Negative Thoughts Keeping You Up At Night? Here's What To Do

Stressful situations tend to take up a little more brain space than we'd like. Although it would be great to simply press off on your racing mind when you're ready for bed, that, unfortunately, isn't so easy. If you've found yourself lying awake with negative or stressful thoughts running through your mind, you may find this technique particularly helpful. 

It's common to feel confident in the advice you give others yet struggle to do the same for yourself—and it's even harder when you're stuck in the middle of a negative thought loop, or what Kross calls "chatter." For this reason, Kross recommends using "distant self-talk," which requires giving yourself advice in the third person. "It is much easier for us to give advice to other people than to ourselves when we are experiencing chatter," he says. "Distant self-talk uses language to shift your perspective and talk to yourself more similarly to how you would communicate with someone else that you care about." 

Now, if your situation is really pressing, this strategy alone may not help ease your worried thoughts. That's why Kross calls upon another distancing technique he calls "temporal distancing," or "mental time travel," to double down on persistent chatter. This technique puts the situation to the test by having you ask yourself: Will this problem hold the same amount of brain space a week from now? What about a year from now? 

These questions can help you step out of the thought cycle and look at it from a different perspective. "When chatter takes hold, it often feels like everything is wrapped up in this experience and you're never going to break free," says Kross. This "mental time travel" technique can help you realize that although an event may be stressful, it likely isn't the end of the world. 

If negative thoughts tend to keep you up at night, you may want to try some targeted techniques, like the ones Kross shares with mbg. First, give yourself advice from the third person as if you're talking to a loved one. Then take a step back and ask yourself how you will feel about the situation a week from now—or even a year from now.

These two techniques can help ease stress and put everything into perspective. And if you still need some help calming down, adopting a wind-down routine can help to quiet the mind early in the evening.