Middle of Night Worrying

This happened to me last night.  

Awake at just before 2 am, and still awake at just after 4 am.  My mind filled with failures, mistakes, errors and the thought that worse is to come.  

I awoke again at ten minutes to six bleary, worn out, and unwilling to rise.  I managed to return to sleep for an hour or so and when I woke my mind was quite peaceful.  

How come this happens?

A quick google leaves me with no answers.  Tiredness is of course one reason, the brain expects you to  be asleep in the middle of the night and is weak in defending worries.  So, once awake that fear appears, the worry re tomorrow, the people you wish to avoid, the memory of failure from the past, all crowd in.  During the day these may appear but other activities drown them out, in the night, especially the long winter nights now approaching, these are free to wander around the brain.

I read of people with full time anxiety synedrome taking herbal measures to cure this, I'm not sure they work.  The only answer is to return to sleep, or if not able, to rise, drink tea and eat something, this settles the body somewhat, the mind follows.  

Of course some people like to hang on to there worries.  It allows them to dwell in self-pity, or resentment, or just escape their life.  None of this brings reprieve in my view, just harm, and self harm at that.  

There are those who suffer various kinds of insomnia that requires medical help, but I do not refer to that.  I think this middle night anxiety is something common to all, the infrequent late night anxiety that disappears with dawn.  Maybe the body gives more cortisone as we rise, maybe sleep has done its work, maybe we just did not eat properly in the evening, maybe, just maybe, we will never know.

Jesus of course is the answer.  Failure to trust his response causes many fears, and failure to respond to him at 3 am engourages fears, do we not trust him?  Sometimes we just wallow instead of being faithful.