Overall Wellness

How To Sleep Better With Anxiety: Calm Your Anxiety & Get Some Sleep

by Mason Johnson
Medically reviewed by Maria Sarino, MD FACT CHECKED

Anxiety is something worse a person could have a sense of.  Anxiety is an intense fear or worry of a situation or a very deep sense of insecurity.

Further, that may lead to rapid breathing causing the seating and increased heart rate and the feeling of tiredness. Anxiety is not a normal thing even in a stressful situation.

You may be surprised that anxiety is one of the most under treated disorder.

How To Sleep With Anxiety

Sleep Anxiety

Sleep anxiety is a fear of going to sleep. You may feel worried about falling asleep or could be worried about not being able to fall asleep.

Sometimes even worse fear could be of not being able to stay asleep. Some people may also have a phobia of sleeping which is known as Somniphobia.

Some of the reasons could be that the brain could not be occupied or busy all the time and need rest, but while having rest at night due to not being preoccupied.

It may start dwelling around the negative thoughts leading to fear and anxiety of the imaginary or hypothetical situations

This is the reason that anxiety could lead to a continued cycle of restless sleep and stress. According to studies it is found that anxiety and sleep go together in a directly dependent manner. 

Having a restless sleep could trigger confidence issues in people leading to stress and anxiety and similarly, stress and anxiety could lead to issues in sleeping.

Symptoms Of Sleep Anxiety

There could be different forms of anxiety and may be different for different people. Symptoms of sleep anxiety could be experienced at night.

As a person does not have a lot more to do and thus the anxiety could be focused more at that time. The most common symptoms could include the following points.

  • Trouble staying asleep.
  • Troubling in falling asleep.
  • The constant fear of a situation or anything.
  • Feeling nervous.
  • Feeling of restlessness.
  • Having nightmares or fear of having nightmares.
  • Twitching or hypnic jerk.
  • Anxiety about a situation.
  • Panic attacks.
  • Dooming.
  • Sweating.
  • Increased heart rate.
  • Shortness of breath.

More on it here.

Causes For Sleep Anxiety

Pre-sleep arousal could be a term or a phenomenon associated with anxiety before bedtime.

As per the health professionals, it is claimed that pre-sleep arousal may cause the nervous system and body to get into a state relating to heightened awareness.

It could cause problem-solving patterns of thoughts and may get triggered by a simple noise or light around the environment which ultimately leads to stress before sleep.

Even until now, there has not been much research done regarding sleep and anxiety. But there could be a few reasons that could relate to sleeping anxiety at night and are listed below.

Here is a study.

  1. Focusing Too Much On The Day

    It is all about the whole day spent and how it was spent and then thinking about the stressed situations and then overthinking by creating the hypothetical thoughts and also transcending to stress for those hypothetical situations and being worried about it.

  2. Having A Rapid Manner Of Thought Patterns

    Having rapid thought patterns could lead to repetition of negative thoughts or overthinking and might lead to a stressed cycle of thoughts for a whole week.

  3. Having Fear

    Having a constant fear in the mind after overthinking about a negative situation and then stressing about such situations could also be a reason to experience an adrenaline rush which could exacerbate your anxiety and could prevent you from relaxing before going to bed.

  4. Leading A Poor Sleep Cycle

    As per health professionals, anxiety and insomnia share a very strong relationship which could result directly affect sleeping problems and insomnia causing anxiety and stress.

Sleep Better With Anxiety

If you regularly face disrupted sleep daily, these could be the simple steps or strategies you may follow to have an adequate sleep cycle.

But remember that any such strategy would need a lot of patience and time to be adopted. So, here are some of those strategies.

  • Practicing Meditation

    Engaging in meditation daily may help you boost your happy mood and could lead to significant positive change in your behavior and the relaxation of the mind and help reduce stress and anxiety.
    Starting meditation could be challenging initially; therefore, when creating it, you must go with a small set of time, as little as 10 minutes to 15 minutes, and increase the time slowly.
    As soon as you adopt this habit of meditation, it could help you navigate the stress throughout the day and further reduce anxiety before you go to sleep.

  • Regular Exercising

    Exercise has a lot of other health benefits as well; exercises help you regulate the body and its functions.
    Regular exercises have been proven to provide people with better sleep quality and could lead to sleep in a faster manner than usual.
    Regular workouts could also help you boost your confidence level and support your sleep cycle by reducing the anxiety or fear relating to insecurities.
    A person suffering from a lack of sleep may consider working out in the morning or afternoon so that he does not suffer from sleep-related issues.

  • Getting A Habit Of Reading

    A few research indicates that reading books before sleep could slow down the brain and certainly help your brain relax and initiate dizziness and cause sleep while reading.
    Having a bath or playing soft music before 30 minutes of sleep has also been proven to help a person sleep earlier.

  • Avoiding Stressing Activities Right Before Bed

    Avoiding any activity that could lead you to stress in any form, be it mental or physical, must be avoided to have a proper bedtime and be taken care of not having any external stress of any situation or the thought of fear, etc.

  • Journaling

    According to some health professionals, writing down the negative thoughts or journaling may help you remain accountable to yourself and would help to elevate the good and happy mood by relieving the evil thoughts about yourself.
    This process could provide you instant relief from worries and stress. You could write the journal before bedtime, and also writing down positive thoughts and positive events near the stressful thoughts could also lead you to have a good time.

  • Avoid Staying Awake When In Bed

    We often keep ourselves awake when in bed for more than 20 minutes, which automatically keeps us from sleeping.
    Studies also suggest that you must go out for a walk and then get back after a few minutes to help yourself fall back asleep. A shower during such a situation may help you relax and fall asleep.

  • Limit Your Screen Time

    It is prevalent that people often use TV, laptops, and smartphones when they are in their bed.
    All such devices hold an emission of blue light, which can trick the brain that the sun is on and interrupt sleep.

  • Set Up Your Environment

    Having control over sound, light, and temperature could help you provide a better sleep quality and reduce the stress or anxiety caused before the sleep.
    Slow glowing light, which is dimmable, could also help you fall asleep faster by setting your mood to sleep.

  • Get A Comfortable Bed

    When you sleep on an uncomfortable bed, it could lead you to have a buildup of pressure points on your body, causing discomfort in the sleep quality.
    Therefore, choosing a better mattress is a must when you decide to have a better sleep quality.

  • Using A Weighted Blanket

    These are such blankets that hold a weight ranging from 5 pounds to 32 pounds. They could also provide a calming effect by giving a feeling of a hug by using simulation of deep pressure.
    These blankets could promote calmness and peacefulness. That could help you with the sound sleep.

  • Consuming Ashwagandha

    Consumption of ashwagandha for reducing stress is another medically accepted process that you could follow. You may also note that it is a natural Indian herb used for ages, and there are several ashwagandha benefits.

Having mentioned all these points, you could also take some tips to sleep better from sleep experts so that you know what exactly to do to improve your sleep patterns and help your body with deep sleep.

Conclusion

Sleep anxiety is becoming a very common problem in individuals these days due to the hectic lifestyles adopted by people.

The above-mentioned topics have an overview of what causes the issues in sleep and the ways it could be reduced. I hope that any of them could provide you with ease in sleeping.

Other References

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