Why does anxiety cause insomnia?

When you begin to sleep, your mind begins to recycle its thoughts from the days and build upon them. In other words, your mind is very active when trying to fall asleep because the only other thing on your focus is the act itself of falling asleep. This is one of the very few times in which we are truly alone with our thoughts and because of this our anxiety can become overwhelming. As it is difficult to concentrate on anything when anxious, it is very difficult to sleep as well. You begin to develop further anxiety about anxiety you have due to the lack of sleep you are receiving and you are stuck in a futile cycle.

Anxiety causes insomnia because when you have something on your mind it’s very difficult to turn your mind off. You go into fight or flight patterns and you can’t stop your thoughts. It’s decreases over time as you change your thoughts and figure out plans to resolve the issues that are causing anxiety. Sometimes you need to white knuckle it through the anxiety until you calm down. Anxiety can cause reactions in your body like heart palpitations and can create bad behaviors such as smoking and drinking and impulsive behaviors. It’s challenging to control anxiety. Things like exercise and eating well and sleeping well is very helpful. It’s important to choose healthy behaviors to resolve your anxiety

I have found that anxiety causes insomnia because I can't get my brain to shut off. When I'm laying in bed, I find that gives my brain the most room to wander and postulate "What if?" that can spiral into crazy scenarios that I know will never happen, but I still have anxiety about. Even the smallest anxiety can seem impossibly large when alone with your thoughts. I have found the best way to cope with this is to meditate before bed, as that allows me to practice shutting off my brain and only focusing on calmer thoughts and ideas.