#i feel like tips like these go unspoken or if theyre mentioned they go unexplained so

[eternally-tired-cryptid]

I have another one but it's separate so here.

If you have insomnia bc of anxiety, or your insomnia triggers anxiety (similar but different things 🤷) pick a Thing. For example, during the day, when I start thinking depressive or anxiety thoughts, my go to is "I wanna curl up in my bed and sleep". It doesn't fix it but sometimes there isn't fixing or talking yourself out of the thought, so a broken record response helps.

Specifically with insomnia, I will pick something to "write a story" about. This is when I do most of my oc fanfic plotting, bc I'm more likely to be able to figure out those ideas again when I wake up bc there's an original source material (if I were to think about my original works I may make the insomnia worse bc I NEED to write it down before I forget). But you could pick something you really enjoy talking about, something you're studying, music, whatever. Just pick something that's your "topic for the night" and whenever you start to drift into thoughts that make your insomnia worse, just jump back to the topic.

It sounds a lot simpler than it is, trust me. Sometimes I'll lay there just repeating the topic word over and over in my head bc the moment I stop I'm spiralling again. But trust me when I say that late at night when insomnia is keeping you up is rarely the time to unpack all those thoughts, it's okay to just avoid them in whatever way you can. If it's still a concern come the morning sunlight you can take steps to work through it then.