Attempts to force yourself to fall asleep at night or escape your thoughts will likely fail. Instead, consider these professional suggestions.
It’s time for bed. You lay down, pull up the cover, close your eyes, and then. The thoughts come rushing in. Maybe you’re replaying a conversation from earlier in the day, chewing on a piece of unhappy news, or thinking ahead to tomorrow’s to-do list. Perhaps you start worrying about sleep and whether you’ll get enough. With the lights out and nothing else to do, it suddenly seems impossible not to focus on these thoughts. So you lie there and wait modifying for sleep to come.
If this feels familiar, know it’s a shared experience, according to the psychologist and sleep expert Natalie Solomon at Stanford University School of Medicine. ‘Although, when it’s happening to us, we tend to feel quite alone, right? It feels like the rest of the world is asleep.
Some people who struggle with preoccupying thoughts at bedtime or who wake up in the middle of the night with such thoughts will qualify as having a sleep disorder, such as insomnia, if their sleep problems are frequent and prolonged. However, this experience can come and go and won’t reach the clinical threshold for many others. Either way, when it happens, it can be frustrating and distressing.
Sleep specialists say there are self-help options if you’ve been battling this. However, you may need to change your viewpoint. Anxious thoughts are similar to quicksand, drawing you in more profoundly as you attempt to wiggle out of them.
Sleeping oneself to sleep may also be counterproductive. Solomon explains, “We have a term for when you’re trying to force sleep. That term is sleep effort.” We genuinely enter a state where we cannot sleep as we exert more and more energy. We’re becoming so tired of it that we’re becoming impatient, anxious, or desperate, making us more watchful.
It is unlikely that you will successfully force yourself to sleep at night by trying to somehow stop your mind from racing. Instead, experts suggest attempting these methods.
Examine Why Certain Ideas Are Keeping You Awake At Night
Rather than trying to escape these thoughts, you could begin by trying to understand them differently, which could change how you react to them. If you want to get to know someone quickly and deeply, ask them what keeps them up at night. Have you ever wondered why specific thoughts tend to grab your attention when you’re in bed? Have you ever wondered why particular thoughts tend to grab your attention when you’re in bed? On the surface, the reasons might seem obvious (e.g., ‘Work is important, so I worry about work’), but Ehrnstrom suggests pondering this more thoroughly. During the day or night, you can do that.
Start by asking yourself, “Why do I care?” Say you’re lying awake thinking about what’s happening in politics or the wider world. You care about these issues because you are troubled by harm, disorder, unreasonableness, etc.
Or, you could be lying there thinking about work or not getting enough sleep ahead of your workday. Why do you care so much about that? Do you want more resources? Are you concerned that others will think you are not good enough if you make a mistake?
Your thoughts can help you identify the personal principles guiding your worries, regardless of the situation. Ehrnstrom states that in the event of unsettling political notions, “We would flip around and say, so, the opposite of harm would be harmony, collaborative process… more sense of community, more sense of inclusion.” Stated differently, these are the things that are important to you and that you genuinely care about in life.
Likewise, your work-related concerns stem from your need for control over your life and competence in your field.
Why does it help to think of the values driving your nocturnal thoughts? ‘It’s normalizing [the thoughts], and it’s increasing distress tolerance – like, I have this racing thought because I care, not because there’s something wrong with me,’ says Ehrnstrom. And, she says, it allows you to ask yourself: ‘Can I choose to be caring about this … even though that means I’m going to have some racing thoughts? And that does, in a paradoxical way, mitigate the racing thoughts. Because choice is calming – it’s creating a sense of safety in a pretty uncomfortable situation.’
Instead of trying to control your ideas, dance with them
You can respond more helpfully at the moment without trying to force yourself to sleep, no matter when your thoughts come to mind at night or when you wake up at 3 am.
Solomon says that thoughts at night are more catastrophic than during the day. Health concerns or social faux pas might make deadlines more extensive and menacing. Your brain might tell you that you have made a big mistake, are falling behind, or no one likes you. She says recognizing this risk of overthinking and thinking in the worst-case scenario at night is a helpful response.
Another strategy involves employing imagery to help you feel detached from your thoughts. A classic example is to imagine a stream running by, carrying some leaves, then mentally placing each thought on a leaf and watching it drift downstream. According to Solomon, the thoughts are still there, but you see them differently.
Schedule some time during the day for “worry time.”
To relieve some night pressure, you can do a prolonged before-bedtime exercise. Scheduling worry time or designated worry time takes less than a moment.
It could be five or ten minutes, but even a few minutes is fine to think about what’s been running through your mind in bed. Ehrnstrom says the goal is not to eliminate uncomfortable thoughts and feelings but to feel control over when you feel bad.
You could prepare by writing down some notes at night representing your thoughts, then returning to that list during your worry time the next day. You can identify some of the things you tend to worry about at night when you initiate worry time. Once you have identified your worries, you might want to write down the gist of each thought and, potentially, things such as whether there is an identifiable fear underneath or which aspects of the worry are within or outside your control. Solomon points out that nothing has been identified at the end of worry time.
Establishing a routine of concern time throughout the day might help you release the hold that worries have over you at night when you’re probably not at your most productive or clearest. Ehrnstrom said, “I know you care about this stuff, and I will honor it.” They are the idea behind the sleep aid. “But that’s what we’re doing then, not now.”
Be ready to feel more tired
You can also increase your sleep appetite, which will help you quiet your thoughts at night.
Solomon says it can be beneficial to take some time and transition from a busy day to a more restful night. It could be a time to wind down. The days we’re tempted to skip it, the days we’ve been identified, are the days we need it the most. Do a soothing bath or sit on the couch with a book to wind down. Watching TV in bed is one of the most stimulating activities to avoid.
Waiting until you’re tired is a good idea. If you don’t feel sleepy before you’re lying in bed, aim for a regular target bedtime and head to your darkened bedroom at that time.
After being in bed for a while, it feels like about half an hour has passed (by your estimation; don’t keep checking the clock), and you’re still lying awake with your thoughts. Solomon suggests getting up or sitting up and doing something relaxing. Keep the lighting low as you spend time on a calming or boring activity. It could be counterproductive if you do something likely to make you feel more awake, but you can give it a chance and return to bed after some time has passed.
Solomon says that what is important to remember about these tips is not that we should expect them to help us sleep right away, but instead that they help how we relate to our thoughts. Our goal is to calm the mind with them.
Remember, the next time you fall asleep, you aren’t the only one whose mind is racing, even if it seems that way. Changing how we relate to these pesky nocturnal thoughts might make it easier to ride them out.
