I'm stressed out and when I try to go to sleep I can't shut off my thoughts. What should I do?

Make sure you're electronics and food are put away about an hour prior to your bedtime. In addition, I usually inhale for four beats and exhale for eight and I repeat. (I'm a musician)

Try to write out your feelings, drink some tea, play some calming music, think of calming thoughts, and remember that sleep will help.

listen to music(light music), think of something happy, make thoughts about good things in the near future. sleep with someone else if you can. talk to someone that makes you happy before you go to sleep.

When counting sheep and a glass of warm milk fails, there's a few different strategies you can take. Consider your sleep hygiene; is your bed a place of comfort and relaxation, or do you use that space for homework or to do your taxes? Do you shut off all sources of noise and turn off all lights before bedtime? Do you stare at bright lights, like that of a TV or cell phone before trying to sleep?

It may help to leave a notepad or notebook and a writing utensil near your bed, like on a nightstand. When you feel the stressful thoughts intruding, try writing them down. It can help you let go of the thoughts. If the thoughts are keeping you up because you feel you have to attend to them, assure yourself that the thoughts will be there in the morning, right where you wrote them, and that you can take care of them in the morning. Breathing exercises and meditation can help lots too - there are plenty of exercises for both available for free with a simple Google search!

when you go to bed, try listening to some quiet soothing music or some of your favourite music and lying in a cool, dimly lit room, i find this helps me when i can't sleep.

if you have an apple device, use the sleep well app. It will help you relax and fall asleep. it works beautifully.

You could take a look at the sleeping well article that is under the self help guides here on 7 Cups of Tea, it might help you!

Try and put your thoughts into perspective before you sleep, work out how each thought can affect you and the changes it could have in the bigger picture then make a plan of dealing with those thoughts in the future, write down your plan and then have a bath or whatever makes you totally relax and sleep.

Try and think about a calm location like the beach at the sunset. Slowly breathe in and out. It'll calm you. Imagine you being in that location, walking around in silence and enjoying the landscape. Keep breathing in and out slowly and you will fall asleep very well.

I would suggest you to do hypnosis. Its a simple process to revert thoughts in a positive way. You should have 2 people to perform it . The procedure is : Close you eyes and breathe in and breathe out 5 times. Then try to loosen up your thoughts by going into the woods . Imagine you are alone and walk accross. Where you find a beach.. and water all around you. Try steppin close to the water and breathe. You fell fresh. Bow slowly step into the water there are 10 steps. Take the 1st step u feel the water on ur feet. Nw slowly step down to 2 3 4 5 6 slowly water is raising over to ur body. Now 7 8 9 10 and nw u r in the ocean bt u r nt drowning or feeling suffocated. But u swim and njoy the water. U see a treasure box .. u open it and u find 3 potions . Choose ur potions. Like 1 may have energy and 2nd may have love and the 3rd ... find happiness ir wateva u k Like.. drink it ... nd breathe .. u wil be energised and u wil rejuvated once u do this. Remember there shud be no distractions. And tell ur friend or a closed one to narrate this to u so that u can imagine and get ur stress away. My name is journeyoflife15 I am a listner here. If u need any help. I am here. Take care.

When I am stressed out and cannot sleep I get up and make myself a hot chocolate. I find if I continue to stay in bed I only think more and I know if I do this I am not going to get any sleep all night. So I find by getting out of bed. Going to make a hot chocolate. Perhaps putting on the pc and playing a game and or popping on a movie or picking up a novel and reading it. It helps slow my mind down. Makes me tired then I am ready for bed.

Well the best thing to do in my opinion is to try and play some calming music to relax your thoughts

The very first thing you should do is to take some deep,long breaths focusing entirely on the rise and fall of chest.It may help you feel little calmer,so when you are calm,rather than getting trapped out in thoughts,sort them out one by one and then figure out why aren't you able to fall asleep.Most of the times the fear and worry that "I can't sleep" is the reason itself why you can't sleep.SO first thing is to take out that tension and anxiety around the sleeping.It's the first step

Listen to a self-guided meditation before bed. It will relax you and put your focus on something else than the rushing thoughts in your head. http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22

In some cases where you are stressed out it helps to distract your brain with background activity; I am not talking here about the telly running in the background or your pc running with some gaming videos, as that only disturbs your sleep. There is something called 'white noise' which is a sort of background noise that does not disturb you during your sleeping activities but it still distracts a hyperactive brain enough to sleep without thinking too much. For example, some people find the sound of rain very relaxing; while we cannot have rain all the time there are songs and videos out there which play the sound of rain,while others may find peace in listening to piano music (for example on youtube search for Paulfromstokeuk he has some beautiful piano and instrumental pieces!) Put on one of those tracks for a while and set a timer for it to go off after a while, this way you give your brain something to be distracted by when you are in the process of falling asleep so you won't get annoying thoughts buzzing in your head!

I had this problem recently, and I think what helped me was that because I was aggravated I wanted to just get up and do something. If I couldn't sleep, I might as well be productive, right? Well... Your body kind of makes up all kinds of excuses to NOT do that most of the time, so while I'm trying to fight to get up I'm kind of nodding off at the same time. Eventually I go to sleep, so sorry I can't provide an immediate solution.

Well, an obvious solution is to speak with a Listener on here or join in group chats. You could also try listening to music. If you're really worried about this though, you could go see your GP and see what advice they can offer you. It might be a good idea to look into going to a counsellor too if you feel you need someone to speak with face to face that has no connections to your friends or family. Hope this helps. :)

Make your sleeping environment relaxing and comfortable. Make sure all lights are off and you have no distractions like electronics near you. Wind down with something that works for you, like reading before bed and drinking hot tea. If you believe this is because stress, try talking about your feelings with somebody and find coping mechanisms for stress!

This is going to sound really morbid, but what I do is pretend I'm a dead body in a movie, like a murder has happened. So keep your breathing down, so the cameras don't pick it up. What this does is slow your heart rate down, which in turn calms down your brain. Hoped that helped!

down load the app "calm" it works, it has all kinds of relaxing sounds and theres a women who calms you.

Turn off electronics 2 hours before you go to bed, it will help you relax because light on your eyes usually keeps you up longer. You can also try listening to some soft, mellow, relaxing music, or reading a boring book.

I suggest doing something you enjoy. Try reading a book, listening to music or something like that.

this is something i used to struggle with. i tend to tence up my body and relax and do that a few times and concentrating on my breathing, as your breathing out whisper the letter R. this sounds crazy but you concentrate so much on what your doing it makes you shut off, i also tend to think of a story in my head or listen to music. i also find ASMR to be quite relaxing to go to sleep to, as you concentrate on the soothing whispering or tapping .

Try a cup of chamomile tea....or.try meditation. Simply focus on your breath..and how you are breathing..this will relax you. Nothing else exists except for your breath...

Some times listening to music helps, writing down what's bothering you helps, and focusing on one thing that will make you happy and doing just that the next day so you have something to look forward to. The more you think about keep your mind busy you will drift off to sleep and it will disappear.

I know this sounds funny but i have the problem, its probably just a placebo but i use the sleep lotion from bath and body, if you don't have that i normally just listen to meditation videos there are a few on here actually!

When I have trouble sleeping, I try to think of things that make me happy. Or meditation. But reading a good book is good also.

You can wake up, have a glass of water or a mug of milk, you can try yoga or meditation:it can be really helpful. Think about how can you make your tomorrow a great day.

make up dreams for your self. things that you want to dream about then you will end up falling asleep and dreaming about them