The 3 Thoughts That Hijack Your Sleep at 3 a.m.
There is no debate about the importance of adequate and healthy sleep for our physical and mental well-being. I am sure you will agree that waking up to start the day after a good night’s sleep leaves you feeling refreshed, focused, and engaged. Conversely, being caught up in overthinking when you should have been sleeping leaves you waking up grumpy, dazed, and confused.
I recently wrote a post entitled The 4-Word Sleep Trick That Stops 3 A.M. Overthinking. I received a lot of positive feedback from readers about this post and their interest in learning more about ways to manage the anxious overthinking that keeps us up at night. That high level of interest among sleep-struggling readers led me to write this post, The Elevator Trick: A Surprising Way to Fall Back Asleep.
Still, I have received many queries from Psychology Today readers seeking to learn more about the specific types of thoughts that plague them when they struggle to fall back asleep in the middle of the night. This problem is known as sleep maintenance insomnia. Consistent with the teachings of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), it’s clear that specific dysfunctional thought patterns can wake us up and keep us up at night.
Below are three nagging, sleep-depriving thoughts, along with strategies for quieting them.
1. The What-If Wake Up Trap
This “what if?” loop can become a huge sleep saboteur when it rears its ugly head in the wee hours of your prime sleep cycle. This nastily nagging thought—”What if?”—will fester with thoughts of shame, ruminating, and the “You’re never good enough” narrative. Some examples:
- What if I lose my job during this upcoming reorganisation at work?
- What if my kids don’t turn out OK?
- What if my wife wants a divorce?
- What if this new financial planner rips me off?
The fix
Use a mantra like “Right now, this is my time to let go.” The beauty of this mantra is that it “allows” you to hold some space for your concern but gently shifts it to a time that won’t usurp your much-needed sleep. And as is often the case, after a better night’s sleep, the size of your “what ifs” in your mind will likely diminish.
Now, let’s say that nagging, nighttime sleep-disrupting “what if?” thought rears itself during the day in your awake, conscious brain. Then, ask yourself this eight-word question: “What is the worst thing that can happen?”
More often than not, this question is like a fire extinguisher that douses out those fiery “what ifs.” That’s because you will realise that if you look back on your life, you have probably navigated many “what ifs,” and you’ve generally fared a lot better than the original “what if” led you to worry about. Doing this exercise during the day will help you feel more settled and promote better sleep at night.
2. The Web of Relentless Regret
The wee hours of the morning can leave you in a thought loop laden with regrets. Regrets are insidious and infectious, as they create a coercive cycle that leads to even more regrets. For example, one of my counselling clients had a regret about leaving a job, which he realised in retrospect was quite favourable for his future career enhancement opportunities.
The fix
Visualise two doors. One door leads to a room with a tempting, comfortable bed waiting for you to sink into, and the other leads to Regret Avenue, filled with hairpin turns of past decisions and perilous bridges of past uneasy situations to cross. Gently shift to the bed image, and you’ll end up going back to sleep. That’s because you’ll be more mindful of the relaxing bed you are already in.
3. The Call to Control Trap
Anyone who has attended a 3 a.m. overthinking club session knows that among the swirling thoughts are ones related to “I need to fix this now, or I should have fixed it yesterday.” At the core of this pressing, anxiety-laden thought loop is the false illusion that if only you think longer and harder, then your problems will be solved.
The fix
Consider the elevator trick I mentioned at the beginning of this post (I provided a link to it). As a variation on that imaginal intervention for this current post, visualise your intrusive control-related thoughts boarding a descending elevator alongside you. By focusing on the downward movement of the elevator, you will start to relax. As the elevator stops on each floor, picture small groupings of these thoughts leaving each time. Most of my counselling clients report falling back to sleep after gently riding the elevator for only a few floors.