Anxiety and worry

Challenge

People who have problems sleeping often find their minds are full of worries. The challenge with experiencing worry and anxiety at night is that we have evolved to be unable to sleep when we are anxious or stressed — this is important as it keeps us safe (i.e. not falling asleep when we’re in danger).

Anxiety triggers your body into something called the ‘fight or flight’ response. When this happens, your body releases a hormone called adrenaline; your mind starts to race, your heart rate increases, and your blood pressure rises. This is to prepare your body to either fight the threat or run away from it.

However, our bodies might not be able to tell the difference between anxiety caused by imminent danger (e.g. a lion that might try to eat us) and anxiety caused by our life worries (e.g. thinking about some public speaking we have to do the next day).

So, often, our bodies try to keep us awake when we’re anxious, and triggers the fight or flight response, even though there’s no threat and we would much prefer to be able to just go to sleep.

Challenges and strategies

• Worrying about sleep (or lack of it)
• General worries and anxiety
• Set aside worry time
• Worry and relaxation plan