Anxiety and sleep
I feel so tired every night after a long day. When I get in bed and start falling asleep, my anxiety has me thinking about every little thing. It’s so bad that it reaches the point I hold my breath. It’s so exhausting. I want to have a good nights rest and I can’t do it even though I am tired. I want to fall asleep without panic stopping me. I wish I can.
@a1locker
Hi--that makes sense, like when you're trying to go to sleep you just have all of this anxiety intruding that doesn't seem to go away. So even though you're pretty tired, it's really difficult to fall asleep.
Here's a resource I was able to find that identifies some possible causes for anxiety before going to sleep and has a few ideas/tips for dealing with it. Personally I've found journaling, to-do lists, and just brainstorming all of my worries to be helpful. It feels like if I write something down, I'm able to forget it--because I feel like if I need to remember later, I can just look at what I wrote.
https://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/types/falling-asleep
Here are some other more general sleep tips (not specifically related to anxiety). A couple I've found really helpful are to only get in bed if I'm tired and if I'm unable to fall asleep then to get up and do something else until I'm tired.
https://sleepeducation.org/healthy-sleep/healthy-sleep-habits/
If there are certain things you're feeling anxious about that you'd like to discuss with someone, HERE is a list of experienced listeners who accept 1-on-1 chats on anxiety. Alternatively, you're welcome to share some more here.
@QuietMagic
thank you so much for your response and all of the resources! I will definitely take a look into all of them. The reason I could not sleep that night was because of an important issue I had lingering on for a few days. Last night before your response, I tried clearing my mind by speaking aloud all the things that were running through my head. I just started listing everything that came to mind, even if it was something completely random. It was just to clear my head of literally anything that was staying in there. It actually worked!! While I was listing my thoughts I fell asleep. It was as if I was organizing my thoughts and I finally got some clarity. It took some time to do though but I’m happy it actually worked. However I will definitely read up on the resources you added, the more I know, the better! ❤️
@a1locker
That sounds great! What you're describing feels like it matches my own experiences. 😊 Like if there's just a bunch of garbage accumulating in my head, I just to pause every so often and be like, "Okay, what the heck is all of this lol" and organize it.
