2Key Skills for Dealing with Anxiety at Night

Nighttime anxiety may be awful. You simply want to relax and drift off to sleep when your brain says, "Hey, let's conduct a fast review of everything dumb you've ever done," and you think, "What? No," your mind replies, "Okay. Point one is that. Or it can say, "Hey, let's attempt to picture every terrible event that could occur. You're unwinding. Let's obsess for a while. That sounds like fun, doesn't it? Even though nighttime anxiety might be excruciating, you don't have to endure it. So let's discuss two extremely effective techniques for reducing nighttime worry and improving sleep. Your mind is similar to a phone that requires a software update.You spend the entire day working on vital projects, talking on the phone, checking social media, and playing games, and every couple of hours it reminds you that you need to make an update. Do you want to proceed right away? Of course not, isn't that clear? Nobody wants to find themselves without a phone when they need one. Of course, you postpone doing it. You delayed installing the software update. You continue to play video games, respond to emails, and send SMS. Before your phone breaks down or forces an update at the worst possible time, the software update reminders have been present for so long that you hardly even see them any more.Our brain keeps urging us to simply confront and address things. Our brain doesn't just let anxiety go away when we ignore it during the day, divert our attention, keep busy, or put off dealing with an issue; instead, it makes sure to bring up all of our anxieties as soon as we try to fall asleep. Now, anxiousness is more prevalent at night for many people. You're left with your thoughts as things become quieter, there are less distractions, and there is less to do. And as a result, your mind thinks, "Oh, finally, it's time to do an update and deal with these anxious issues." Naturally, this causes the subsequent nocturnal anxiety problems, such as lying in bed worrying about the future or going over the past. Your mind is racing, so I guess you can't sleep. You experience insomnia. In other words, this is anxiety over having trouble falling asleep, followed by worry about how fatigued you'll be the next day, which causes additional anxiety and catastrophizing. being awakened in the middle of the night. having panic episodes upon waking. having a strong desire to leave the house or stay out of bed."Anxiety gets worse for me when the sun goes down," one of my followers commented. It seems tougher to think clearly and resist believing the pessimistic thoughts when you're anxious since your thoughts are louder. When it's extremely terrible, my mind is so noisy that I can't fall asleep. It sounds like a thousand TVs are on at once, all at maximum level and on different channels. So certainly, for some people with anxiety, the nighttime can be really challenging. However, there are two easy measures you may take to relax and sleep better while reducing your nighttime anxiety. The first piece of advice is to handle your anxiety early on. You need to deal with the underlying source of your anxiety. So what do you do? You schedule in time for worrying each day. Set up a time between 12 and 6 o'clock in the afternoon to sit down and intentionally worry. According to research, when you keep a worry notebook or schedule worries, you can fall asleep in half the time. Now, when you worry, I advise not acting on your fears mentally. So you write it down. Thus, it only appears to be making lists, writing freely about your issues, having a brain dump, or creating a graphic of your anxieties.Do this every day for a month to convince your brain that you are serious about dealing with your anxieties so that it won't need to do so at night. You can mark the days off on a calendar or use my free habit tracker to keep tabs on your progress. If you wish to go there, there is a link in the description. By practising simple self-care techniques throughout the day, you may also deal with your anxiety. It's crucial to control your circadian rhythm, which you may do by exercising, reducing your coffee intake, getting early morning light exposure, and adhering to a regular, relaxing nighttime routine.Scheduled worry is, once more, the most crucial ability here, although these other techniques can be quite beneficial. Okay. Second, get out of bed if it's already late at night and you're awake. You cannot push yourself to fall asleep. By making a lot of effort to fall asleep or by simply lying in bed for hours trying to do so, you are essentially teaching your brain to associate your bed with anxiety, stress, excitement, and being awake. As a result, falling asleep becomes harder and harder, which only makes the situation worse. Therefore, we will employ one of the most effective techniques from CBTI, or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Therefore, get out of bed if you don't fall asleep in approximately 15 or 20 minutes. Do something relaxing, dull, and uninspiring. Right? If your worries are taking over when you get out of bed, write them down and do a brain dump because you probably didn't do your scheduled worrying earlier in the day. You could also meditate, read a book, or just lounge around. But if anxiety isn't bugging you, just do something uninteresting, and then go to bed only when you're tired. No time limit applies. Simply wait until you start to nod off before trying again. It's understandable to worry that doing this will wear you out. And it may do so in the near future. Right? You could have fatigue for a few days. But once your brain is retrained to fall asleep more quickly, it will be worthwhile in the long run. This method improves sleep efficiency, which is the proportion of the time you spend in bed asleep, by increasing sleep pressure, the internal impulse to fall asleep. Second, it retrains your brain to associate the bed with sleeping rather than anxiety.You've now dealt with the main cause of the majority of sleep anxiety once you've trained your brain to worry during the day and to go to sleep at night in your bed. After that, it is OK to utilise techniques to aid in falling asleep, such as progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, mindfulness, meditation, or breathing exercises. And I cover a lot of these in my free course on grounding skills. However, if you merely attempt to utilise these methods in the long run to suppress your anxiety, your brain will continue to work against you to make you confront your worry, your fears, and run that update at the most inconvenient time. So make sure you're honestly addressing your issues and tackling them. If you still need assistance, a qualified specialist can assist you in resolving your concerns so they don't become persistent and bother you constantly.