Anxiety- How to Calm Those Racing Thoughts at Night

Are you having a hard time falling asleep? You’re not alone. Plenty of people struggle with insomnia, particularly due to racing thoughts at night. Those thoughts that won’t stop, that may even make you anxious, keep you up at night. And it’s hard to know how to control them. That’s why you and many others struggle to fall asleep.

But there are ways to calm those hyperactive thoughts of yours. Some take more time than others. Instant fixes are few and not always effective. But if you keep trying, you’ll see how things improve as time passes. It takes some time and effort, but you can calm those racing thoughts that keep you awake at night.

Set Up a Routine

There is, unfortunately, no instant solution to this problem, but there are things you can start to do to avoid it in the long run. Setting up a good, calming night routine is a good start. But be careful when you do — it needs to be a routine that eases you into sleep.

Try to stick to calm activities and make sure to follow good sleep hygiene when you do. Keep lights on low after dark and don’t keep your bedroom too warm. Maybe play some relaxing music while you get ready for bed. With some trial and error, you’ll be able to find the perfect night routine to help you sleep better.

Worry Time

A lot of people worry at night because they’re too busy to do so during the day. If that’s the case for you, the best thing you can do is schedule a time to worry. Maybe it’s sometime during the day when you can sit down and go through your worries and plan solutions. Or maybe you want this to be part of your night routine where you sit and write things down, try journaling.

It doesn’t matter when you do it or how. What matters is that you allow yourself to worry at least some of the time. It can help free your brain from those thoughts when it’s time to go to bed.

Meditate

Sometimes, worrying thoughts can make it harder for you to breathe. At the very least, your breaths will be shallow, and that only feeds your worry further. But there are ways to combat that. By meditating or, if that seems too daunting, doing breathing exercises where you can deepen your breathing.

These techniques force you to focus on your breathing, which means they will force you to push those racing thoughts of yours aside. It’s not easy to do so on your own, but focusing on your breathing may calm those thoughts that don’t let you sleep.

Don’t Toss and Turn

If nothing works and you can’t fall asleep because you’re too busy worrying, that’s okay. Sometimes, our best efforts aren’t enough. It just means we need a break before we try again. So, if you notice you’ve been trying and failing to sleep for twenty or thirty minutes, then get up and take a break.

Move to a different room and do a calm activity. You can try reading a book or listening to calming music. You can choose to listen to a podcast too. It doesn’t matter what you choose to do as long as it’s calming and it gets you out of bed. Once you’ve taken that break, you can go back to bed and try to sleep again.

Seek Help

Sometimes, you need more help than just a few tips. Sometimes, you need professional help. You need counseling. There’s nothing wrong with that. It happens to many of us, so don’t hesitate to reach out for help if you need it.