Fiona Gee, Content Team Contributor

Readers who remember the 1990s will recognise the second part of the above headline as a famous line from the song ‘Insomnia’ by Faithless (beloved by clubbers everywhere!)However, even those too young to remember the song will likely resonate with the principle (although I am afraid they might have to forgive the terrible grammar).

I’ve had anxiety all my life and I well understand the negative impact it can have on sleep. In my experience, a terrible night’s sleep caused by anxiety leads to an even more anxious brain the following day and this can quickly turn into a downward slope of days involving exhaustion, brain fog and (yes, you guessed it) even more anxiety.

So what can we do to help this?

Sleep anxiety for me falls into two categories:

1) The type of anxiety caused by struggling to fall asleep straight away when you know you have to be up earlier than normal/at a specific time, leaving you spending the night clock-watching (you know the type – a night spent telling yourself you ‘need to be up in 4/5/3 hours…’ etcetc)

2) Anxiety caused by specific worry or worries that leaves your brain unable to switch off and renders a sleepless night of spiralling thoughts

For sleep anxiety type one, it sounds obvious but spending the day before doing exercise/some sort of physical or mental exertion is a gamechanger.  Making sure you are tired enough to fall asleep almost immediately will help prevent that first bout of anxiety and the consequent clock-watching that may then follow. 

If that does not work/isn’t possible and you still find yourself not asleep and starting to clock watch, some simple relaxation techniques often help me (eg deep breathing, mindfulness, simply trying to relax your body as much as possible in the hope your brain follows suit). It’s a bit of a vicious circle as your anxious brain is telling you to check how much sleep you’re going to get if you fall asleep in the next ten minutes – but also, try and actively avoid looking at clocks.

Sleep anxiety type two is, for me, trickier. Lots of people have offered advice to me over the years – or suggested there are ‘rules’ (eg that if you’re spiralling and struggling to get to sleep, you MUST get up as that is better for your mental state). My view is that there are no rules; you need to do what works for you (and for me, getting out of bed rarely improves my chances of a relaxing night’s sleep as I am just rendered fully awake – at least in bed I often stay slightly drowsy with a hint of sleep possibility). 

Chances are, the same thing might not work every time and quick fixes rarely exist. However, depending on the anxious thought, some techniques might be more effective than others in certain situations and a few of them might just turn a bad night’s sleep into a slightly better one. 

Here are a few ideas to help:

1) Write a ‘to do’ list. This is obviously particularly effective if your anxiety is caused by ‘brain spill’ or jumbled up thoughts related to a specific task or work you need to do 

2) Visualise an open, empty box (I always visualise a silver mirror-balled one just to add a touch of glamour – but a cardboard one will do). Tell yourself you are going to pack away your thoughts in that box and visualise yourself doing that. Then, visualise yourself closing the lid tightly and saying that the box will not be opened until the following day – a literal attempt to try and pack away the anxious thoughts

3) Try deep breathing and mindfulness techniques (also helpful for sleep anxiety type one). I’ve actually found this to be one of the most helpful – trying to make myself completely aware of my surroundings and focusing onmundane things like eg what the duvet is made from,what the duvet feels like, what the sheet feels like has proven quite effective in bringing me back to the here and now instead of wherever my anxiety has taken me – and sleep then often follows as a result

4) Get up, read a book or do some other task as a distraction. Yes, I am going to suggest this one – as I say above, there are no rules and I have heard that this does work for some people. Even if it ultimately doesn’t always aid sleep, if your anxiety is severe it may at least help ease/distract from those spiralling thoughts

And finally – remember, the sleepless nights will not last forever. Anxiety is usually ebbs and flows of good and bad – but unlike in the song Insomnia, the chances are that, eventually, you will get some sleep.