Sleeping Well with Anxiety: Tips and Tricks
It’s 2 am and you are wide awake again, lying in the dark. Your mind is racing with worries, thoughts, and plans of everything you have coming up. Why do I struggle to stay asleep? Why do I keep waking up in the middle of the night with all of these racing thoughts? Why can’t I just relax and go back to sleep! You toss and turn, fighting with your mind to turn off your brain so that you can get back to sleep, but it’s no use. Finally, at about 4 am, you drift off only to be rudely woken again by your alarm at 6 am. Feeling exhausted, you drag yourself out of bed to start your day wondering how you will have the energy to be present for your children, get through the work day, and tick off all the things on your to do list. You’re feeling increasingly more frustrated, tired, and anxious about going to sleep that night and starting the cycle all over again. You feel stuck, hopeless, and don’t know how to get back to sleeping well and reclaiming your energy. If this sounds like you, read on…
How Anxiety Affects Sleep
It’s normal to have poorer quality sleep during times of increased stress. When there is a lot going on to keep on top of, or if there is a highly stressful event that you are trying to deal with, it’s understandable that you won’t be sleeping our best. Anxiety results when your fight or flight mode gets activated due to a perceived threat. It’s a type of survival mode that cues your body to be in a state of constant alert to allow you to respond quickly to the threat, or in this case, stressor. This means you can find it hard to relax or unwind, including falling asleep or staying asleep.
Being in a constant fight or flight mode can impact on your sleep in the following ways:
- Falling asleep (insomnia): it takes a long time for you to relax enough to fall asleep initially. You might notice it taking an hour or more of tossing and turning to fall asleep.
- Interrupted sleep: you may initially fall asleep quickly, but notice yourself waking frequently through the night and struggling to get back to sleep
- Non restorative sleep: falling or staying asleep isn’t a problem, but you wake up feeling exhausted despite getting your normal amount of sleep
Pro Tips to Improve Your Sleep
- Accept that your sleep may not be “normal” for awhile if you are going through a stressful time in your life. There may be things you can try to improve your sleep quality, but if you are in constant fight/flight mode, then it’s understandable your sleep will be disrupted temporarily.
- Optimise your sleep “window”. What is the ideal amount of sleep you need to function optimally? This is different for everyone, but generally this number will be between 6 to 8 depending on the person. What time do you need to be asleep for in order to hit that ideal number before you need to be awake in the morning? Ensure that you are giving yourself enough of a sleep window to feel adequately rested, and adjust this accordingly if not.
- Set aside the last 90 minutes of your evening before bedtime to engaging in relaxing activities. Try to avoid screen time if possible, although a little bedtime TV is OK if you are watching a show you enjoy or find relaxing, provided your TV is not in your bedroom. Think about what you can do in this time as a consistent nighttime routine that will provide sleep cues for your body. This might be reading a book, having a bath, listening to relaxing music, meditation, or doing your nighttime skincare routine. Your brain requires a transition time between daytime wakefulness and nighttime sleepiness, so avoid working up until bedtime, exercising, or doing any activity that makes you feel more alert in this timeframe.
- Reserve your bedroom for sleep and avoid working, scrolling on screens, or other activities. If you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall asleep within 15 minutes, get out of bed and go into a different room if possible. Read or engage in other non stimulating activity until you feel sleepy-tired, and then return to your room to try and fall asleep again. Repeat this cycle as many times as needed until you can fall asleep within that 15 minute window.
- Keep a worry notepad beside your bed. If you are plagued with any late night worries that are keeping you up, sit up, turn on the light, quickly jot down any worries or to do list items that you can return to in the morning. Once you’ve written this down, you can rest assured it won’t be forgotten about and can let go of holding this thought in your mind.
Sleep problems can really take a toll on your mental and physical wellbeing, making you feel lethargic, irritable, down, and more prone to anxiety. But you don’t have to struggle through this alone or rely on sleeping tablets to cope. Having good sleep habits can be extremely effective in improving your sleep!
