journal

This article was medically reviewed by Ryan Brady, D.C.

Top points

• Anxiety can cause sleep issues by creating muscle tension, racing thoughts, and restlessness.
• There are several strategies that may help ease anxiety to make falling asleep easier.
• If multiple strategies don’t work to help with falling asleep and your anxiety persists, ketamine treatment may help you get to the root causes of your anxiety.

Are you having trouble falling asleep because of your anxiety? Do you experience a rush of anxiety when falling asleep? Trying to get through your day with a lack of sleep can be very challenging, especially if there is seemingly no end to your sleepless cycle. If this is you and you would like to improve your situation, you have come to the right place.

Read on to learn several quick tips for falling asleep with anxiety.

Why Does Anxiety Make It Hard to Sleep?

Anxiety disorders are mental health conditions that plague a great portion of today’s population, and sleep deprivation is just one of the many daily issues that anxiety can cause.

Learning how to fall asleep with anxiety takes more understanding of what’s going on inside of you when it occurs. Let’s take a closer look at the ways that anxiety influences the body and mind.

Muscle Tension

Anxiety can cause your muscles to tense up, and this can look different for each individual. For some, it manifests as a clenched jaw or fist, while others may feel it in their stomach or chest.

Not only can this muscle tension lead to a bad night’s sleep, but it may also eventually turn into legitimate pain further down the road.

Racing Mind

Anxiety while falling asleep can often feel like your thoughts won’t let you rest. Whether you have anxiety or not, you have probably experienced some form of insomnia due to racing thoughts. People with anxiety often cannot fall asleep because it feels like their minds just won’t shut off.

Nervousness or Restlessness

Nervousness and restlessness can be brought on by anxiety, ultimately affecting both the body and the mind. If this worsens, it can sometimes lead to experiencing an anxiety attack while falling asleep.

These symptoms can lead to a racing mind, stomach issues, clenched muscles, profuse sweating, and many other physical and mental issues that could stand in the way of a good night’s sleep.

What Can I Do to Fall Asleep with Anxiety?

Everyone knows sleep is incredibly important. So the natural next question is, how can you fall asleep with anxiety?

The good news is that there are many potential solutions for experiencing anxiety when falling asleep. Here are just a few.

1. Try Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation is the act of tensing a specific group of muscles while you take a deep breath and relaxing them while you let it out.

Muscle tension can largely contribute to sleeplessness, and you may not even realize that certain muscles are tense. Relaxation techniques can be a simple way to help relax those tense muscles and ease you into sleep.

2. Read a Book

For those who often deal with a racing mind keeping you awake, reading a book may help. Reading may help calm your thoughts by focusing them on one subject for an extended time and allowing your eyes to grow tired.

3. Use Calming Essential Oils

Many people like to use essential oils to help them fall asleep. Whether you are dealing with a restless mind, tense muscles, or nervousness, essential oils may be an effective means of relief.

Diffusing oils like lavender, chamomile, bergamot, peppermint, or cedarwood while you go to bed can be a great catalyst for sleep.

4. Practice Deep Breathing

If you find that you can’t sleep due to physical manifestations of anxiety, practicing deep breathing before bed may help. Intentional and controlled deep breathing can slow down your heart rate and loosen up all of the parts of your body that may be tense and constricted.

5. Meditate

Meditation has a similar effect to the practice of deep breathing. A majority of the time, these two practices go hand in hand. There are many forms of meditation, but the general idea is that you set aside time to slow your breathing, take control of your thoughts, and focus on them, ultimately obtaining internal stability and serenity.

6. Take a Warm Bath

Who doesn’t love a relaxing bath? Feeling the warm water on your skin and washing the dirt off of your body while lying down is a relaxing experience for most people. If you find this relaxing, it may be just the thing to help you get some good sleep.

7. Try Visualization

Visualization is a technique used to spark relaxation by imagining it. Essentially, you pick something that is relaxing to you, imagine it in front of you, and hold your focus on it. This may look like white sand beaches or a gorgeous sunset, or it may be your childhood bedroom. Choose whatever works for you and lean into the image.

8. Keep Electronic Devices Away

Electronic devices can prevent sleep for several reasons. They provide social distractions and entertainment, but these devices emit blue light that can negatively affect your eyes and body. This blue light has been shown to interfere with our circadian rhythm, making it more difficult to get to sleep.

Putting your phone away an hour before bed may be all that you need to do.

9. Write in a Worry Journal

If you find that you can’t seem to get your brain to turn off at night, you may want to consider getting a worry journal. Having a place to let all of your thoughts escape can help put your mind at ease so you can rest peacefully.

10. Use a White Noise Machine or a Fan

White noise can be beneficial for sleep regardless of whether or not you have anxiety. White noise may help reduce sleep onset, meaning it can help you drift to sleep more quickly.  If you are losing sleep due to stress and anxiety, try placing a fan or white noise machine in your room. Breaking the silence of the night may be exactly what you need to be able to drift off at the end of the day.

11. Drink Less Coffee

This may seem obvious, but stimulants like caffeine can disrupt sleep. Try cutting back to one cup in the morning, and avoid grabbing a cup of joe past 2pm for normal metabolic clearance– coffee can exacerbate anxiety symptoms in some people, doubling its negative effects on sleep.

12. Make a Gratitude List

For some people, the worry journal just makes things worse. Instead of letting the worries go, they end up focusing on them. If this is you, listing things you are grateful for may help you let your worries drift away.

13. Make a To-Do List for Tomorrow

One major culprit to the racing mind of an anxious person is often tomorrow’s tasks. Making a to-do list and timeline for those tasks may help materialize your thoughts so that you spend less time worrying about tomorrow and more time sleeping.

What Is Ketamine Therapy?

If none of the above tips seem to improve learning how to fall asleep with anxiety, you may want to consider ketamine therapy. This type of therapy utilizes the drug ketamine to relieve symptoms of mental illnesses like anxiety or depression.

How Can Ketamine Therapy Help With Anxiety?

Ketamine works on the neurotransmitter glutamate which helps to create greater neuroplasticity in the brain. This means that new connections and thought patterns are created, allowing you to take control of your habitual, racing thoughts that hamper good sleep.

Who Can Ketamine Therapy Benefit?

A wide range of people can benefit from the effects of ketamine treatment– including those who experience anxiety when falling asleep. This includes people who suffer from mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and treatment resistant depression.

How Does Ketamine Therapy Work?

With Nue Life, ketamine treatment is simple. It starts with a free evaluation to determine which of our programs may be the best.

Nue Life ketamine treatment involves a simple oral ketamine dissolving lozenge, allowing you to have your ketamine experience right in the comfort of your own home, with a trusted friend or loved one serving as a sitter.

Many people notice relief from their symptoms within 24 hours after the first dose, making this treatment method fast and effective.

Are There Any Risks?

Ketamine has been safely used by doctors for years, but as with any form of medication, there are still a few precautions and side effects to be aware of.

Precautions and Side Effects

Certain groups of people may be advised against ketamine therapy. These groups include children under the age of sixteen, elderly with pre-existing heart, liver, and kidney issues, and mothers who are currently nursing.

Be sure that your healthcare professional is aware of all the medications you are currently taking, as certain drugs may have negative interactions with ketamine.

Oral ketamine therapy may cause some side effects, but these are generally mild and subside quickly. Potential side effects include double vision, nausea, a dream-like state, confusion, and fatigue.

Other Forms of Therapy

Other treatment options for anxiety-induced sleep disorders like sleep apnea or insomnia include cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and over-the-counter supplements like melatonin.

Melatonin can be effective for sleep, but it does not address the underlying anxiety. Alternatively, CBT may be best when used alongside another form of treatment, like ketamine.

The Bottom Line

Anxiety can be a crippling mental health condition that can affect all facets of your life — a primary facet being your ability to sleep. But there are many behavioral changes you can make to give yourself a better chance to fall asleep, such as journaling and limiting electronics.

You don’t have to work alone to try and fix your anxiety while falling asleep. If you continue to struggle to get the rest you need due to anxiety, Nue Life can help. Ketamine therapy has proven to be a low-risk option to relieve symptoms of mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Nue Life is committed to whole-person care and evidence-based treatment, focusing on 360 degrees of wellness with psychedelic therapy and group and individual support.

Treatment at Nue Life

Nue Life believes in holistic treatment, which means that what happens before and after your ketamine experience is equally as important as the experience itself. We want to ensure you have meaningful takeaways from your experiences and help you establish positive new neural pathways.

That’s why we provide one-on-one health coaching and integration group sessions with each of our programs. We’re here to help map out the mind and body connections in your brain and help you discover the insights that lead to true healing.

Sources:

The Physical Side of Anxiety | Intermountain Healthcare

Stress Management: Doing Progressive Muscle Relaxation | Michigan Medicine

Insomnia treatment: Cognitive behavioral therapy instead of sleeping pills | Mayo Clinic

Tips for beating anxiety to get a better night’s sleep | Harvard Health Publishing

Blue light has a dark side | Harvard Health

White Noise: How How To Use It for Better Sleep | Sleep Foundation

Too much coffee? | APA

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