How can I stop my mind from keeping me awake at night?
11 Answers
Last Updated: 09/07/2020 at 11:41am
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Melissa Strauss, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor
I am client focused and believe everyone has a strength. I feel confident in seeing clients with generalized and social anxiety, depression and relational goals.
Top Rated Answers
There are lots of ways to quiet your mind. One of them I'd say would be meditation.
Meditation is basically calming the mind through deep breathing, muscle relaxation and singular focus. It eliminates the internal chaos and provides mental and emotional tranquillity.
Another way would be to find out why exactly your mind is incessantly busy. Do you over-think? Is it some deep-rooted issue? This way you'll have to work through your internal chatter with rational thinking.
Lastly, you can also listen to relaxing music or read a boring book so as to tire your mind.
These are just my suggestions. Other than that, I'll only ask you not to think too much of unimportant things.
Hope you sleep peacefully!
Write down anything that is going through your mind earlier in the evening. If anything is particularly bothersome, make a plan of how you are going to deal with it. Also, take time to wind down in the evening. Stay away from computers, phones, TVs, or anything that is stimulating. Try calming activities, like taking a warm bath, reading, or meditating. You can also keep a notebook and pen by your bed for any thoughts that may come up at night.
read a book or do a cross word puzzle it gives room for your mind to focus on something other than the negativity that you might be focusing on.
Unfortunately, there isn't an 'Off' button for our minds, though admittedly, that could be useful on occasion. Depending upon what it is that's keeping you awake, perhaps you could try some meditative exercises, yoga, deep breathing, finger mudras, or even something as simple as listening to nature sounds. Whatever calms you down and lets your mind relax and stop spinning. Personally, I like the finger mudras the best, as they can be used at any time and any where, and each mudra can help focus or soothe a particular emotion. When used together, they can help calm and relax the body and mind, because they help pull all emotions back to center.
tell someone, how you feel, and what you can't get out of head, it will help. Read a book, you will focus on the thoughts of others instead of yourselfs.
Anonymous
August 18th, 2015 10:04am
I have always found this to be a struggle and personally something that gets me through it is listening to soothing naturalistic music such rain, storms, snow, etc. From there, think of yourself walking through a scenic area
Try relax and take your mind off of things. Imagine a calm and peaceful place and go there. When you go to sleep it's about shutting down and shutting off and time for your body to repair. What ever it is can wait and I'm sure your feel better in the morning. :)
Anonymous
November 17th, 2015 3:04am
Take a relaxing bath, don't eat couple hours before bed, no tv/laptop/phone no bright lights and just slowly let your self drift off to sleep
It is best that you can do breathing excercises and/or do yoga for insomnia. As you do them and you feel as awake; try to read positive things/motivational things. Try to avoid rigourous excercises and/or over-eating or, eating late at night! Also, avoid taking long naps througout the day.
Focus your energy on something positive before you sleep or meditate before bed and you'll feel yourself being peaceful
switch the focus to a distraction. or use grounding to distract. feeling your toes to feeling your finger tips. go and sit in another room feel the seat your sitting in. listen to the sounds you can here. then go back to bed to try to sleep remembering to take deep breaths as you close your eyes. always remember that placing the things that concern you on a tree or a bench. pick them up the next day they will look not as bad as when you first look at them. let things float by when they seem a bit out of reach to solve. look at them again another time
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