The vicious circle of anxiety and insomnia

Svan E
3 min readApr 21, 2021

If you ask modern people what is the biggest problem that bothers them, I believe many people will say insomnia. If you want to face all kinds of difficulties in your life and work in high spirits, you must have vigorous energy, and if you have vigorous energy, you must have a good sleep. Insomnia can disrupt people’s life rhythm, make people bear great mental pressure, and even bring many hidden dangers in health. Many people realize the harmfulness of insomnia, so they are anxious when they can’t sleep, and they can’t sleep when they are anxious, forming a vicious circle.

Why do anxiety and insomnia affect each other?

Anxiety is a psychological state caused by contradictions and conflicts caused by patients’ psychological stress, and it is a psychological problem for many people with greater psychological pressure. Many anxious people can’t calm themselves down. Even before going to bed, they think about things and often think about things, so they can’t fall asleep smoothly, which will lead to insomnia after a long time. Anxiety can easily lead to insomnia, in fact, insomnia will in turn aggravate anxiety. Many insomniacs often toss and turn in bed for hours before they barely fall asleep. During these hours of tossing and turning, people’s anxiety is progressive. If there are anxiety problems in themselves, these psychological problems will be aggravated.

How can we break the vicious circle of insomnia and anxiety?

1. Develop regular work and rest as much as possible

When many people listen to this, they subconsciously refuse, saying that they can’t sleep at night, so why talk about regular work and rest? In fact, regular work and rest can be cultivated. Although you sleep late at night, you must refrain from sleeping during the day. Do not sleep for one day during the day and lose sleep at night. This will make insomnia more serious.

2. Create a good sleeping environment

If you want to sleep faster and get rid of anxiety, you should create a good sleeping environment for yourself. If you sleep in a dirty, chaotic, and noisy environment, it may aggravate anxiety, and they affect people’s sleep. Therefore, to solve this vicious circle, it is necessary to create a good sleeping environment, keep it clean, install a shade and take sound insulation measures, so that it is easier to fall asleep in a comfortable environment than in a dirty environment.

3. Don’t think too seriously about insomnia

Some people are just too sensitive to emotions and take insomnia too seriously. The more insomnia, the more anxious, the more anxious, the more insomnia, and they will fall into this vicious circle and be unable to extricate themselves. If you really can’t sleep and are particularly anxious, you might as well give up sleeping, do something you like to do, watch some TV dramas or variety shows you like, and wait until you are really tired before falling asleep. There is no need to force yourself too much. It is necessary to understand that insomnia is not as big as people think, and don’t associate sleep with pain.

Insomnia and anxiety often appear together. If these two problems cannot be solved, a vicious circle will be formed. I hope you can make adjustments as much as possible. If you can’t make adjustments yourself, don’t push yourself, but ask for the help of your doctor.

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Svan E

Psychology researcher, pursuing spirit and essence. The connection between society and individual