I am not a therapist, doctor, or licensed professional. I am just a person speaking on my own experiences with mental illness. Please talk with your own care team before making any changes that will impact your health or wellbeing. You can read the full disclaimer here.
I am not a therapist, doctor, or licensed professional. I am just a person speaking on my own experiences with mental illness. Please talk with your own care team before making any changes that will impact your health or wellbeing.
This post contains affiliate links, meaning I make a small commission (1-3%) if you add a product to your cart after clicking the product link on this page and then complete the purchase within 30 days. This is at no extra cost to you. I recommend products I have personally tested whenever possible. Products I have not previously purchased myself are selected to the best of my ability. I recommend these items because they are a quick way to start feeling a little better as soon as possible while you work with a professional to target the root of your issues, or just as a convenience to you.
You can read the full disclaimer here.
I live with a fun blend of mental disorders that keep my brain busy 24/7. Whether it’s anxiety and PTSD making me overthink, ADHD causing my thoughts to run wild, or psychosis letting my imagination get a little too creative, it feels like my brain is incapable of downtime. If I had to guess, the on/off switch in my brain is probably actually labeled on/less on. The little hamsters running the wheels of my brain are freakishly buff and would be a danger to society if they somehow breached containment. You get the picture.
As you can imagine, sleep has always been a struggle for me. Ever since childhood, I have struggled to fall asleep until I was just so physically tired that I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. Staying asleep is just as challenging. I wish I could say that I get a break from brain-hell while unconscious, but unfortunately, I also have frequent nightmares and night terrors. It causes a lot of stress. I spend many evenings feeling general despair and agitation over the idea of having to lay in the dark tossing and turning instead of actually doing something productive and less psychologically tormenting with my time.
My personal experiences align with many people I have talked to in various support groups for the mentally ill. It seems like plenty of us living with mental health disorders tend to crash and burn as the sun goes down, or at least when it comes time to lay in bed with our thoughts. It is easy to stay distracted when going about our days but as soon as we finally start slowing down, it gives our brains a lot more wiggle room for symptoms to slip in, especially anxiety and depression.
Here are just a few of the factors that might be at play if you also get the “nighttime crazies”, as I like to call them:
It took a lot of trial and error to get to a point where I don’t feel quite as clinically insane every evening and can get a good 8 hours of sleep most nights.
There are endless amounts of resources online about building a healthy nightly routine, but to me, they all feel tailored to the neurotypical mind and body. Exercising in the afternoon, having a set bedtime, and doing guided meditations are fantastic ideas but just aren't realistic for me. I cannot adhere to a rigid and complicated routine, so I mainly focus on making a comfortable and grounding environment for resting. I might not be able to get my brain to a good place every night but I can get my body there and hope my mind follows suit. I know that the more opportunities that I give myself for grounding, the more stable my mental state will be.
You probably remember learning about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems in school: our fight-or-flight response and its rest-and-digest counterpart. Our bodies behave differently in each state, and luckily, you can use that to your advantage. Activities such as deep breathing and drinking water can ease our bodies out of the high alert mode, which is part of the reason you see recommendations for things like meditation and tea time in sleep hygiene routines.
Those are a great place to start but aren't enough to wind me down and keep me comfortable. If I slow down too much I can lose control over my headspace. On the other hand, staying overstimulated doesn't let my body ease into rest-and-digest mode. I need a balance.
I do have to mention that starting with therapy and possibly medication to tackle the root of your issues is a worthwhile place to start if you have access to those services. Many of the possible issues that I listed above are rooted in anxiety and working through that with a professional will do more than these tips ever could.
Even once I was at a comfortable place mentally (thanks to therapy) I still could not find the damn off switch, though. For me, no amount of sleep hygiene or therapy tactics will prevent my brain from unraveling every evening. Those things are foundational to my good nights of rest, but medication does quite a bit of the heavy lifting too.
Therapy and medication make sleep possible but it takes more than that to keep me comfortable and on a mostly regular sleep schedule. The tips below make going to bed at a reasonable hour a less painful thing to do while putting me in a better mood before bed, which in turn reduces nightmares, and so on.
Let’s break down my nightly routine by how I appease each of my senses, which helps me stay comfortable and grounded. The goal is to create an environment that eases my anxiety by giving my brain something else to focus on.
I’m so picky about sound. I can’t listen to just anything if I want to fall asleep, as it has to be slow and relaxing enough to not engage my flighty ADHD brain. I can never choose between music and rain sounds so I found a way to combine them!
I sleep best in a dark room but my anxiety and paranoia won’t stand for it. Even though I have a nightlight, sometimes it’s not enough to keep my anxiety at bay. Rather than sleeping with the lights on, I have two alternatives that I strongly recommend:
I dream most nights which is uncomfortable at best and horrifying at its worst. As much as I LOVE my weighted blanket, I’ve found that sleeping with it makes my nightmares infinitely worse. This U-shaped pillow is like being gently hugged from both sides and serves as the perfect alternative to being completely smothered. Not to mention, it just generally makes me more comfortable (so long back and knee pain!). I’ve noticed a significant decrease in nightmares from sleeping with this pillow along with a generally higher quality of rest. I would especially recommend this if you find that you sleep better with a partner but struggle to sleep on your own.
Smell is an important sense for me. I’ve had a habit of putting on perfume before going to bed for years, but recently I’ve started using pillow / sheet sprays. It’s a small touch but it helps put me in a good headspace and gives me something grounding while I lay in the dark with my thoughts.
I don’t incorporate this one into my bedtime routine outside of brushing my teeth, but do you know how many cool toothpastes there are out there? This one tastes like “ripe peach and sweet pineapple with a twist of sweet Alphonso mango.” Magical.
All of these elements combine into a loose sleep hygiene routine, focusing more on the sleeping itself rather than the evening leading up to it. I would love to be the person that turns off all electronics at 8 pm and does yoga and a hot shower before bed. Maybe I will get there one day, but for now, I am happy with the improvements these small changes lead to.
I hope these tips help you look forward to bedtime instead of dread it! Talking to a mental health professional about your sleeping issues is a wise investment but experimenting with appeasing your senses might help you slip into sleep more comfortably. Now put your phone down and go to bed, I know you’re doom scrolling instead of sleeping right now.
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