Exhausted at 3 p.m., Yet Wide Awake at 3 a.m.

May 10, 2026|Tania Mullan

YOUR SUPPORT OPTIONS

Exhausted at 3 p.m., Yet Wide Awake at 3 a.m.

Why is my body clock upside down? Because sleep is not only a night-time job. Your whole day helps decide what happens after dark.

Written and edited by Tarnia Mullan, Founder of SOMA Wellness Co. · May 2026 · 14 min read

Quick Answer: Why am I exhausted by 3 p.m. but wide awake at 3 a.m.?

This wired-but-exhausted pattern can happen when sleep pressure, hormonal change, stress load and the body's internal clock stop working together as neatly as they once did. You can feel flattened in the afternoon, develop a baffling second wind at night and wake again between 2 and 4 a.m.

It is not always one early cortisol spike, and it is not automatically "just perimenopause". Hot flushes, sleep apnoea, alcohol, medication, pain, mood and other health conditions can all contribute.

The most useful approach supports both ends of the day: stronger morning signals for alertness and steadiness, plus calmer daytime and evening practices that help the nervous system move out of constant demand and towards rest.

3:14 a.m.

You know it is 3:14 a.m. because you checked your phone. Then you checked it again, apparently in case time had changed its mind.

You were not even stressed when you fell asleep. You were exhausted. The proper, bone-deep kind. At 9:30 p.m. your eyes were closing during a television show you had specifically chosen to watch.

Now you are wide awake, heart moving a little too quickly, brain reviewing something you said at a dinner party in 2019, whether you turned the oven off, and every life decision that would improve immediately if you had access to a time machine. In that order.

By 3 p.m. tomorrow, you will be dragging yourself through emails on stubbornness, caffeine and whatever is left at the bottom of the yoghurt tub. Then bedtime will arrive and your body will develop opinions.

If that sounds familiar, your sleep problem may not begin at bedtime. It may be a full 24-hour rhythm problem.

The body clock problem nobody explains properly

Sleep is often discussed as though it is a performance you put on after 10 p.m. Dark room. No phone. Nice pillow. Think peaceful thoughts. Off you go.

Except your body clock has been collecting information since morning.

Light, darkness, movement, meals, caffeine, stress and the time you get out of bed all help tell the brain when to be alert and when to become sleepy. The central clock in the brain coordinates daily rhythms across the body, including melatonin and cortisol. Sleep pressure builds separately while you are awake.

Think of it as two hands reaching for the same light switch. One is your body clock saying, "Night has arrived." The other is sleep pressure saying, "We have been awake long enough." In midlife, those hands do not always arrive together.

That is why you can be exhausted without feeling sleepy. Fatigue is not the same thing as biological readiness for sleep.

"For two years I didn't sleep well. Never a full night. No peace. Restlessness and heart palpitations were my steady companions at nightfall." — Oprah Winfrey

Oprah later described going from doctor to doctor before learning that sleeplessness and palpitations could be part of the menopause transition. It proves that access, intelligence and resources do not protect a woman from being blindsided by a badly explained biological change.

Why midlife can make the timing wobble

Sleep disturbance is one of the most common and bothersome concerns around menopause. The reasons overlap: reproductive hormone change, hot flushes and night sweats, ageing, mood, pain, medication, restless legs, sleep apnoea and the strain of a life that has been running over capacity for years.

Oestrogen and progesterone interact with brain systems involved in sleep, temperature and circadian timing. Cortisol normally follows a daily rhythm and begins rising towards morning. Sleep and cortisol influence each other, and studies in menopausal women show a more complicated relationship.

Professor Rebecca Thurston's work on menopause, vasomotor symptoms and sleep has helped establish that night sweats and reproductive hormones matter, but neither explains the foundational sleep problem. Understanding the impact of your disrupted circadian rhythm has become a fundamental requirement — not just accepting the upside-down body clock as the "new normal".

Dr Mary Claire Haver also treats sleep as foundational to midlife health rather than a luxury. Her practical guidance pairs circadian support with a regular routine, because the body clock responds to repetition. Not perfection. Repetition.

"In biology, timing is everything." — Professor Russell Foster, Oxford circadian neuroscientist

Research callout: what the evidence supports

A 2025 clinical review describes sleep changes as early indicators of perimenopause and concludes that hot flushes and reproductive hormones contribute, but do not fully account for the range of sleep problems women experience.
A 2024 study using overnight sleep measurement and frequent cortisol sampling found that poorer sleep architecture was associated with higher cortisol measures in menopausal women. It did not show one universal 3 a.m. cortisol spike.
Research on circadian timing in postmenopausal women suggests that age- and hormone-related changes may shift rhythms of alertness, temperature, melatonin and cortisol earlier in women, which contributes to early-morning waking in midlife women.

Translation: the pattern is biological, but layered. It's not just hormones. Anyone selling one explanation for every woman is making the science tidier than it is.

Your body may be living a mild version of jet lag

Jet lag feels terrible because the clock inside you and the world outside you disagree. Shift workers live with a stronger, repeated form of the same mismatch. Their sleep, light, meals and activity happen at times the internal clock did not expect.

That does not mean a woman with broken midlife sleep has shift-work disorder. It means the research gives us a useful picture of why timing matters. Circadian misalignment can affect alertness, mood, metabolism, immune signalling and performance.

You can be doing many sensible things and still feel as though none of them land because the foundation is moving. It is hard to build energy on broken sleep. It is hard to build calm on a brain that has been awake since 3:14 a.m. It is hard not to reach for caffeine at 3 p.m. when you still have your second shift at home to get through.

This is why circadian support is foundational. A steadier clock creates a better platform for medical care, nutrition, movement, botanicals and nervous-system practices to work from. It is hard to keep all the balls in the air when the ground and sky feel upside down.

"Menopause symptoms were interfering with my workout routine, my sleep and my family life." — Michelle Obama

The 3 p.m. crash and the 9 p.m. second wind

The afternoon dip is not invented by perimenopause. Human alertness naturally falls somewhat in the mid-afternoon. But poor sleep, an irregular body clock, under-fuelling, medication, pain, low iron, thyroid problems or sleep apnoea can turn a normal dip into a daily collapse.

There is a difference between thinking, "A coffee would be nice," and needing to lie down because remaining upright feels like an unreasonable workplace demand.

Then comes the second wind. You have been flat all day, but at 9 p.m. you begin reorganising a drawer, researching a holiday you are not taking and composing an excellent reply to a message nobody sent. Evening light, work, stress and screens can keep signalling "it's still daytime" long after the sun has clocked off.

The ramifications of broken or non-restorative sleep often show up the next day as word-finding trouble, reduced concentration and the frightening sense that your brain has become unreliable. Read What's Going On With My Brain? for the deeper cognitive explanation.

It can also impact your ability to emotionally regulate, contributing to those out-of-nowhere surges of rage that can also come as a surprise in midlife. When poor sleep leaves you emotionally flammable the next day, read Why Am I So Angry? for the biology and shame-reducing explanation.

Your nervous system needs moments when nothing is required of it

Circadian rhythm is not only about outside cues. The body clock, sleep system and autonomic nervous system are in constant conversation. During deeper non-REM sleep, parasympathetic activity generally rises while sympathetic activity falls. That shift supports the quieter cardiovascular and metabolic state associated with restoration.

You cannot force that switch with positive thinking. But you can give the body more chances to practise moving out of constant demand.

Harvard cardiologist Dr Herbert Benson called this the "relaxation response", a physiological state opposite to stress. Slow breathing has measurable effects on heart rate variability consistent with parasympathetic activity (the 'resting' state). Research on meditation, yoga and tai chi is also encouraging.

The practice can be ordinary. Take your afternoon botanical infusion outside instead of drinking it over your keyboard. Sit where there is a garden. Notice the petals, the light or the bee conducting very serious business in the lavender. For five minutes, stop feeding the brain more problems to solve.

Breathwork, gentle movement, creativity, music, guided relaxation and sound meditation can serve the same purpose: a defined period in which the body is not being asked to produce, decide, answer or hurry. Sound-bowl research is promising. Its practical value is it creates time, sensory focus and permission to downshift. This does not add another achievement to the list. It interrupts the list.

SOMA Circle — two hours that are not an indulgence. SOMA Circle is a monthly gathering for women in North Brisbane to step out of the noise for two hours through practices such as breathwork, sound, gentle movement, creativity, botanical ritual and honest conversation. It is not a medical treatment and it will not reset a circadian disorder in one evening. It is a recurring anchor: protected time to practise the shift from constant output towards restoration. When your nervous system has spent years being available to everyone, carving out two hours is not selfish. It is a health investment and a place to begin. → Explore the SOMA Circle

Three ways to help your clock know what time it is

1. Give morning a stronger signal. Get outdoor light soon after waking. You do not need to stare at the sun, buy a biohacking lamp or stand outside performing a wellness ceremony while the neighbours reverse out of the driveway. Open the door. Take the dog out for her morning business. Take your cuppa outside for five minutes. Morning light is one of the strongest cues to the circadian clock.

2. Build small downshifts into the day. Do not wait until bedtime to ask a nervous system that has been sprinting for fourteen hours to become serene on command. Use one or two brief moments of reprieve: slow breathing, a short walk, lunch outside, music, a page of journalling, five minutes looking at something that is not a screen. We call these "SOMA moments". The goal is not perfect calm. It is to stop treating constant activation as the only mode you run in.

3. Make evening cues boring enough to work. Dimmer light. Fewer decisions. The same shower. The same journal. The same botanical infusion. A quieter final hour. Your household may need to be informed that conversations beginning with "we need to talk" at 9:30 p.m. are no longer operational. This is not avoidance. It is scheduling, and it is guarding the downshift of your nervous system like it matters — because it does.

Alcohol — yes, I'm going there. It can make you sleepy at first, though research is clear it fragments sleep later, specifically in a midlife woman's biological landscape. It remains in many midlife women's toolkits for sanity, though the cost may be higher than perhaps realised. Caffeine — my crutch for energy for decades — can last longer than the person drinking it would like to believe. Change one variable at a time, or you may spend a week avoiding coffee, wine, television, joy and your partner with no idea which sacrifice made the difference.

Medical check — when it may not be only your body clock. Ask for medical assessment if you snore loudly, gasp, wake with headaches or a dry mouth, experience new palpitations, have restless or painful legs, fall asleep while driving, or remain profoundly unrefreshed despite enough time in bed. Sleep apnoea is often missed in women because it may present as insomnia, fatigue, low mood or brain fog rather than the stereotype of a loudly snoring man. Iron, thyroid, B12, vitamin D, medication, pain, depression, anxiety and other conditions can also contribute. Perimenopause can be part of the picture without being the whole picture. Unsure whether the wider pattern is perimenopause? Read How Do I Know If I'm in Perimenopause? and use the 60-day tracker to take something more useful than "I'm tired" into the appointment.

A Peek Behind the Curtain: Why I did not create one simple 'sleepy-time' blend

Circadian disruption was the main symptom that seeded SOMA botanical infusions.

I did not understand how directly the night and the next day were feeding each other. If I slept badly, my moods were worse, my stress was higher and the chance of my car keys ending up in the fridge increased. Then I would have a day under pressure, and find it even harder to switch off that night. It was a feedback loop with no exit in sight.

At my worst, 3 p.m. was not a dip. It was a compulsory shutdown. I needed a 'nanna nap' from roughly 3 to 5 p.m. every afternoon or I could not function. I would still be ready for bed by 9 p.m., then be wide awake around 3 a.m., staring at the ceiling and mentally revisiting every mistake I had made since 1986.

I tried prescription melatonin, sleeping tablets, gummies, powders and everything TikTok promised would restore my sleep and sanity. The tablets left me groggy. Then I needed caffeine to function. I began to feel like Elvis: downers at night, uppers by day. That did not seem like a sustainable health plan.

That was when I stopped treating day and night as separate problems.

I found plenty of sleepy teas, stress teas, generic menopause teas, but not a functional day-and-night system focused on the nervous system. I also had autoimmune and medication considerations. I did not want phytoestrogens like ashwagandha, red clover, potential immune triggers like black cohosh, or ingredients that did not fit my health history like St John's wort.

So I worked with a naturopath and researched the most clinically studied botanicals for stress, mood and sleep to support daytime steadiness and evening downshift — and crafted what has become the SOMA Duo.

My own routine is still not glamorous. I take Lola outside in the morning and get light on my face while she goes to the toilet. At night, I get the worries out of my head and onto paper, make my Moonlight cuppa and listen to something quiet enough that my brain stops trying to chair a meeting.

The recalibration process was not without its sacrifice — the benefits have by far outweighed the costs. I had to work hard to give up my reliance on my mochas. Being a 'mocha-girl' since the 80s, it was an adjustment. However, I quickly discovered the recipe I enjoyed with a little manuka honey, and now I genuinely crave the calmer lift of Vitalitea without the jittery cost later. Serenitea I enjoyed from the moment it was crafted and tested on the tasting panels.

I couldn't find what my body needed, so I created it. And now I hope it equally supports other women looking for quality options for their midlife toolkit.

With warmth, Tarnia Mullan Founder, SOMA Wellness Co.

Why the SOMA Duo supports both ends of the day

SOMA Duo was designed around one idea: daytime function and night-time restoration are not separate departments.

Vitalitea Daylight uses gotu kola, tulsi and lemon balm as a morning botanical ritual for calm focus and steadier daytime capacity. Tulsi has placebo-controlled human evidence relevant to general stress symptoms, including exhaustion, sleep-related problems and forgetfulness. Lemon balm has human research relevant to calm, mood and performance under stress. Gotu kola has human research relevant to acute stress response and a long history of cognitive use.

Serenitea Moonlight uses passionflower, lemon balm and chamomile as part of the evening downshift. These botanicals have human research relevant to sleep, calm and an unsettled mind at night.

The botanicals are not external clock-setters in the way morning light is. Their role is to nourish the nervous-system layer around the clock: supporting calm alertness by day and a gentler transition towards rest at night. The ritual helps reinforce the difference between daytime and evening.

Morning kettle. Daylight. Outdoor light. Evening kettle. Moonlight. Dimmer light. Fewer demands. Over time, the ritual becomes part of a steadier daily rhythm.

Where SOMA fits — a practical day-and-night layer. Vitalitea is the morning ritual for calm focus and daytime steadiness. Serenitea is the evening ritual for settling and supporting sleep. SOMA Duo connects the two, because the quality of your night shapes the capacity you have tomorrow, and the way tomorrow is lived shapes how easily your system settles again.

→ Explore the SOMA Duo — SOMA is hormone-free, stimulant-free and sedative-free.

Your off switch has not disappeared

Most women do not need another lecture about sleep hygiene.

They need to know why their body can feel sedated at 3 p.m. and professionally alert at 3 a.m. They need someone to explain that hormones, temperature, sleep pressure, circadian timing, nervous-system load and health conditions can overlap without turning the answer into a medical crossword.

The aim is not perfect sleep every night. The aim is clearer signals and the right help for anything a ritual cannot solve.

Start with morning light. Keep the wake time steadier. Create small downshifts before bedtime. Investigate snoring, palpitations and relentless fatigue. Use medical, hormonal, nutritional, psychological, community and botanical support in the combination that fits your body. Your body. Your toolkit. Your choice. Then repeat the useful things long enough for your nervous system to recognise them.

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