How to Fall Asleep With Anxiety

Falling asleep with anxiety is hard. I used to toss and turn for hours on the nights before my final exams.Luckily, those hellish nights are over for me now, and in this post I'd like to share the keys that helped me learn how to fall asleep with anxiety.

I have divided this post up into two sections. The first is for quick fixes. These will be most useful to those who have a big test or other stressful event coming up. However, I cannot stress enough the importance of reading and applying the tips I give in the long-term fixes.

This section will contain the real cures. Doing quick fixes every time a stressful event is approaching is inefficient and doesn't compare to cultivating the habits, skills, and state of mind conducive to a good night's sleep.

Quick Fixes

1. Eat light

Do not eat any food within 3 hours of going to bed, and eat a light dinner. To avoid evening hunger, make sure to have a large, protein-rich breakfast and a hearty lunch. Your dinner should really be the smallest meal of your day: digestion keeps most people up unnecessarily at night.

2. No screens before bedtime

Avoid use of the computer or cell phones within 1 hour of going to bed.

3. No exercise before bedtime

No exercise within 3 hours of going to sleep

4. Relax, the right way

Watch out here. A common piece of advice is to relax and do something passive. Not only is this hard to do when you are anxious, but only serves to distract you from your anxious thoughts and doesn't shift your focus. The proper way to relax is to focus on something that you enjoy. This shifts your attention and does not temporarily block off anxious thoughts, but actually replaces them.

So what do you love doing? Make sure that what you choose a fun challenge that you have the skills to meet, not a distraction. For me, this is composing my own rap music and expressing myself through lyrics.

Long-Term Fixes

1. Cultivate the habit of meditation

What probably helped me the most was to meditate every morning and evening. This is a skill that takes simple practice to master. The instructions are really pretty simple, but it is almost like telling someone how to walk a tightrope:

 - step onto the rope

 - put one foot in front of the other

 - don't fall

Not so fast, right? However, some guidance does help. I recommend that you read The Power of Now.

2. Cultivate productivity and capacity for focus

Much of the stress that I, as a student, felt, was caused by my poor study habits. I would procrastinate on my work, and cram it in at the last minute. As you can imagine and can probably relate to, this creates an enormous amount of unnecessary stress and anxiety.

Here is the shortest description I can give of how to have work sessions:

 1. list the tasks you want to get done over the next 2-3 hours.

 2. break your work up into 25-minute sessions with a quick break in between sessions

 3. make sure to take the breaks. It is often tempting to skip them, but it is crucial to your productivity to take them

To learn to cultivate true productivity, I recommend that you read Getting Things Done.

I hope this post helped you, and good luck falling asleep!