We’ve all been there: after a long day of work, we get in bed exhausted. However, despite our desire to fall asleep, we simply can’t. Insomnia has its claws in us. We stare at the ceiling. Suddenly, it’s time to get up for the day. Between demands at work and home, it’s hard to get enough sleep. Even worse, the stress that comes along with thinking about all the things we have to do in a day can make things even worse. According to the CDC, 35 percent of adults in the United States are skimping on sleep tonight.
Worse yet, Gallup research reveals that our time spent sleeping has been steadily declining for 70 years. While just three percent of adults reported sleeping less than five hours a night in 1942, that number had shot up to 14 percent by 2013. So, what’s an exhausted individual to do?
If you want to beat those insomniac tendencies and enjoy the best sleep of your life—and assuming you’re doing all of the most common tactics that aren’t working—try sitting down to journal for five minutes before bed. Better yet, write down all the things you have to accomplish in the next few days.
While it may sound counterintuitive, research shows that creating a to-do list can make it much easier to get some shut-eye. In fact, according to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, study subjects who wrote out the things they had to do in the following days in specific detail actually fell asleep significantly faster than those who wrote out the things they’d accomplished the day prior.
