Sleep, Anxiety, and Insomnia: How to Sleep Better When You're Anxious

Summary

In this video, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Emma McAdam addresses the issue of worry and anxiety hindering sleep. She introduces a strategy to retrain the brain to stop worrying at night, emphasizing the importance of a consistent bedtime routine and the practice of 'deliberate worry' during the day to process concerns effectively. McAdam also suggests using a sleep mask to aid in sleep hygiene and offers a discount for Manta Sleep products, which are designed to block out light and facilitate a better sleep environment.

Takeaways

• 😌 Worry and anxiety can disrupt sleep, causing the brain to stay active with thoughts of past actions or future concerns.
• 🛌 To combat worry-based insomnia, Emma McAdam, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, offers a method to retrain the brain for better sleep.
• 🌙 The video introduces a lasting solution to manage worry at night, emphasizing the importance of not seeking a quick fix.
• 💆‍♀️ Sponsored by Manta Sleep, the video highlights the benefits of using a sleep mask to block out light, aiding the brain's transition to sleep mode.
• 🔄 Our brains naturally want to sleep, but habitual behaviors can interfere with this natural sleep response, requiring retraining.
• 🕘 Establishing a consistent bedtime routine helps create a mental association between the routine and sleepiness, similar to how advertisements can trigger salivating.
• 🤯 People with insomnia often develop the habit of ruminating on the day's events when they lie down, associating the bed with worry instead of sleep.
• 🧠 The brain can rewire itself to form new associations, allowing for the retraining of bedtime habits to focus on sleep rather than worry.
• 📝 Deliberate worry involves setting aside specific time each day to address and plan for worries, reducing the brain's need to worry at night.
• 📅 Writing down worries and sorting them into actionable and hypothetical categories helps in managing them effectively during the day.
• 🏋️‍♀️ Taking the smallest action on actionable worries and accepting the ones that cannot be immediately solved contributes to reducing nighttime worry.
• 🌿 Shifting focus to gratitude and positive aspects of life after addressing worries can help in maintaining a positive mindset before sleep.

Q & A

What is the main topic of the video?

The main topic of the video is how worry and anxiety can make it difficult to fall asleep, and how to train your brain to stop worrying at night.

Who is the speaker in the video and what is her qualification?

The speaker in the video is Emma McAdam, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.

What does the speaker say about the purpose of worry?

The speaker says that worry serves a function by trying to keep us safe, getting things done, and ensuring that we take care of tasks.

What analogy does the speaker use to explain how our brain handles worries?

The speaker compares the brain to a computer, explaining that just like a computer needs to take breaks to update and organize files, our brain needs time to process and work through worries.

What is 'deliberate worry' and how can it help with falling asleep?

Deliberate worry is the practice of intentionally setting aside time each day to address and plan for your worries. This helps signal to your brain that worries will be taken care of during the day, reducing the likelihood of worrying at night.

What steps does the speaker recommend for dealing with worries during the day?

The speaker recommends five steps: (1) Plan time for deliberate worry, (2) Write down your worries, (3) Sort your worries into actionable and non-actionable categories, (4) Create a plan for actionable worries, (5) Accept what cannot be controlled and shift focus to gratitude.

Why does the speaker emphasize not doing deliberate worry right before bed?

The speaker emphasizes this because addressing worries right before bed can make it harder to fall asleep. It’s better to set aside time for this earlier in the day.

How can writing down worries help, according to the speaker?

Writing down worries makes them more manageable and helps in organizing thoughts, allowing for better planning and action.

What short-term solutions does the speaker suggest for those trying to fall asleep while worrying?

The speaker suggests getting out of bed to do a brain dump by writing down thoughts, then setting them aside for the next day. Additionally, engaging in activities like reading, meditation, or watching a video on relaxation techniques can help.

What long-term solution does the speaker offer for worry-based insomnia?

The long-term solution offered is to consistently practice deliberate worry throughout the day and establish a bedtime routine with good sleep hygiene to retrain the brain to associate bed with sleeping rather than worrying.

Outlines

00:00

😌 Overcoming Sleep Anxiety with Brain Training

In this video, Emma McAdam, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, addresses the issue of sleep anxiety and provides a method to retrain the brain to stop worrying at night. She introduces the concept of a lasting solution to worry-based insomnia and mentions a sponsored product, Manta Sleep's sleep masks, which can aid in creating a sleep-friendly environment. The video emphasizes the importance of a consistent bedtime routine to signal the brain to produce sleep hormones like melatonin. It also touches on the idea that the brain can rewire itself to associate the bed with sleep rather than worry, and suggests that productive worry can be helpful during the day, while unproductive worry should be managed to prevent it from affecting sleep.

05:01

🤯 The Impact of Daily Distractions on Nighttime Worries

The second paragraph delves into the reasons why people worry at night, often due to being too busy or distracted during the day, which prevents the brain from processing concerns. The analogy of a computer needing updates is used to illustrate how the brain requires time to organize thoughts and update its 'system'. Constant distractions, such as using phones during every spare moment, prevent the brain from running these background tasks. The speaker suggests setting aside time each day for 'deliberate worry', where worries are written down and addressed intentionally, to prevent them from surfacing at night and disrupting sleep.

10:04

📝 Deliberate Worry: A Step-by-Step Guide to Better Sleep

The final paragraph outlines a five-step process to manage worries effectively during the day to ensure better sleep at night. The steps include setting aside time to write down worries, sorting them into actionable and hypothetical categories, creating plans for actionable worries, accepting worries that cannot be immediately solved, and shifting focus to gratitude. The speaker also provides a short-term fix for those already in bed worrying: to get up, do a 'brain dump' by writing down all thoughts, and then return to bed with the intention to address them the next day. The long-term solution involves a consistent practice of deliberate worry and good sleep hygiene to retrain the brain for nighttime sleep.

Keywords

💡Worry

Worry refers to the state of being anxious or troubled over actual or potential problems. In the context of the video, worry is identified as a major obstacle to falling asleep, as it keeps the mind active with thoughts of past regrets or future concerns. The script mentions how worry can spiral into a cycle of anxiety, particularly when trying to sleep, and suggests strategies to manage it.

💡Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling of nervousness or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. The video discusses how anxiety can exacerbate the difficulty in falling asleep, as it leads to a heightened state of alertness and restlessness. It is a central theme in the video, as the presenter aims to teach viewers how to mitigate anxiety-induced insomnia.

💡Insomnia

Insomnia is a sleep disorder characterized by difficulty in falling or staying asleep. The video's main theme revolves around addressing worry-based insomnia, offering a solution to train the brain to stop worrying at night and facilitating better sleep. The term is used to describe the condition that the video aims to provide relief for.

💡Sleep Mask

A sleep mask is a device worn over the eyes to block out light and aid sleep. The video mentions Manta Sleep masks as a tool to help the brain receive sleep signals by blocking out light, which is essential for the production of sleep hormones like melatonin. The script uses the sleep mask as an example of a physical aid that can complement the psychological techniques being discussed.

💡Sleep Hygiene

Sleep hygiene refers to the practices and habits that are conducive to sleeping well on a regular basis. The video suggests maintaining a consistent bedtime routine, such as wearing a sleep mask, as part of good sleep hygiene. This concept is integral to the video's message, as it promotes the idea that certain habits can help retrain the brain to associate bedtime with sleepiness.

💡Melatonin

Melatonin is a hormone that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. The video explains that having a consistent routine before bed can help stimulate the production of melatonin, which in turn can help induce sleep. Melatonin is an example of a biological factor that the video connects to the practice of good sleep hygiene.

💡Deliberate Worry

Deliberate worry is the intentional act of setting aside time to address and process one's worries. The video introduces this concept as a strategy to prevent worries from interfering with sleep. By deliberately worrying at a set time during the day, the brain can be trained to handle concerns during waking hours rather than at bedtime.

💡Actionable Worries

Actionable worries are those for which there are concrete steps that can be taken to address or resolve them. The video instructs viewers to identify these worries and create a plan of action, which can help in reducing anxiety and preventing these concerns from disrupting sleep. This term is used to differentiate between worries that can be acted upon and those that are more hypothetical.

💡Acceptance

Acceptance in the context of the video refers to the acknowledgment and understanding that some problems cannot be immediately solved and must be accepted as they are. The script encourages viewers to accept these worries and set them aside, which is a crucial step in managing worry and preventing it from affecting sleep.

💡Gratitude

Gratitude is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. The video suggests shifting focus to gratitude as a way to reframe the mind's attention away from worries. Practicing gratitude before sleep can help create a positive mindset and contribute to a more restful night's sleep.

💡Stress Hormones

Stress hormones, such as cortisol, are chemicals in the body that prepare it for a fight or flight response. The video explains that unproductive worry can lead to an increase in stress hormones, which can disrupt sleep by keeping the body in a state of alertness. Understanding the role of stress hormones is important for addressing the physiological effects of worry and anxiety on sleep.

Highlights

The video discusses how worry and anxiety can interfere with falling asleep and offers a method to train the brain to stop worrying at night.

Emma McAdam, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, introduces a lasting solution to worry-based insomnia.

Sponsored by Manta Sleep, the video features a sleep mask that promotes a sleep response by blocking out light.

The importance of a consistent bedtime routine is emphasized for helping the brain produce sleep hormones like melatonin.

The brain's natural sleep response can be hindered by habitual ways of keeping the brain active, such as thinking through the day.

Retraining the brain to associate the bed with sleep rather than worry is a key strategy for overcoming insomnia.

Worry serves a protective function but can become unproductive when it leads to stress and anxiety.

Processing emotions and worries during the day can prevent them from interfering with sleep at night.

The analogy of a computer needing updates is used to explain the brain's need for time to process worries.

A culture of constant distraction prevents the brain from resolving worries, leading to nighttime anxiety.

A concrete method is introduced: deliberate worry, which involves setting aside time each day to address and plan for worries.

Writing down worries and sorting them into actionable and hypothetical categories is part of the deliberate worry process.

Creating a plan for actionable worries involves identifying the next small step and setting a reminder to take action.

Acceptance is necessary for worries that cannot be immediately solved and should be set aside with understanding.

Shifting focus to gratitude and positive aspects of life can help retrain the brain to worry less at bedtime.

A short-term fix for immediate worry is suggested: getting out of bed and doing a 'brain dump' to clear the mind.

Long-term solutions include deliberate worry practice and establishing good sleep hygiene for a healthy sleep pattern.

Transcripts

In this video I'm going to talk about how worry and anxiety can make it hard

to fall asleep, and I'll teach you how to train your brain to stop worrying at

night. Do you ever have that problem when your brain won't shut off? Like you're

tired from a long day and you're finally getting to bed after all of your to-do's

and then you just lay there not sleeping and then your brain starts to bring to

mind like every possible worry like oh I wish I hadn't said that,

or how are we gonna afford those car repairs, or you start thinking through

everything you have to do tomorrow and before long you're wide awake and you're

getting more and more frustrated. I'm Emma McAdam, I'm a licensed Marriage

and Family Therapist and today you're gonna learn one powerful skill so that

you can fall asleep when you're worried or anxious. Now this video is not

a quick fix because I'm going to teach you a lasting solution to worry based

insomnia. So if you're watching this video right now and you're hoping to

fall asleep I will tell you what to do tonight but that's gonna come after I

teach this lasting solution. This video is sponsored by Manta Sleep they make

some amazingly soft sleep masks they are so comfortable they're super

customizable so you can move these eye pads around and they also block out like 100%

of the light in the room. One of my favorite things about these masks is that they put like no pressure on your eyeballs because of their unique

shape and this is you know a valuable tool because the light that enters your

eyes sends a message to our brain about how awake we need to be. So bright blue

light environments can trigger our brain to be alert and to be active, and dark

cool light environments can trigger your brain to turn on those sleep signals. Go

to mantasleep.com and use the code nutshell to get a 10% discount. Now in

this video we're going to talk about how you can train your brain to fall asleep

faster, even when you're anxious, and using a sleep mask like this one from

Manta can help your brain turn on that sleep response. So check out the link in

the description to learn more about Manta's products and to get a discount.

Now our brains and our bodies are naturally good at sleeping, they like to

sleep. So if we're not sleeping well then it's often because we've developed some

habitual way of keeping our brain turned on.

I mean we've gotten in the way of our own natural sleep response and having a

consistent routine before bed like wearing a sleep mask or doing other

sleep hygiene routines can help your brain start to turn on those sleep

hormones like melatonin and that's because our brain likes to

make these paired associations. So a bedtime routine gets paired with that

feeling of sleepiness and I go into a lot more detail on this in my video on

triggers. So just like when you watch an ad with like a really beautiful

hamburger and your mouth maybe starts to water that's a paired association and

what we do right before we go to sleep can help our brain turn on that sleep

response in the same way, it's the same type of paired association. So one thing

that often happens with people with insomnia is that they developed the

habit of thinking through their day when they laid down. So when you do this

repeatedly instead of associating your bed or laying down with that

sleepy time, your brain associate your bed with worry time, and when we've

practiced this over and over again now the brain starts to think lying down

let's get to work and we've developed this trained response. We've taught our

brain through habit that the time to worry is bedtime. But the good news is

your brain is built to rewire itself it's built to pair and to unpair these

associations. So all we have to do is to retrain our brain to associate the bed

with sleeping. But as Nick Wignall says, " If you want your dog to stop pooping on

the grass you have to train it to poop somewhere else." So we have to train our

brain to worry elsewhere, we can't just force our brains to stop worrying and

that's because worry serves a function. It's our brain trying to keep us safe, to

get things done and to make sure that we take care of tasks.

So productive worry it helps us remember to take out the trash or to pay our

bills. Worry helps us take action and prevent problems. However, unproductive

worry it pops up at the wrong time or it leads us to endless hypotheticals, or it

spirals into these thinking patterns that leave us feeling anxious and this

can flood our body with stress hormones and it can even leave us feeling anxious

about anxiety, like 'oh no I'm worried that I'm gonna worry so much that I

can't sleep'. The antidote to worrying when trying to

sleep is to process through emotions and worries and thoughts when you're awake.

You need to just face your crap during the day, let your brain have time to

process through the worry. So one of the reasons that you worry at night is

because you keep yourself so busy or so distracted throughout the day that your

brain doesn't have the time to process and work through your concerns.

Let's compare your brain to a computer for a minute, let's compare worry to how

a computer needs to do updates. So computers have to take little breaks

once in a while to update their system, to organize their files or to you know

update some piece of software. But if they're constantly prompting you to do

an update and you're always too busy to take a break from what you're doing, then

eventually either the computer is going to break or it's going to force you to

do an update at an inconvenient time. It's got these urgent tasks you know

like whatever's going on in the forefront of your mind,

or whatever's keeping you busy in the moment and then it's also got these

important tasks, which you can put them off for a little while but if

you keep putting it off eventually your brain is going to bring it to mind when

you have nothing else to distract yourself with. So when we keep our brain

busy or distracted throughout the whole day this doesn't give our brain the

chance to work through our worries until we try to go to sleep. So we all live in

this culture of distraction. I mean people take their phones to the bathroom

with them because two minutes of sitting there it just seems too boring.

We often have distraction running while we're driving, exercising, eating, almost

every minute of the day, and this prevents your brain from being

able to run those background tasks like worry. So distraction stops you from

resolving those worries when you're awake

and because you've put it off the worries pop up at night and then they

trigger that stress response and that keeps you awake. So, if you want to stop

worrying when you lay down at night, you need to slow down during the day and

spend time away from your devices and let your brain process through those

worries during the day. Now because this is kind of vague like it's this big

picture task that requires some like little efforts throughout the day I'm

going to teach you one small change that's really concrete that you can do

every day that's going to help you fall asleep.

So going back to the computer analogy if you don't want your computer to force an

update when you're supposed to be presenting your thesis you just need to

do the update earlier. So when it comes to worry, this means you need to plan in

time to worry on purpose, this is deliberate worry.

Deliberate worry means that you're intentionally and consistently making a

time each day to address your worries and to make a plan. So this sends a

message to your brain that you're going to take care of it so that it doesn't

have to keep reminding you when you're trying to go to sleep. So your brain is

kind of like a nagging mom do you want your mom to stop asking you to do your

chores? If you take out the trash, if you just do it then she'll stop asking. So if

you want your brain to stop worrying at night what you need to do is address the

worries during the day. So the first step is to plan in a time each day to sit

down and write down each of your worries. You just choose a consistent time and it

usually will only take about 5 to 15 minutes. But if you've been avoiding a

lot of things for a long time then it might take longer at first, and

eventually with practice this is just going to take a few minutes each day. Now

don't do this right before bed. So right after lunch or maybe like right after

dinner it would be a good time sometime in the afternoon. Choose a good time for

you and set a reminder in your phone. When you're doing deliberate worry you

need to write down your worries, this is really

important. There's something about writing things down that makes worries a lot

more manageable, and as you plan this into your schedule just plan to do this

consistently for a few weeks. Like this is not a quick fix, this is a lasting

solution. Okay so on to step two after making your list you need to sort

through your worries. So your brain is amazingly powerful at thinking through

future possibilities and imagining outcomes and this is what makes humans

able to build skyscrapers and iPhones. But it also means that your brain can

imagine worst-case scenarios and catastrophes no matter how unhelpful it

is to do that, or how unlikely those catastrophes are. So ,after you've written

down your list, you want to go through your list and highlight which worries

are actionable. So you are going to separate worries that you can act on

from worries that are hypothetical or imagined danger. So this doesn't mean

that they're fake or that they're impossible it just means that they're

not something that you're gonna choose to act on in the present moment.

So for example with coronavirus hypothetical worries might be something

like 'What if this lasts for years?', or 'What if I catch it?', and actionable

worries might be what are reasonable preventative measures I can take, or how

can I schedule my day tomorrow during lockdown. Okay, on to step 3. For the

actionable worries create a plan. Write down the next smallest action, use a verb

an action word and then set a reminder, set a reminder to take the smallest

action tomorrow to do the smallest step. So if you're worried about a long day

ahead of you put a reminder in your phone for tomorrow morning to make a

schedule for your day, or if you're worried about protective gear make a

plan to look up patterns for a homemade mask. You don't need to solve all your

problems, you just need to choose the next smallest actionable step and make a

reminder for it. Okay step four is acceptance. Some problems can't be solved

right away and they need to be accepted. So what you're going to do with those is

set those aside wholeheartedly and you could even say this out loud 'I

can't do everything at once', or say 'I can't control everything'. This is really

all about understanding your locus of control, what is and what isn't in your

realm of control. Now in my opinion worry is about unresolved issues, issues

that you haven't faced and either taken action on or actively chosen to accept.

So it is a choice to choose not to act. Worry comes up when we haven't resolved

what to do and our brain keeps prompting us to face it and to make some decision

about it. Worry basically says over and over again 'do I need to do something?'.

It's like a cloud that hovers over us and by planning in time for deliberate

worry it's like taking that cloud turning it into rain like some solid

water and then you've got something more manageable something you can do

something with. So deliberate worry answers that question with a yes or a no.

Step 5. Shifting your focus. When you've taken the time to face your worries on

purpose it's time to be intentional about what your brains going to pay

attention to. So I recommend shifting your perspective

to gratitude. Spend a little time remembering the things that are going

well, remind yourself of your successes. I personally I have a routine I do before

bedtime, where I write down some of my wins for

the day and I practice a little bit of gratitude before I go to sleep. Lastly, if

you're watching this video right now and you're trying to fall asleep but you're

worrying, get out of bed and do a brain dump. So that means just writing all your

thoughts on paper and when you've got all your thoughts written down take that

piece of paper and set it aside, file it somewhere and say out loud I'm

gonna face this tomorrow, and after you've done that physical act of setting

it aside, then you can go back to bed or you can try reengage your mind with a

book or a meditation or a distraction for tonight. Now again this is this is

the short-term fix right the long-term fix is facing your worries intentionally

throughout the day. But for tonight you could try my video on progressive muscle

relaxation, or a body scan, or my insomnia antidote

video which is just talking about gratitude as an antidote to worry. Now

all of these may or may not be helpful in the short term but in the long run

facing your worries with a deliberate practice and setting a bedtime routine

with good sleep hygiene can help you retrain your brain to fall asleep at

night instead of worrying. I hope you found this video helpful. Thank you for

watching. Please subscribe and sweet dreams.

Hi this is called Therapy in a Nutshell with a Kid

I'm Aliya and...

...and bye.

(Perfect!) Get this off me! Get this off me! Got it!