Sleep expert says one action can help end 3am 'worry window'

Sleep expert says one action can help end 3am 'worry window' If people are staying in bed and 'fighting to sleep', an expert says there are ways to adjust People who face the dreaded 2am 'worry window' that keeps them up at night have been told a solution that could help them out. A sleep expert claims that there is a tactic that can help people make nights easier and stop their "fighting". Kathryn Pinkham, founder of The Insomnia Clinic, spoke to the Healthy Living podcast by Which? about ways people can improve the quality of their sleep. This included putting a stop to those moments in the early hours where minds start to race and prevent sleep altogether. She claims that our minds tend to start overthinking in the early hours because our brain 'makes time' - and we often get 'no say in that'. Kathryn told Which? one of the 'best' solutions she claims can actually be done hours before bedtime. She said: "If you are aware that when you wake at 2am or 3am, your mind is racing, I would encourage everybody during the day to find some time, pen and paper. Write down the things that run through your mind because if we don't do that, your brain will find a way to find a slot of time to make you pay attention - and that's gonna be in the middle of the night, just as you put your head down. Kathryn claims that, because we can distract ourselves all through the day with "a million other things", our brain finds time to create a "worry window" when we "can't do anything else" in the early hours. Aside from worries and anxieties, people may experience sleep troubles due to other factors, such as hormone imbalances. To prevent your brain from linking your bed to worries and anxieties, Kathryn's solution is simply to get up. She said: "If you really can't sleep and you're getting wound up, just leave the bedroom. "Never stay in bed fighting to sleep, because you can't win that battle. It's a bit like pressing the accelerator and the brake at the same time - we can't do both." The specialist claims people who distract themselves may end up getting tired naturally. She said it's "better than lying in bed stressing". One of the best ways people can fall asleep more quickly is to go to bed later when they feel more tired. Kathryn said: "What happens if we go to bed early to try and get more sleep is that we end up spending more time in bed awake and that creates that connection, and then suddenly, my bed is all about vigilance." Kathryn said that because people are "not getting the sleep anyway", pushing their bedtime back slightly to a point where they are actively tired means they are not fighting the urge to stay awake. By pairing this with an earlier wake-up time, people may naturally start to feel tired earlier, resulting in a shift in their body clock to when they actually want to go to bed. Another expert opinion from ITV's Dr Amir Khan claims that "cognitive shuffling" may help people drop off by distracting their mind from what it really wants to race about in the middle of the night. For more details, see the full story here.