“How to Stop Overthinking at Night”
If you struggle with falling asleep, you’ve likely wondered how to stop overthinking at night.
You lay down in bed after a stressful day. The room is cool and dark. You’re snuggled up under the covers, and you’re waiting to fall asleep and BOOM! Your mind is off to the races.
Can you relate?
As an anxiety therapist, I see that my clients have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep.
They often report that they can’t get their minds to shut down after they get into bed. They run through their schedules, plan their to-do list, and think about all of the problems that are waiting for them tomorrow morning.
In this post, I’ll cover five strategies to help you stop overthinking at night and get the rest you’ve been looking for.
Why Traditional Advice Doesn’t Work
If your thoughts are keeping you up at night, you might have tried distracting yourself with TV or listening to a podcast, keeping a journal beside your bed to write down worries, or forcing yourself to use a meditation app.
Sometimes those strategies work (or work for a time), but they usually fail. By using these in-bed strategies to quiet your mind, you are unknowingly pairing your comfy, restful bed with worry and wakefulness. Basically, you are training your body and mind to stay awake and worry in bed.
It doesn’t matter how dark or cool your room is, or how much caffeine you’ve had that day. If you’re conditioned to stay awake in bed, you won’t be able to fall asleep.
For more restful sleep, I recommend trying these more effective strategies instead.
How to Stop Overthinking at Night
Practice Worrying at Another Time and in Another Location.
Start by setting a timer for 10 minutes and get out all of your thoughts onto paper.
You can write a to-do list, write our problems or worries, make a list of birthday presents to buy, journal about your dream vacation, write about your sadness or anxiety, or celebrate a win.
Really, the goal is to write down all of the things that pop into your mind when your head hits the pillow.
The key is to do this activity away from your normal bedtime routine and in a totally neutral location. By doing this, you are retraining your mind to worry at a different time. You’re learning how to stop having negative thoughts at night.
Organize Your Worries.
Once you have all of your thoughts out on paper, try to place them in categories, and take action. Put to-do items on a calendar, make a structured grocery list, or find a place to house your “someday” ideas. Organizing your thoughts will help you take the next step.
Take a Step Toward Solving a Problem.
Look for problems, challenges, or worries that keep coming up.
Take one or two of the challenges on your list and determine one step that you could take toward solving that problem. It’s important to note that you aren’t fully solving the problem or developing the ultimate solution. You are simply looking to take one step forward.
Let’s say that you are concerned about arranging childcare for the upcoming school year. That’s a big problem to solve, and it would be impossible to solve in one single step. An example of a single step toward solving that problem could be calling childcare agencies in the area to find out more about their school year plans, posting in a local Facebook group to learn more about what other people are doing, or calling a former nanny to see if they are going to be in town for the school year.
I understand that these are really small steps.
That is the point.
You are looking to move in the direction of a solution.
Often when we are worried about something, we spend a lot of time thinking about the problem, but we take very little action toward a solution.
The goal of this activity is to start taking action.
Pick a Grounding Statement.
Inevitably when you get into bed at night after doing all of these tasks, your mind is going to spring into action as it usually does.
You haven’t failed. You’ve done nothing wrong. Your mind is in the habit of worrying when you get into bed. You are building a new habit of “worrying” at a different place and time.
As your mind adjusts to this new routine, it’s important to have a plan to deal with any thoughts that come up. A grounding statement can be really helpful. It’s a single sentence that you can repeat anytime your mind starts to worry or give reasons why this solution won’t work.
I’ll give a few examples, but it’s important that the statement is personal to you.
“I don’t need to have all of the answers, problems are solved one step at a time”
“I’m not going to forget anything. I set aside time to write down all of my concerns”
“It’s OK to rest, I will be able to tackle everything I need to tomorrow”
If All Else Fails, Get Out of Bed.
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you’ll have a bad night of worrying and overthinking. If this happens, get out of bed and worry in a different location. This usually won’t last longer than 20 minutes, and you’ll think much more clearly out of bed. By doing this you will
Stop pairing your bed with worry
Be able to think more clearly and potentially take action rather than ruminating on worry.
Get Help with Overthinking at Night
If you’re in Asheville and want support getting a better night’s sleep, I can help. Schedule a free consultation today to discover how working with me can help you stop overthinking at night and finally get a good night’s sleep.
Looking for more sleep support? Get my Top 10 Tips for Better Sleep.
Hey! I'm Samantha, an anxiety counselor living and working in Asheville, North Carolina. I teach ambitious people how to let go of anxiety so that they can love their lives again. Sound like you? I’d love to connect. Schedule a free consultation call today to get started.
