8.9 Stress Management for Better Sleep

Stress and anxiety are common barriers to good sleep. Some of us struggle to turn our minds off when we close our eyes and this can be very frustrating. To make matters worse, feeling stressed decreases the amount of time spent in the restorative stages of sleep (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 2011).

Worrying can lead to difficulty sleeping. Consider the following ways to prevent stress from impacting sleep:

• Physical activity can help a person get better sleep in two ways: by reducing the stress that impacts sleep and independently improving sleep (Penedo & Dahn, 2005; Loprinzi & Cardinal, 2011). You may have heard you shouldn’t exercise right before bed. While some evidence shows slightly greater sleep benefits with exercise in the morning or afternoon, any exercise is shown to improve sleep (Buman et al., 2014). So, if the only time you can be active is in the evening or the hours before bed, go for it. It will likely help!
• Building and maintaining a supportive social network appears to be important in promoting good sleep. Research has found that perceived social support predicts better sleep quality (Kent de Grey et al., 2018). Researchers posit that social support serves as a buffer against stressors. In other words, social support mitigates the potentially harmful impact of stress on aspects of physical health (Holt-Lunstad & Uchino, 2015), including sleep. Taking an inventory of your own social support network to identify gaps and ensure you’re surrounding yourself with positive relationships can help reduce the impact of stress on sleep.
• Writing to-dos down on a notepad kept by your bed before trying to go to sleep can help decrease the anxiety of forgetting to complete important tasks. A bedside notepad also comes in handy to write tasks down during restless sleep, so you can let them go and fall back asleep easier.
• Practicing a relaxation exercise while lying in bed can help quiet the body and mind. One example is a body scan, where the mind slowly checks in with each individual body part—from toes to legs to trunk to arms to head—to assess comfort and relaxation and adjust accordingly. Listening to a guided track and focusing on following the steps can be helpful for minds racing too much to do a relaxation exercise.

If sleep still doesn’t come after a half hour of trying getting up and doing something relaxing may bring drowsiness and sleep. This might include reading a pleasurable book, playing with a pet, or listening to soft music while keeping the lights dim and avoiding screen time.

Expert Perspective: What to do Instead of Watching the Clock

Video Transcript

If after trying different strategies on your own and you are still having trouble sleeping due to stress, talk with a trusted healthcare professional about potential causes or consider alternative therapies and strategies. When it comes to getting better sleep, it’s worth pursuing all options to discover a solution.

Most of us experience stress on some level, but sleep disturbances coexist with many mental health diagnoses including depression and anxiety (Ancoli-Israel, 2006). Whether mental health concerns contribute to sleep disturbances or the other way around has yet to be determined, but researchers know they are closely connected (Baglioni et al., 2016). Trying various strategies to get more or better quality sleep may help relieve some mental health symptoms someone is experiencing, or perhaps addressing mental health concerns through the help of a mental health professional will lead to better sleep. Regardless, the interaction between mental health and sleep might be another avenue through which to address overall wellbeing.