3 Simple Strategies for Dealing with Racing Thoughts that Keep You Up at Night
We live in a fast-paced world and lead very busy lives. For many of us, when our head hits the pillow, it’s the first time that our brain has had time to breathe all day. At this moment, all of the thoughts come rushing forward, the thoughts that we haven’t had the opportunity to tend to all day long. And then...we try to sleep and find that we just can’t because there are so many thoughts running through our mind. Here are 3 simple strategies that you can try to address racing thoughts and fall asleep easier.
3 Simple Strategies to Fall Asleep Easier
1. Give yourself some downtime before you go to bed.
Giving yourself some downtime before going to bed gives you the opportunity to relax and decompress before hopping into bed. Try engaging in a relaxing activity such as reading, listening to music, or taking a warm shower. Let your mind and body naturally slow down and unwind from a busy day. This will allow for a smoother transition between a busy day and your time in bed.
2. Take 5 minutes to journal about your day before going to bed
Many people tell us that they just don’t have time in the day to do certain activities. Fortunately, this exercise can be completed in as little as 5 minutes. When trying to fall asleep, people often report that their racing thoughts include reflections about the day. Did I say something stupid? Did I handle that the right way? Did I make the right decision? Sound familiar? By taking 5 minutes out of your day to journal before you get into bed, you’re giving yourself the opportunity to reflect on and process your day. Through the process of journaling, you’re getting your thoughts out of your head and onto the paper.
If you need specific instructions, try this out:
Find a quiet place where you can journal (other than your bed).
Set a timer on your phone for 5 minutes.
Start writing about your day. Even if the first line of your journal entry is, “I don’t know what to write about…” that’s OK. Just keep going. The information that needs to come up will come up!
When the timer goes off, give yourself permission to stop, unless you’d like to keep going.
Make sure that your completed journal entry is in a place where it’s safe and secure and can only be accessed by you. Some people like to tear or shred their journal entries while others like to save them in a notebook, so they can reflect on them at a future date.
3. Create a written to-do list for the next day
The other common form of racing thought that I hear people talk about is rehearsing their plan for the following day. When we don’t have a written plan for the following day, we can find ourselves repeatedly reviewing the tasks that we have to remember. In doing so, perhaps we’re hoping that we’ll have a better chance of retaining that information and remembering it for the next day.
Nonetheless, this keeps our wheels turning, and at the end of the day, we run the risk of not remembering the things we wanted to remember. If you tend to experience racing thoughts that focus on the next day’s to-dos, make the next day’s to-do list the night before and put it somewhere where you will see it in the morning. This way, it’s out of your head, and you can rest assured that your list will be where you need it when you wake up in the morning.
I hope these 3 simple strategies will help you sleep tight!
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Written by: Melissa Wesner, LCPC
Photos: Isabella and Zsa Fischer on Unsplash
Date of Download: 7/7/2020
