Busy Brain Syndrome Is An Actual Thing & Could Be Keeping You Up At Night

A personal favourite of mine when it comes to offloading stress and unwelcome thoughts, experts agree that this is a really effective way of ordering your mind and reducing feelings of anxiety. But beware of looking back, studies show that the method is more effective when people focus on the future. In a study carried out on people between the ages of 18 and 30 and published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, psychologists found that participants who wrote down tasks they wanted to achieve the next day rather than things they'd done that day fell asleep faster — plus, the study found that the more detailed the lists, the quicker they fell asleep. Keep a notebook and pen by your bed (resist the urge to reach for Notes on your iPhone) and make a list of everything you need to do tomorrow — no matter how small and menial the task may seem.

Try and encourage your mind to switch off by engaging it elsewhere, with a podcast or audiobook. Health magazine cautions against choosing anything too riveting or upsetting though, which means maybe give heavy topical debates or unsettling true crime thrillers like Serial a miss. Go for something easy and funny and settle down with your headphones, and if you find you're not getting anywhere, try changing locations and lie on the sofa or in another room instead. Sometimes just taking yourself out of the bed will do you a world of good. Try the Headspace app, which features relaxing meditation tutorials, and Table Manners with Jessie Ware — the singer and her hilarious mum cook dinner for various stars including Ed Sheeran and Sadiq Khan.

James Findley, PhD, clinical director of the Behavioural Sleep Medicine Program at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, told Health magazine: “You can’t stop your brain from thinking, but you can distract it by focusing on something neutral." But the key is to avoid phones, iPads, and laptops as much as you can, as any time spent on screens will only stimulate your mind more, increasing your sense of anxiety. Pick up a good old-fashioned book or a magazine and enjoy some light reading, and as with the podcasts, don't choose anything too challenging or harrowing. Margot Robbie has the right idea when she admitted that she reads Harry Potter every night before she goes to sleep, as the Evening Standard reports You can't go wrong with that.

Sleep consultant Jenni June told The Cut that 20 minutes is the max amount of time you should lie in bed feeling unable to sleep. After that point, she said, "It’s best to get out of bed". Cormac O’Donovan, MD, associate professor of neurology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre agrees, telling Health magazine that staying in bed can risk training your brain to associate your bed with worry and insomnia, and will only make your problems worse. Try getting up and doing something else for a bit, unload the dishwasher, give the living room a tidy, or make yourself a hot chocolate. It may be that you're forcing yourself to sleep before you're actually ready. Dr O'Donovan said: “If you’re trying to sleep and your brain’s not letting you, it could just be that you’re going to bed too early,” and while people talk constantly of those golden eight hours, he made the assertion that "some people’s bodies only demand six or seven."

Sounds incredibly basic, but focusing on your breathing can help to bring your mind back to the present and stop it worrying about the past or the future. Dr O'Donovan told Health magazine that “Your mind is surely going to wander back to other things, but the important thing is to keep bringing it back to your breathing, in and out." Sleep specialist Michael Breus in the same publication recommended diaphragmatic breathing. Eh? Breus went on to explain that this entails placing a hand on your chest and one on your stomach, inhaling slowly through the nose for two seconds, feeling your stomach expand, then pushing gently on your stomach as you exhale.

Sweet dreams people.