Anxiety at Night: Quiet Your Mind at Nighttime

How often does it happen when you lay down to go to sleep and settle in for the night and your mind becomes active. Replaying the events of the day. Questioning yourself for something that happened or causing you to worry about something happening in the future.

If you are anything like what my client’s tell me, this probably happens more frequently than you would like it to. My client’s come into therapy because they are experiencing anxiety and they tell me about how restless they are at nighttime because their worries can keep them awake or give them restless interrupted sleep.

I am a therapist Wilmington NC and work with high achieving stressed out and anxious women. At almost every intake appointment I have with a new client they will tell me about their sleep disruptions or worrying at bedtime. I provide anxiety treatment and specialize in areas of perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and burnout.

There is a huge connection between anxiety and sleeplessness. Problems sleeping because of worrying can get better. Listed below are 5 things you can do to help keep your worries down at bedtime.

To learn more about anxiety check out this helpful blog posts - Understanding Your Anxiety and How to Treat it & What to Expect When You Start Therapy for Anxiety

Click the button below to online book your free 15 minute consultation with me.

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5 Things to Help Reduce Anxiety Worry at Nighttime

These 5 tips can be really helpful when experiencing worries at nighttime. Try out a few and be open to trying them a few times.

Tip #1: Write it down

Keep a notebook by your bed. I talk with my clients about this for multiple reasons. Keeping a pen and paper by your nightstand can be helpful to remembering dreams, writing down last minute reminders, journaling, or simply writing down what your mind might be telling you. Sometimes getting it out of your head and down on paper can be a simple and helpful strategy.

I encourage my clients to use good ol pen and paper versus a phone or tablet to do this. The blue light from electronic devices can also cause issues with sleep. And it by picking up your phone or tablet it makes it a lot easier to open up Facebook or Instagram and start scrolling - that’s a whole other rabbit hole to go down.

Tip #2: Drop Anchor

Dropping anchor is an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) exercise that can be really useful when getting hooked by thoughts and feelings. This exercise is one of the core skills I teach to my client anxious clients. It is a great mindfulness exercise to help bring you back to the present moment and engage in what you want to be doing.

This mindfulness exercise can last as long as 30 seconds for a few minutes and it can be helpful to go through the exercise more than once.

To learn more about ACT, check out this helpful blog post - What is ACT Therapy?

Tip #3: Leave your bed

If you have been laying in bed and you are not able to get to sleep, try leaving your bedroom. Spend a few minutes in another part of your home if you can. This can be important because if you notice a lot of your worrying happens when you lay down to go to sleep, you could be conditioning yourself to be the norm. Essentially, teaching yourself that bedtime equals worry time.

If your anxiety is elevated or you are doing a lot of worrying spending time elsewhere can allow you to associate your bed with sleep only.

Tip #4: Thank your mind

Well I’m sure this is the last thing you would think of and probably even the last thing you may want to do but yes you read that correctly - thank your mind.

We can’t necessarily stop our minds from thinking thoughts so try thanking your mind for having the thought. This method is also used in ACT and can be a useful way to not be so attached to our thoughts. Your mind is having the thought. Sometimes it can also be helpful to thank your mind in a silly voice or character voice. You can be playful with it and see what happens.

Tip #5: Create a bedtime routine

This strategy comes up a lot. Routines and structure can be really essential. Especially when there is consistency. If you develop a habit of going to bed around 10PM every night your mind and body will naturally begin to recognize this patten and start to follow suit.

Start Anxiety Therapy and Get Help with Your Nighttime Worries

Sleep is essential to mental wellness. If our mind and body is not getting enough rest it can make dealing with stress and anxiety much more difficult. Know that you can get support and help for dealing with you anxiety and worries. To get started in therapy follow the simple steps listed below.

Steps to get started in therapy at Calm Waters Counseling:

Click the button below to online book your free 15 minute consultation
Complete the brief questionnaire sent to your email
Meet with your anxiety therapist
Start getting more restful sleep

Schedule My Free 15 Minute Consultation

Additional Therapy for High Achievers in Wilmington, NC

Learn more about me and how I can help you with your anxiety. You can learn more about my Wilmington NC counseling practice here. I provide anxiety treatment to high-achieving anxious women. In addition to anxiety most of my clients also struggle with issues related to perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and burnout or work stress.

Online Anxiety Therapy in Maryland

I am licensed in to provide therapy in North Carolina and Maryland. Online therapy is available to anyone living in Maryland and North Carolina. Online therapy appointments take places on a HIPAA compliant video platform where we can see and hear each other. For more information on these services click the links below.