Racing thoughts at night
For many people with insomnia, the body is tired and the mind won’t stop. Plans for tomorrow, things left undone, a conversation replayed, and, more and more, thoughts about sleep itself. “If I don’t fall asleep soon, tomorrow is ruined.”
Why the mind speeds up at night
During the day, work and other people keep thoughts busy. In a dark, quiet room there’s nothing else to hold attention, so whatever is unfinished comes forward. Worry also raises arousal in the body, with a faster heart and tense muscles, and that arousal pushes sleep away. Then not sleeping becomes one more thing to worry about.
Allison Harvey’s cognitive model of insomnia describes this loop. Worry about sleep leads to watching for signs of not sleeping, which leads to more worry. Trying hard to sleep is part of the loop too.
What helps
Give worries an earlier time. Worry time is a set 15 or 20 minutes early in the evening, well before bed, for writing down what’s on your mind and a next step for each thing you can act on. Colleen Carney and William Waters tested a version of this, called constructive worry, with college students who had insomnia, and found it calmed a busy mind at bedtime. When a worry shows up later, you can remind yourself it already has a place.
Wind down. A buffer of 30 to 60 minutes before bed for calm, ordinary things gives the mind time to slow. Your routine is yours to build. The point is a clear line between the day and the night.
Look at thoughts about sleep. Some common beliefs make nights harder than they need to be.
- Needing eight hours every night. Sleep need varies, and the body copes with one short night better than it feels like it will.
- A bad night ruins the next day. Many days after a poor night go better than expected. Noticing those days is part of the work.
- Lying in bed resting is almost as good as sleep. It can keep the loop going instead.
- Having to try harder to sleep. Sleep tends to come when the trying stops.
When one of these shows up, it helps to ask what you’d say to a friend who believed it. For a structured way to look at a thought, Thought Record from Everyday Insight walks through it step by step.
Get up if it won’t stop. If you’ve been lying awake with racing thoughts for what feels like a while, stimulus control applies. Go somewhere else, do something quiet, and come back when sleepy.
Relax the body. Slow breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and a body scan work on the physical side of arousal. They take practice, so try them at calmer times first.
When it’s more than night worry
If worry fills your days too, or comes with low mood that lasts more than a couple of weeks, talk with a doctor or therapist. Insomnia often comes along with anxiety and depression, and all three can be treated.
References
- Harvey, A. G. (2002). A cognitive model of insomnia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 40(8), 869–893. doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(01)00061-4
- Carney, C. E., & Waters, W. F. (2006). Effects of a structured problem-solving procedure on pre-sleep cognitive arousal in college students with insomnia. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 4(1), 13–28. doi.org/10.1207/s15402010bsm0401_2
- Riemann, D., Espie, C. A., Altena, E., et al. (2023). The European Insomnia Guideline: An update on the diagnosis and treatment of insomnia 2023. Journal of Sleep Research, 32(6), e14035. doi.org/10.1111/jsr.14035
Helpful links
Everyday Insight’s tools are for education and personal reflection. They are not therapy or medical care, and they are not for emergencies. In an emergency, call 911. If you are in crisis in the United States, call or text 988.