Problems sleeping

When there are lots of things on your mind, getting to sleep can be hard. You might be worrying about exams and homework, about something that’s happening the next day or struggling with things at home.

When you’re anxious your body will naturally try to keep you awake. Trying to force yourself to sleep will only make you more anxious. You’ll need to reduce your anxiety to be able to sleep.

You could try:

• focusing on your breathing
  take deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Some people find it helps to close their eyes and count to 4 when they breathe in, and to 7 when they breathe out.
• Try some of our calming techniques in our Calm Zone and on our Coping with Anxiety page.
• It can also help to talk to a Childline counsellor about the things that you are anxious about.

If your find that your anxiety is still persisting and you struggle to sleep, then your doctor may be able to provide other ways of helping you.

Dreams are our bodies’ way of processing emotion and dealing with difficult things from the day. Nightmares are dreams that are particularly negative and scary. We are more likely to experience nightmares after a traumatic experience and nightmares often involve re-living that trauma.

One thing you could try is the dream re-scripting technique. This is where you remember a nightmare from the night before and change the ending to something really happy. You then go over this new ending during the day and just before you sleep. You can also write down the new ending if that helps you go through it.

Find out more about the dream re-scripting technique:

It’s very common to have poor sleep after having a traumatic experience. Your anxiety could be raised and you could be having scary thoughts before bed. You could also be worried about having bad dreams.

Talking through your trauma with a counsellor can really help. You deserve to get the support that you need. Our Childline counsellors are always here to listen and support you. You can also get help from CAMHS by speaking to your GP.

If your home is really noisy for you to sleep, then earplugs can be a great way of cancelling out the noise. Or you could use a fan or calming sounds to help mask the disruptive noise in your home. You could also try using a phone to play calming sounds via an app.

Teenagers often struggle to wake up easily in the morning. This is not actually due to laziness, but when children become teenagers their sleeping pattern changes to make them want to go to bed later and wake up later. This can make it very difficult to wake up early in the morning.

If you’re struggling to wake up in the morning then it’s very important you don’t go to bed too late and that you set your alarm for reasonable time in the morning and get up at that time seven days per week. If you let yourself sleep in at the weekends, it can encourage your body to go to bed later and wake up later even when you have to go to school.

 Some things that can help you get out of bed are: 

• putting your clock or mobile phone on the other side of the room, so you have to physically get out of bed to turn your alarm off
• finding a small reason to get out of bed - like a tasty breakfast, exercise, meditation, writing a mood journal, or listening to your favourite podcast while you get ready.

It’s also very important that you get bright light exposure early in the morning to help you feel more awake and alert. Ideally you should open your curtains as soon as you wake up to get some early bright sunshine exposure.

Once you start getting into a routine, you’ll start to find that waking up each morning becomes slightly easier.

Sleeping medication is only intended for short-term use. Doctors will rarely prescribe sleeping pills on an ongoing basis because sleeping pills quickly lose their effect as you become used to the medication.

Sometimes sleeping pills can be prescribed in the short term to get you through a sleep blip, however, for ongoing insomnia you can speak to your doctor about what other treatments are available for you.

One option is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia which involves addressing someone’s unhelpful behaviours and thoughts about sleep. The behavioural part involves stopping things that people do which are actually making insomnia worse (such as napping or spending excess time in bed, trying to catch up on sleep). The cognitive part involves managing anxious thoughts, especially stopping someone from stressing about sleep itself.

Don't overdo it, but try some regular swimming or walking. The best time to exercise is in the daytime – particularly late afternoon or early evening. Later than this can disturb your sleep. Exercise burns off excess energy and releases endorphins – natural chemicals that help you de-stress, feel less anxious and more relaxed.

They're stimulants, which means they'll stop you from getting to sleep. Caffeine can stay in your body for hours after you've had chocolate, a fizzy drink, tea or coffee. Try not to drink caffeinated drinks after mid-afternoon and cut down on sugar in the evening.

Drinking alcohol at night will force your body into a deep sleep too soon. It disturbs your sleep patterns, making you wake up after a few hours.

Try to have your dinner early in the evening rather than late. Your body needs time to digest food properly.

Some people find reading helpful. Try to stick to paper books - the light from computer screens and some e-readers can make it harder to fall asleep. It's best if you have no screen time for at least 30 minutes before you plan to sleep.

You don't want to be too hot or cold, and the room you're in shouldn't be too noisy or bright.

If something is troubling you and there’s nothing you can do about it right away, try writing it down before going to bed. Once it’s written down, you can tell yourself you’ll deal with it tomorrow.

These don't have to be big things - they could include the weather, your favourite song or someone in your life that you enjoy seeing. Keep the list nearby.

If you’re being kept awake by friends ringing or texting you, you could ask them to stop. Or just switch your phone to silent or ‘do not disturb’ – or even turn it off.

Close your eyes and imagine you’re in your favourite place or where you want to be one day. Imagine yourself happy and relaxed. Slowly breathe in and out, relaxing your muscles until you feel a sense of calm.