnesses. She argues anxiety isn't a flaw but a signal that something needs your attention.

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So the fight-or-flight response is triggered regardless of whether the risk is real or whether it's thoughts churning around in your head. When it's real, a bit like George's gunman, the situation tends to come to a conclusion very quickly. But when it's a thought, that thought can kick around in your head for hours, days, months. Weeks. And that becomes then very symptomatic of conditions such as IBS, insomnia, and more significant illnesses too. And that is the main reason that anxiety gets such a hard time. But as we're starting to now perhaps accept, anxiety is not a bad thing. It's giving it leadership.