Sleep Anxiety Struggles
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By Nicole Marino, AMFT
Falling asleep can sometimes seem like a battle, especially when anxiety starts to creep in and suddenly all of your worries are swirling around in your mind. It is truly hard to fall asleep, even if your body is tired, when your mind won’t rest. Everyone is different and there is not one magical tip that works for all, but by changing some routines and habits around nighttime, it may help improve overall relaxation and worry leading up to bedtime!
Try sleeping focused meditations: Meditation’s purpose is to bring you into the present moment, to ease your mind, and to focus on your breathing. There are so many different types of meditations to try, but looking up sleeping meditations (use of an app or just searching in YouTube) can be very useful when it comes to relaxing a busy mind. Body scan meditations are specifically helpful when it comes to this because you are guided through focusing on each individual part of your body and relaxing any tension in your body.
Write a list of everything you are worried about: Sometimes our anxiety feels like it holds so much power, but when you write out your concerns, you are taking the power back. Often times, listed out, our worries and fears don’t look as scary or overwhelming as we once thought.
Focus on the things within your control: Following that, focus on the worries or concerns that are within your control. Often times, anxiety focuses on things that are completely out of our control and we have no power altering. Let go of the things that we cannot change because it may never even happen. Your anxiety is not a fortune-teller of what is to come in the future. It is just our fears turned into anxious and negative thoughts. Also, it is important to focus on the things you can control right in that moment because I bet there are not a lot of things that you can do while you’re in bed trying to fall asleep.
Read: This is a very relaxing activity to do before bed and can keep your mind busy leading to tiredness.
Create a bedtime routine: Going off of reading, creating a nighttime routine focused on relaxation and non-stressful activities/tasks is very beneficial when it comes to easing sleep anxiety. Creating a routine of things you look forward to doing is a form of self-care. Whether that is doing your skincare routine, reading, stretching, journaling, showering, or meditating, the key is to focus on the tasks that are not going to cause additional worries or concerns, but the activities that are going to cultivate calm energy.
Avoid use of screens: If possible, not looking at your phone before bed is a healthy sleep time habit. When you look at your phone screen or TV, your brain is stimulated and “lights up” delaying when you start to feel sleepy.
Avoid harsh lighting: Similar to use of screens, turning on bright lights at night can wake you up and do the opposite of relaxing you. Studies show that red light therapy can help with both depression and anxiety. Because of this, switching your bedroom lights to red lightbulbs can help ease anxiety especially before bed.
A to Z technique: This technique is helpful once again to focus your mind on something low risk, fun, and calming. You can pick any topic or category you would like (sports, food, songs, shows, animals, etc.) and go A through Z naming one thing within the topic that starts with each letter of the alphabet. This is a fun twist on “counting sheep”!
Listen to calming music or relaxing noises: This can definitely be different for everyone, but listening to classical music, rain sounds, ocean sounds, or even just using a white noise machine can help your mind have something to focus on rather than what you have to do tomorrow.
As stated before, not everything listed is going to work for everyone because everyone is unique and different! The purpose of this is to give techniques and tricks to try out when it comes to combating sleep anxiety. It never hurts to try something new especially when it comes to taking power back from your anxiety at night! It is so important to be getting enough rest at night so don’t let your anxiety focus on the countdown till the morning, but focus on the present moment and what you can do to help destress and get to sleep quicker.