5 Techniques To Stop Overthinking Before Sleep

Going to bed with a buzzing head? Perhaps you’ve had too much coffee or had a tough day at work. Happens to the best of us.

What if we tell you there are proven techniques to help you stop overthinking before bed? Here are your five methods for drifting off peacefully.

Establish A Bedtime Routine

This is your time to take care of yourself. Here’s what you can do:

  • Take a relaxing bath or shower. Get into it and let the water rinse off the harshness of the day. Treat yourself to scrubs, lotions, or any other products you have handy at home. Wash your hair for the skin to breathe. Notice how every move feels
  • Do your skincare routine: Cleanse your face, apply toner, use serum, and moisturize. If you’ve seen American Psycho, you’ve seen how much you can do to take care of your skin. Be careful, though. Not every cream is good for you. Try consulting a dermatologist if your beauty products don’t work.
  • Ventilate your room. Let fresh air into your room for better relaxation before sleep. Fresh air helps you breathe deeper, calm down, and think clearly.
  • Change your sheets. You’ll feel like sleeping at a resort where they care about your well-being
  • Create a calming environment. Dim the lights, reduce noise, and keep the room comfortable.

Try Liven soundscapes to set the mood. Sounds of rain, ocean, or fire calm your nervous system. Plus, you can use the app to track your thoughts, emotions, and actions throughout the day to modulate your inner chatter. Liven helps you to understand how your mind works and changes your behavior by trying new habits.

Give Yourself 20 Minutes To Worry

Who said you can’t schedule your feelings? Start small. Try to sit down with a notebook and pay attention to things that bother you.

Being in a meta-conscious state where you can observe your life from the side, you can re-script your approach to difficult situations. Plus, when you let all your troubles out of your head, they might stop racing tracks in your mind.

Try practicing gratitude. Write about three things you’re grateful for today. Start with privileges you usually take for granted. This can shift your focus to positive thoughts before sleep.

Practice Meditation

Meditation is training your brain not to resist thoughts but become at ease with them. You can do this sitting up or lying down, whatever feels comfortable.

Close your eyes and breathe in through your nose, then breathe out through your mouth. You can count the breaths as you go. If this helps, imagine a small orb of light in the middle of a chest and feel how it fills your body. Notice how each new breath is different from the previous one.

Before bed, you can also try a walking meditation to stop overthinking.

Try PMR

We’re talking about progressive muscle relaxation, a popular technique to feel relief.

Tighten and then release different muscle groups in your body. Start from your leg muscles and work your way up to the head. Notice how your body feels: head, shoulders, chest, and legs.

This exercise will help release physical tension and will trick you into resting.

Get Out Of Bed If Necessary

If you are overthinking for 20 minutes or more, simply get out of bed. Go to another room, read a book, or listen to calming music until you feel sleepy.

You can also try calming physical activities like yoga to relax.

The key idea is that we don’t perceive reality as it is. Instead, our inner chatter forms our perception. So it’s totally possible to change your relationship with sleep. The more you force yourself to sleep, the harder it’ll be to get into the right mood. Easy does it!

Take care of yourself, try different routines to show your mind that it’s time to wind down, and don’t expect to fall asleep immediately—instead, let go and let it happen naturally.

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