Does nighttime anxiety keep you awake? 8 keys to calm your mind and sleep deeply

Let’s organize that nighttime chaos with science, practical psychology and a touch of humor so it doesn’t feel so heavy 😌.

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Why does anxiety show up at night?

If you feel anxiety multiplies when night falls, you’re not alone. Recent studies estimate that about 8 out of 10 people experience nighttime anxiety at some point in their lives.

During the day your mind stays busy: meetings, conversations, screens, tasks, traffic. That activity acts like background noise that covers many worries.

When night comes this happens:

• The environment becomes quieter with fewer distractions.


• Tiredness reduces your emotional resilience.


• The brain finally tries to process what’s pending from the day.

Psychologist Carolyne Keenan, cited by The Times, comments that then small worries grow bigger. I see it every year in practice: what someone shrugs off at ten in the morning becomes a Greek tragedy at two in the morning.

Something important also happens in the body. The stress hormone, cortisol, should drop at night (I suggest reading: How to lower cortisol naturally). However, if you live with a lot of stress, cortisol stays elevated, your brain interprets that there’s still danger and keeps you in alert mode just when you should be entering sleep mode.

And if that weren’t enough, there are external factors that don’t help:

• Seasonal changes and holiday periods, which increase pressure and life balancing demands.


• Family and work responsibilities that don’t stop even if you want to sleep.


• Heavy screen use, which tricks your brain with light and constant stimuli.

Conclusion: you’re not weak, you’re not exaggerating, your brain and body are simply reacting to a pretty powerful combination of internal and external inputs.

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Nighttime anxiety: what experts say and what I see in practice

The specialists consulted by The Times point out that nighttime anxiety arises from a mix of:

• Psychological factors: rumination, perfectionism, fear of the future, feeling out of control.


• Physiological factors: high cortisol, poor sleep hygiene, artificial light, device use.

In my work as a psychologist I often see a very clear pattern: the night becomes a 24-hour open problem office.

I’ll tell you an anecdote that repeats with variations in many people:

A patient — let’s call him Luis — used to tell me:
“During the day I hardly think about my problems, but when I turn off the light my head turns into a dramatic news show I can’t change the channel on.”

In his case, things worked very well when he:

• Started to mentally organize his worries before nightfall.


• Left his phone outside the bedroom.


• Used guided breathing and a simple mind game when thoughts banged on the door at night.

Something key we teach in sleep therapy: don’t fight insomnia, negotiate with it. If you go to war with your thoughts, they win. If you acknowledge them, write them down, give them a controlled space and shift focus with useful strategies, the brain learns a new route.

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Mind games to stop persistent thoughts when trying to sleep

Here’s the fun part. The brain isn’t good at doing two complex things at once. If you ruminate and, at the same time, invite it to a specific mind game, worries lose strength.

Some techniques recommended by specialists quoted by The Times, and that I also use with patients, are these:

1. Schedule a “worry time” before night

Between thirty and sixty minutes before bedtime:

• Sit with paper and pen.


• Write down everything that worries you: work, family, money, health, news.


• Then choose three priorities for the next day.

With this you create a buffer zone between day and night. The brain gets the message: “I’ve already addressed your worries, now it’s not time to think about them.”

2. Memory games and mental lists

When persistent thoughts appear in bed, you can try:

• Remembering a favorite movie or series scene by scene in detail.


• Making a mental list of words that start with each letter of the alphabet, for example, only fruits or only cities.


• Replaying a trip you enjoyed, from leaving home to returning, step by step.

Fun fact: many people fall asleep before finishing the game. Not because it’s boring, but because the mind tones down when you stop feeding it worries.

3. Monotonous activities outside the bed

If about twenty minutes pass and you’re still very awake, don’t keep fighting the pillow. Get up and go to another room with very soft light. You can:

• Fold clean clothes.


• Organize a drawer without thinking too much.


• Do a simple jigsaw puzzle.

This breaks the bed = anxiety association and teaches the brain that the bedroom is only related to sleep and sex, not mental agonizing.

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The power of breathing and the senses to calm the mind

Breathing directly influences the nervous system. When you breathe fast and shallow, you reinforce the danger signal; when you breathe slowly and deeply, you activate calm mode.

1. 4-7-8 breathing technique

Positive psychology specialist Ruth Cooper Dickson recommends a very popular technique:

• Inhale through your nose while mentally counting to 4.


• Hold the air while counting to 7.


• Exhale slowly through your mouth while counting to 8.

Repeat for at least a minute. If you place one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen, as psychotherapist Kamalyn Kaur suggests, the body receives a message of containment and safety.

Interesting physiological fact: this type of breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, a kind of big cable that connects brain and body and helps slow the stress response.

2. Five-sense meditation

The idea is to use your senses as an anchor to the present. You can try it in bed with the light off:

• Notice the texture of the sheets with your hands.


• Feel the air temperature on your face.


• Listen to distant and nearby sounds without judging them.


• Take a sip of water and notice the sensation as it goes down your throat.


• Add a soft scent, like lavender, and breathe it in mindfully.

A counselor cited by The Times, Yasmin Shaheen Zaffar, highlights that touch and smell are very calming during anxiety.

I confirm it: in stress-management workshops, when I invite people to hold a pleasant object and focus only on that sensation, the room calms down two notches in minutes 😌.

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Night routines without screens to teach the brain to disconnect

One of sleep’s silent enemies is in your hand: the phone. Nearly 9 out of 10 people check their phone or tablet right before bed. Result: more blue light, more stimuli, more comparison with other lives and, of course, less sleep.

Sleep therapists recommend:

• Turn off screens at least an hour before bed.


• Leave your phone charging outside the bedroom.


• Use a traditional alarm clock instead of your phone.


• Replace the notes app with a real notebook next to the bed.

I suggest reading: How to give our brain a break from social media

Sleep psychotherapist Heather Darwall Smith proposes creating a small end-of-day ritual. For example:

• Dim the lights at home gradually.


• Do gentle stretches or very light yoga.


• Write three things you’re grateful for and three priorities for tomorrow.


• Read a few pages of a calming book.

This type of routine sends a clear message to the brain: “The day is over, I’m not solving anything else now, it’s time to rest.”

By the way, in my motivational talks I always propose this challenge:

“Try seven nights without screens in bed and see what changes.”

The majority report less anxiety and fewer night awakenings. Your mind doesn’t need another video, it needs a pause.

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How to take care of your day to sleep better at night

Nighttime anxiety almost never originates only at night. Often it reflects how you manage your energy during the day.

Counselors and sleep therapists cited by The Times point out several keys that I also work on in practice:

1. Exposure to natural light

Your internal clock, the circadian rhythm, loves sunlight. Try to:

• Get natural light in the morning even if the day is cloudy.


• Take a short walk outdoors every day.


• Avoid very bright lights at home at night.

This simple habit helps regulate cortisol so it drops when it should and you can fall asleep more easily.

2. Micro stress-relief breaks during the day

If you wait until you’re in bed to manage all your stress, the night gets saturated. Instead, spread small releases throughout the day:

• Two- or three-minute pauses for deep breathing.


• Small stretches from time to time.


• A relaxed coffee or tea without screens, just with yourself.

3. Movement, nutrition and connections

You don’t have to run a marathon. A body that moves and is well nourished rests better:

• Walk, dance, take stairs, adopt the movement you enjoy most.


• Avoid very heavy dinners right before bed.


• Maintain social contact, even with a short call to someone you care about.

I leave you with a practice I often suggest to my patients with nighttime anxiety:

• Choose one single thing to improve your day, for example, leaving your phone outside the bedroom.


• Keep that practice for fifteen days.


• Then add another, for example, going for a ten-minute walk in natural light.

Small daily changes transform your nights much more than a miraculous one-day fix.

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If you made it this far, you already have a small personal kit to manage nighttime anxiety:

• Mind games that divert rumination.


• Breathing and senses to calm the nervous system.


• Night routines that signal shutdown time.


• Daytime habits that prepare deeper sleep.

I invite you to ask yourself an honest question right now:

What is the first thing I can change tonight so my mind doesn’t take over the dark?

Start with one strategy, try it for several days, observe how your body responds. Your brain learns, always. And you can teach it that night is not for worrying, it’s for resting and dreaming a little more beautifully 🌙💤.