Anxiety is characterised by fear of performing regular daily tasks. The most common symptoms of anxiety are elevated heart rate, restlessness, difficulty in concentrating and having tense muscles. At night, anxious thoughts crowd the mind and often do not allow us to sleep peacefully. But why does it happen? Why is night-time anxiety so common? Therapist Israa Nasir, in a social media post, explained the causes of night-time anxiety.

Lack of distractions:

Israa Nasir pointed out that at night, the absence of activities and work makes us prone to get back to thoughts that are disturbing us. Hence, we tend to get into that spiral.

Increased cortisol levels:

Cortisol – the stress hormone – has the circadian rhythm where it increases during the daytime and decreases during the night. However, when we are stressed throughout the day, the cortisol levels stay elevated at night as well.

Racing thoughts:

Often we experience racing thoughts at night that are fueled by contemplation, stress and ruminations. This can further make us feel more anxious.

Physical sensations:

Physical discomforts can be triggered by anxiety, such as shallow breathing, racing heart and or muscle tension.

Stress and life events:

Major life events that project disturbing thoughts in the mind – be it workplace challenges or relationship tension – can trigger night-time anxiety as well.

How to manage night-time anxiety?

Therapist Israa Nasir shared a few tips to manage night-time anxiety and improve sleep quality:

Tidy up: Instead of staying in bed and keeping on getting into the spiral of thoughts, we should try to organise our living space as a way of distracting ourselves.

Write it down: We should write down our worries and thoughts and give them a shape. This will help us to look at them from another perspective.

Have a relaxing ritual: Be it reading a book or listening to a podcast or watching an episode of a sitcom, we should have a continuous relaxing ritual every night before going to sleep.

Scan the body: We should look inwards and try to connect with the body and understand the physical sensations.

Things to avoid: Heavy meals, alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, doom-scrolling and heavy exercise should be avoided at least three hours before going to bed.

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