Question: what can you do to help get to sleep if you have a over active imagination

Jason Ellis answered on 6 Nov 2018:

There are two things which I talk to patients about when they can’t sleep because their minds are working overdrive. The first is taking some time out, a couple of hours before bedtime, to empty your mind and the way to do that is to write lists – everything I have done today and everything that I have to do tomorrow. That will help clear out the mind and leave you feeling a little more in control. The second part, and this is for when you are in bed and can’t sleep because your mind is racing, is to fill it with something that is really difficult but has no emotion. So, I ask patients to count backwards from 1,000 in 7s. Tough huh! It is meant to be…eventually you will bore your brain into going to sleep.