Dear Clayton:

When your mind wanders and wanders at night, being extremely active: what is it that you think about, can you give examples of the thinking happening?

I am familiar with this kind of problems that you described, overthinking when going to bed, calm when going to bed, then .. waking up, when in bed, thinking and overthinking. Then when finally asleep, waking up too soon and remaining awake.

What I understand about it is that it is an issue of anxiety, can be minor anxiety that starts the insomnia, but what happens next is that the very experience of lying awake hour after hour and suffering the day after for it, brings about a new anxiety: it happening again.

And so, going to bed becomes a scary experience. Oh no, not again kind-of-experience.

I didn’t have as bad of a problem as what I witnessed in another. Of some success to me in some areas of anxiety is to no longer want so much to, let’s say, to sleep, to no longer care so much but instead, let it be, I will sleep if I will, I won’t if I don’t.

anita