Busy work weeks, health issues, family drama, or whatever else life throws your way at a given moment can leave you feeling stressed and anxious as hell. Unsurprisingly, that might mess with your sleep: When you’re a giant ball of nerves, it’s harder to shut off your thoughts at the end of the day.
When you’re lying awake in the middle of the night worrying about work or your relationships, your brain can go into high-alert mode, a.k.a. hyperarousal, which makes you more sensitive to your surroundings. (The creaking floor, your partner’s exhales, and your cat zooming from room to room at 3 a.m. might all seem much louder than usual.)
If you’ve been on edge and having trouble falling asleep lately, we’re sure you’re ready for the nights of staring up at the ceiling in the dark to come to an end. When stress and anxiety are stealing your rest, here’s how to chill the F out and finally get a good night’s sleep.
How to fall asleep fast when your mind is racing
1. Create a relaxing bedtime routine.
Anita Yokota, LMFT, a therapist and the author of Home Therapy, tells SELF that sticking to a sleep ritual can help things seem less chaotic when it’s time to wind down. “Create a pattern or process that ‘feels’ like bedtime. This might include washing your face, carrying out your skin care routine, meditating, or reading with a dim light.1,2 Each of these steps reminds your brain that you’re preparing for sleep,” says Yokota. “Our brains like consistency.”3
The key is doing whatever most helps you relax and feel good. For instance, you could get in a warm bath before hitting the sheets—and add a couple of drops of your favorite essential oil to the water to make it extra soothing and luxurious.
Figure out what you want your nightly sleep schedule to look like in terms of timing; then, as the Sleep Foundation recommends, get rolling with your routine at least a half hour before you actually want to be in dreamland. If planning ahead isn’t always realistic, that’s okay—just squeeze in a few minutes to do something calming and familiar each night. (This doesn’t mean spending an hour scrolling your social media feeds—too much bright light and quick stimulation before bed can keep you awake!) Following a set plan, even loosely, can reliably help you snooze even when life feels haywire.
2. Set your surroundings—and yourself—up for success.
Your sleep environment goes hand in hand with your nighttime routine: Where you’re trying to rest can have a lot to do with how easy (or not) it might feel to drift off, especially when you’re stressed out and in extra need of some peace.
First, check out how dark your room is when you’re getting ready for bed: Are street lights coming in through the window? Is your partner streaming movies? “Too much light at the wrong time can tell your body to stay awake,” Dianne Augelli, MD, a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and assistant professor of medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, tells SELF.4 Light exposure throws off your circadian rhythm (your sleep-wake cycle) and can slow or halt your body’s production of melatonin, a hormone that promotes sleep.4 There are easy tweaks you can make to help with this: To keep the room dark, Yokota uses blackout shades to make sure she gets the deep sleep she needs.5 You can also try wearing an eye mask—it’ll block out any annoying light that manages to peek through the cracks of your blinds.6
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Make your room as quiet as possible, especially because hyperarousal caused by stress makes you extra-sensitive to outside noise. It’s not always possible to shut out all the sounds around you, but you can listen to white noise to drown out what you can’t control (the sounds of a bustling city, say, or your upstairs neighbor’s late-night pacing) and to help you fall asleep.7 If you don’t have a machine, check out white noise apps like White Noise Lite or BetterSleep. Pop in some earplugs if any amount of noise feels too disruptive.
And even if you like things toasty in your home, cool things down at night. A room temperature between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit tends to be most people’s sleepy-time sweet spot.
3. Face your worries head-on.
“If you’re hyper-focused on an issue that you can’t let go of, write down what’s on your mind and tell yourself it will be there for you tomorrow,” Yokota says.4 This can majorly help with racing thoughts at night. A 2019 study investigating the effects of writing in a journal before bedtime found that jotting down a to-do list (or a “worry list,” as the researchers referred to it) helped people fall asleep faster.8 While you might be used to writing about your day, the research suggests that paying specific attention to future events will redirect your brain away from rumination about the past (like that work presentation you can’t stop thinking about because it didn’t quite go as planned).8
Those who got really specific about all the things they needed to get done the next day fell asleep even more quickly, the researchers found, so go into detail about what’s on your mind.8 Rather than writing down, “Pay the bills,” you might try, “Pay $135 electric bill tomorrow by 5 p.m.” Just five minutes of journaling can offer relief to your anxious brain.8 The study determined that people who wrote lists between 30 and 35 items fell asleep the fastest,8 so jot down as many future tasks as possible—consider it an all-the-things-that-are-weighing-on-me brain dump. To make this task easier, keep your favorite notebook and pens by your bed.
4. Pay attention to your breath instead of your stress.
When life’s occasionally gnarly demands are keeping her clients up at night, Nicole Flynn, ASW, a therapist based in Los Angeles who specializes in mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), recommends breathing exercises to help with relaxation. She particularly likes the 4-7-8 breathing technique because it can reduce your heart rate and blood pressure, both of which can spike when you’re stressed and make it harder to sleep.9,10
To do this breathing pattern, you inhale for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, then exhale for eight.9 Repeat as many times as you’d like (or until you’re snoring away). Don’t be discouraged if you find this a bit unnatural at first. “It takes time to teach our brains and bodies these new patterns,” says Flynn.11 Keep trying and you’ll likely get more comfortable as you go. If you’re new to this or just want someone to walk you through it, try SELF’s 10-minute guided sleep meditation to help lull you into slumber.
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When life is busy (and beyond stressful), it can be tough to prioritize sleep. Though rest can be hard to come by when you’re anxious as all get-out, even small improvements here will help you feel way better in the long run, since too many late nights can be taxing on your health. It’s all about taking active steps to calm yourself down, rather than just lying in the dark and hoping for the best. You got this!
Additional reporting by Patia Braithwaite and Beth Krietsch
Related:
- 5 Things to Try If Sharing a Bed Is Completely Ruining Your Sleep
- What Causes Insomnia? 8 Reasons You Can’t Sleep at Night
- 3 Things to Do If You Wake Up in the Middle of the Night and Can’t Go Back to Sleep
Sources:
- Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, The Effect of Mindfulness Meditation on Sleep Quality: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
- Trials, Does Reading a Book in Bed Make a Difference to Sleep in Comparison to Not Reading a Book in Bed? The People’s Trial*—*An Online, Pragmatic, Randomised Trial
- Behavioural Processes, The Principle of Consistency and the Cause and Function of Behaviour
- Somnology: Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine, Effects of Light on Human Circadian Rhythms, Sleep and Mood
- Sleep Health, The Association Between Insomnia and Bedroom Habits and Bedroom Characteristics: An Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study of a Representative Sample of Adults
- Journal of Sleep Research, The Effects of Earplugs and Eye Masks on Sleep Quality of Patients Admitted to Coronary Care Units: A Randomised Clinical Trial
- Sleep Medicine, The Effects of White Noise on Sleep and Duration in Individuals Living in a High Noise Environment in New York City
- Journal of Experimental Psychology, The Effects of Bedtime Writing on Difficulty Falling Asleep: A Polysomnographic Study Comparing To-Do Lists and Completed Activity Lists
- Physiological Reports, Effects of Sleep Deprivation and 4‐7‐8 Breathing Control on Heart Rate Variability, Blood Pressure, Blood Glucose, and Endothelial Function in Healthy Young Adults
- International Journal of Hypertension, The Association Between Hypertension and Insomnia: A Bidirectional Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies
- Frontiers in Psychology, How to Form Good Habits? A Longitudinal Field Study on the Role of Self-Control in Habit Formation
