Why I Couldn’t Sleep—And What Finally Fixed It

Midnight.
1 am.
2 am.

That sinking feeling when sleep just won’t come.
You’re bone tired… but your body hasn’t gotten the memo.

For years, I lived in that limbo—exhausted all day, wired at night. I couldn’t think clearly or connect with people. Everything felt harder. More brittle. More overwhelming.

Sleep should be the most natural thing in the world. But for many of us, it’s become something we have to relearn.

I Tried Everything—Except What Worked

I chased every possible hack: changing sleep positions, white noise, blackout curtains, even setting my bedroom to refrigerator temps. I cycled through elaborate pillow rituals and invested in devices with blinking lights and no clear purpose.

Nothing worked.

It wasn’t until I started digging into the biology of sleep—what actually cues our bodies to rest—that things began to shift.

Light Sets the Rhythm

The most powerful signal our body receives all day? Light.
Not caffeine. Not supplements. Not how many hours you lie in bed.

Light is what tells your body whether it should be alert or preparing to rest. And most of us are constantly sending the wrong signals.

Modern lighting—especially screens and LEDs—emits sharp spikes of blue light that suppress melatonin and shift your circadian rhythm later than nature intended. Even when it’s not “bright,” this artificial light tells your brain it’s daytime.

I didn’t want to live in total darkness after sunset. I wanted a way to live in sync with nature—without giving up light entirely. That’s a big part of what led me to develop the FireLight Infrared Bulb.

FireLight is a full-spectrum incandescent bulb, but it’s uniquely engineered to peak in the red and near-infrared range, mimicking the warmth of firelight or candlelight—light sources humans evolved with for millennia.

This kind of light does more than just avoid blue light spikes. The red and near-infrared wavelengths in the FireLight spectrum support mitochondrial health, helping cells restore and repair more effectively overnight. They stimulate cytochrome-c oxidase, a key enzyme involved in cellular respiration and energy production—essential processes for recovery and resilience. These wavelengths also help reinforce natural circadian alignment, making it easier for the body to wind down, produce melatonin, and shift into a parasympathetic state where true rest becomes possible.

The result? A light that feels right—and helps you reclaim the rhythms your body’s been craving. It felt almost magical, my sleep immediately improved that very night, and every night thereafter. For some, shift is more subtle at first. But over time, the body responds. I started falling asleep faster and waking up with a calm energy I hadn’t felt in years.

The Temperature Drop You’ve Never Thought About

One of the biggest biological triggers for sleep?
A drop in core body temperature.

About two hours before natural sleep onset, your body should begin to cool itself. This cooling signals the brain to start producing melatonin and to shift into parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) mode.

But here’s the catch: in our overstimulated, temperature-controlled, screen-lit world, this cooling process doesn’t always happen the way it’s supposed to. Many of us are too sedentary, too stressed, or exposed to too much artificial light—so the body’s natural cooling rhythm gets disrupted.

That’s why supporting it manually can make such a difference.
And it’s also why simply turning down the thermostat often doesn’t work.

I had misunderstood this at first—thinking I could just chill my room to arctic levels and knock myself out. It didn’t work. What I really needed was a rise in core temperature first, so that the subsequent cooldown would trigger the right physiological response.

That’s exactly what sauna does.

A 15–20 minute infrared sauna session raises your core body temperature gently and deeply. When you step out, your body begins to cool—mimicking the natural evening temperature drop and telling your nervous system it’s safe to let go.

It’s one of the most physiologically sound, time-tested ways to support sleep. And still one of the most overlooked.

Stress and the Sympathetic Hijack

Here’s the other thing no one told me:
You can’t fall asleep if your nervous system thinks you’re still running from a threat.

Our default state—screen exposure, constant notifications, overstimulation—keeps us in sympathetic dominance. That means cortisol is high, GABA is low, and your body is bracing for action, not restoration.

The antidote isn’t just relaxing. It’s activating the parasympathetic state.

Heat therapy—especially in the absence of EMFs and flickering lights—can help shift this balance. The body enters a relaxed, meditative rhythm. Muscles unclench. Heart rate variability improves. GABA production increases.

And only then does the body feel safe enough to rest.

That’s why I built our saunas without WiFi, without LEDs, and with the option to fully shield EMFs using our SilverLining fabric. It's not about paranoia—it's about creating a space that gives your nervous system a break from the invisible stressors it’s constantly responding to.

I even built a canopy for my bed using SilverLining because the sleep quality was so profoundly better inside that shielded cocoon. (Okay, maybe a little extravagant. But the calm is real.)

The Real Shift

None of this is hypothetical—it’s something I went through personally. Years of restless nights and failed fixes eventually pushed me to build something radically different. A healing space rooted in real biology, natural rhythms, and the kind of light our bodies are built to respond to.

That became the FireLight Sauna.

If you’re stuck in a cycle of not sleeping, I hope this helped illuminate what might be missing—because your body hasn’t forgotten how to sleep. It just needs the right conditions. That starts with reducing exposure to blue light in the evening, supporting the natural rise-then-drop in core body temperature, creating space for the nervous system to return to a parasympathetic state, and protecting your sleep environment from overstimulation and subtle stressors that keep you unconsciously alert.

If you’re ready to feel that shift in your own life, the FireLight Sauna was built for this. It’s not just another sauna—it’s a full-spectrum healing tool. One that works with your biology, restores energy at the cellular level, and invites the kind of deep, dependable sleep that changes how you feel during the day.

And with our 100-day home trial, there’s no pressure. Just the chance to experience what it’s like when everything finally starts to work again—when your body feels safe, your mind lets go, and rest comes naturally.

Because sleep isn’t a luxury. It’s the foundation for everything else you want to feel.

References