10 helpful ways to manage stress before bedtime

Why stress follows you to bed

Your body has an alerting system — the stress response — that is meant to switch on for a threat and off again afterwards. A demanding day keeps switching it on, and a busy evening never gives it the signal to stand down. When you finally lie in the dark with nothing to do, two things happen: the arousal is still there, and the thoughts you have been outrunning all day finally get heard. Sleep researchers call this hyperarousal, and it is the engine of most stress-related sleeplessness. It is not weakness, and it responds to fairly simple changes.

Ten things that genuinely help

1. Put a buffer between the day and the bed. Stop working, emailing and problem-solving at least an hour before bed. The alerting system needs time to stand down; it will not do it on command at 11 pm.
2. Do a five-minute brain dump — in the early evening, not in bed. Write every open loop on paper with one next step for each. A structured version of this, done well before bed, reduced pre-sleep mental arousal in a controlled study of people with insomnia. The list is for parking problems, not solving them.
3. Give worry a scheduled slot. If the same worries come back at night, set aside 15 minutes earlier in the evening to think them through deliberately, then close the notebook. When they return at bedtime, the answer is “already handled — 7 pm tomorrow.”
4. Slow your breathing. Breathing at around six breaths a minute — a four-second breath in, a six-second breath out — helps many people feel calmer within a few minutes, and small studies suggest it can shorten the time to fall asleep. The evidence for sleep itself is modest, so treat it as a wind-down tool, not a treatment.
5. Try progressive muscle relaxation. Tense each muscle group for a few seconds and release it, feet to face. Relaxation training is one of the components of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia and lowers the physical side of arousal that thinking alone does not reach.
6. Cut the evening light and the evening news. Evening light delays the body clock and suppresses melatonin, and some people are very sensitive to even living-room levels. News and social feeds add arousal on top. Dim the lights an hour before bed and keep screens out of the last 30 minutes.
7. Move earlier in the day. Regular physical activity modestly improves sleep and is one of the more reliable ways to burn off stress hormones. It does not need to be intense, and for most people evening exercise is fine as long as it is not in the last hour.
8. Do not reach for alcohol or “night-time” antihistamines. Both sedate you and then fragment the second half of the night, and neither touches the stress. A racing mind treated with a nightcap tends to become a racing mind at 3 am.
9. If you are lying awake worrying, get up. After what feels like 20 minutes awake, go somewhere dim, do something calm, and come back when sleepy. Lying in bed worrying teaches your brain that bed is where worrying happens; getting up breaks the association. Turn the clock away, too — checking the time at night keeps insomnia going.
10. Be kind to yourself about it. Self-criticism is stimulating. A bad night is a bad night, not a verdict; hold the wake time the next morning and the routine will do its work over the following weeks.

What to expect

These changes work on ordinary stress within two to four weeks, which is about how long it takes a body clock and a habit to settle. You will still have bad nights; the point is fewer of them and a faster recovery afterwards.

When it is more than stress

Stress has a cause and eases when the cause does. Anxiety does not wait for a cause. If worry is there most days for weeks, spills into your days, brings a pounding heart, tight chest or breathlessness, or produces panic attacks — or if you have started to dread bedtime itself — talk with a doctor. Anxiety and insomnia are treated together, usually with cognitive behavioural therapy and sometimes medication, and the treatments work; our guide to anxiety at night explains what that looks like. If low mood or loss of interest has been there most days for two weeks or more, read about sleep and depression and speak with a doctor.

If your thoughts turn to harming yourself, do not wait for morning. In the United States and Canada call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland call Samaritans on 116 123; elsewhere, contact your local emergency number or crisis line.