Can't stop overthinking at night?

Why it gets loud at night

During the day there's always something to answer, a message or the next thing on your list. In bed there's nothing left to do, and the thoughts you had no time for get your full attention.

Being tired doesn't help. A problem that feels enormous at 1am often looks ordinary over breakfast, and nothing about the problem changed in between.

What keeps the loop going

Trying to force sleep is the usual trap. The harder you try, the more alert you get, and checking the clock adds a countdown on top.

Answering the thoughts keeps them going too. Each time you go over the argument again or plan the reply you should have given, your mind gets another round.

What helps in the evening

Write a to-do list before bed. In a 2018 study, Michael Scullin and colleagues asked young adults to spend five minutes before sleep writing either tomorrow's to-do list or what they'd already done that day. The to-do group fell asleep faster, and the more specific their lists, the faster they dropped off. It was a small study of people without sleep problems, but it costs you five minutes to try.

Give the worries an earlier slot. Spend 15 to 30 minutes in the early evening with a notebook, writing down what's on your mind and one next step for each thing. When the same thought turns up in bed, you can remind it that it's had its turn. The psychologists Sarah Kate McGowan and Evelyn Behar tested this in 2013. They asked 53 people who worried a lot to keep their worrying to one 30-minute slot a day, at the same time and in the same place, and after two weeks those people worried less and reported fewer sleep problems than a comparison group who had only been told not to push their worries away.

Leave a gap between the day and bed. Half an hour with the phone out of the bedroom, doing something dull with your hands, lets your mind slow down before you ask it to stop. News and messages in bed give the loop fresh material right when it should be running out.

Get up at the same time, even after a bad night. A lie-in feels kind, but it pushes the next night later.

If you're lying awake anyway

Let the thoughts be there without answering them. Notice one ("planning tomorrow again") and go back to your breathing or the feel of the pillow, leaving the thought unfinished. It'll come back, and you do the same again.

If it feels like you've been awake for twenty minutes or so, get up. Sit somewhere dim with something quiet, like a paper book, and go back to bed when you feel sleepy. It sounds backwards. The psychologist Richard Bootzin described it in the 1970s: your bed should become the place where you sleep, and lying awake in it for an hour works against that. Turn the clock away while you're at it. In two experiments published in 2007, the sleep researchers Nicole Tang and Allison Harvey found that people who watched a clock while trying to fall asleep worried more and thought they'd lain awake longer than people watching a display that didn't show the time. Knowing it's 3:12 only gives the worry something new to chew on.

When it's more than a few bad nights

Many people have runs of nights like this in stressful weeks, and they usually settle once the week is over. Talk to your GP or another qualified professional if it's gone on for several weeks or it's making the days hard to get through. If your thoughts at night turn to hurting yourself, or you're in danger now, call your local emergency number.

Sources

• Scullin, M. K., Krueger, M. L., Ballard, H. K., Pruett, N. and Bliwise, D. L. (2018). The effects of bedtime writing on difficulty falling asleep: a polysomnographic study comparing to-do lists and completed activity lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(1), 139-146.
• McGowan, S. K. and Behar, E. (2013). A preliminary investigation of stimulus control training for worry: effects on anxiety and insomnia. Behavior Modification, 37(1), 90-112.
• Bootzin, R. R. and Epstein, D. R. (2011). Understanding and treating insomnia. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 7, 435-458.
• Tang, N. K. Y., Schmidt, D. A. and Harvey, A. G. (2007). Sleeping with the enemy: clock monitoring in the maintenance of insomnia. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 38(1), 40-55.