Why your brain won't switch off at night…

You've had a normal enough day. You're tired, properly tired, the kind where your eyes are stinging by nine. You get into bed, turn the light off, and right on cue, your brain pipes up. "Right then. Shall we have a think about everything?"

And off it goes. The thing you said to someone at work that you're still thinking about. Whether you actually responded to the group chat. The difficult conversation you're putting off with the team member who is not performing. A conversation from about three years ago that didn't even matter at the time. You lie there getting more and more frustrated about the fact you can't sleep, which, naturally, makes dropping off even harder.

If that's you most nights, let me start with the important bit. Lots of us are dealing with a version of this. A brain that won't switch off isn't broken. It's a brain doing its job a bit too well, unfortunately, it doesn't realise it's causing you another problem.

What's actually going on

Here's the part that helps a lot of my clients stop fighting it. When you're stressed or you've just got a lot on, your emotional brain can hijack your thinking. It's the bit of the brain that kept our ancestors alive, forever scanning for danger and keeping you on your toes. That's brilliant if there's a sabre-tooth tiger in the room. The problem is the only thing prowling about these days is tomorrow's to-do list.

That part of the brain only really knows three moods, worry, low mood and a short temper, and none of them is much use at bedtime. It also can't tell the difference between a real threat and a worried thought about one. Lying there imagining a difficult conversation tomorrow registers, as far as your brain's concerned, as a genuine danger happening right now. No wonder it won't let you drop off.

Why it's always at night?

Night's when it all surfaces because there's finally nothing to distract you. All day you're busy and moving and the worries get shoved to one side. The minute you lie still in the dark, the queue you've been ignoring since breakfast finally gets your full attention. Your brain hasn't decided to torture you. It's just the first quiet moment it's had to catch up.

There's a handy way to picture it that I use with people all the time. Imagine a bucket, and everything that stresses you tips a bit of water in. A snappy email, a money worry, a row with your other half, even the good kind of stress like a mad busy week. When the bucket's got room in it, you cope fine. When it's brimming, every little thing feels like too much, and your brain tries to bail some out at night by going over and over things. The catch is that worrying doesn't actually empty the bucket. It just keeps you awake watching it slosh about.

What actually helps

The good news is your bucket does empty properly when you sleep (ironically), in your dreams, which is a big part of why a decent night makes everything feel more manageable in the morning. And there's a fair bit you can do to give it a hand.

The first one is simple but takes a bit of practice. Stop fighting the thoughts. The harder you try to force your mind quiet, the louder it gets, because now "go to sleep" is one more thing you're failing at. When you notice you've gone off down a worry-hole, just clock it. "There's my brain doing its overprotective thing again." You're not trying to empty your head, only to step back half a pace so you're watching the thoughts instead of being dragged under by them. That little bit of distance takes a surprising amount of the heat out of it.

It helps just as much to give your brain something better to focus on before bed. The emotional brain settles right down when you point your mind at what's gone well rather than what might go wrong. Have a think back over your day and find a couple of things that were alright about it, however small, even just your first brew of the morning or a text that made you laugh. It feels a bit soft at first. Do it anyway. You're quietly training your brain to look out for the good instead of hunting for threats, and over a few weeks that genuinely changes how settled you feel.

And the boring practical stuff matters more than people give it credit for. Screens off a bit earlier than feels necessary. Some sort of wind-down so your body gets the message that the day's done. And crucially, don't sit there trying to solve your whole life at 11pm in bed, which is about the worst time and place to make a decision about anything.

If none of it's touching the sides

Sometimes the bucket's been full for so long that no amount of early nights makes a dent, and that's usually the point where the work I do comes in. Solution focused hypnotherapy is forward-looking by design. We spend very little time picking over what's gone wrong and most of it building back up that calm, switched-off state your brain's half forgotten how to find. For a lot of people, sleep is one of the very first things to come back.

For now though, if you take one thing away from this, let it be that you're not failing at sleep and your brain isn't out to get you. It's just been on duty a bit too long. You can teach it to stand down.

Suzanne Teale, Mental Fitness Practitioner, accredited Solution Focused Hypnotherapist. Unlock Potential, Bury.