It’s the worst thing, when you put your head down on the pillow, turn the lights off and you close your eyes but your mind awakens. Your body is exhausted but it’s like your mind just woke up and is full of energy.

I used to deal with this.

The age old question how to stop overthinking at night. It’s almost like things that you don’t even worry about or ponder during the day, bubble up to the surface of your mind as soon as you try to go to sleep.

So unfair.

I’m going to share some ideas and tricks to help you fall asleep faster and turn your mind off at night.

The first thing to note is to analyze what types of thoughts are they? I’ve had all kinds of thoughts from worry about my health, worrying about my parents health or my kids’ health.

I’ve relived arguments I’ve had with people both offline and online. I’ve relived events of the day or conversations I had. I’d worry about having to tell my parents something or tell my boss I’m quitting.

I’d worry about telling a girlfriend I was going to break up with her. I’d worry about all those “what would happen if” scenarios. I could dwell on certain thoughts for hours.

It was a mean joke.

The first thing I found that helped me is let go of anything I couldn’t control. That could be worrying about my parents health condition or what somebody’s response would be to something. I would say 90% of the time I was overanalyzing things I had zero control over.

In the case of my parents health, I can’t make them live longer. I can’t get them to take better care of themselves. I can’t force them to take supplements etc. None of that is in my control.

I had to literally let go and just be thankful of the time I do get to spend with them.

When I came to the realization that each person comes into our lives as a teacher for us. They are secondary characters in our story. We are secondary characters in the evolution of their story.

Every soul gets to have their own mission and journey. Every soul gets to experience the actions and reactions of the decisions they make. The faster you can accept that the better.

If you love somebody and they’re self destructive you cannot and should not change them. You can try, but you will not be successful.

Pray for them, let them know you love them and offer help when necessary but in order for them to grow they need to take ownership of their life.

The next step I found was to then let go of situations that may never happen in the future. These are the “what if” scenarios. They’re the arguments in your head that talk like this, “well if he says this, then I’m going to respond like this.” “But if he says that, I’m going to bring up XYZ”.

Ruminating on these made up conversations will literally put gray hairs on your head and prevent you from sleeping. Most of the time you never even end up talking with the person about any of it. You wasted your time overanalyzing ever minute detail of a made up argument.

When I think of my life like a movie, it really helps me to let go of difficult situations more easily. If I take the approach that everything is a challenge and a lesson to grow, then I seem to worry less.

The other thing that has helped me is making up the story that the only reality that exists is the reality that is what I see with my eyes in each moment. Nothing else exists.

The person who I argued with doesn’t exist, my angry boss doesn’t exist, the only thing that exists is what I can see with my eyes in this moment.

Kind of like the tree falling in the forest. If you’re not there to see it, it never fell.

Force Yourself To Meditate During The Day

Meditation is a brute force way to force you to deal with your chattering mind. It’s a way to put your feet to the fire and force you to deal with the very thing we have a hard time dealing with, your chattering mind. If you can meditate in the morning, you can turn your mind off to fall asleep at night.

Think of a freshman in high school trying out for the basketball team. If you let that kid play basketball with junior high type competition, he’s never going to grow and build that muscle. He’s never going to get better. But if you force him to play with the senior varsity team, he’ll get better really quick.

Meditation is just like that. It’s putting your feet to the fire to deal with your mental shit. Once you learn how to flex that muscle, you’ll be able to more easily flex it when you lay your head down on the pillow each night.

Going to bed is like “the big game” and mediation is the practice for that. The more you practice basketball, the less stress and pressure you’ll feel when game time comes. It’ll be second nature to you.

When you go to sleep, that’s the big game. That’s the time when your thoughts bubble up and try to take control of your mind.

When you learn to let the thoughts pass over and around you, realizing your thoughts are not you, it becomes easier to just let them go where they need to go. Each thought is like a parasite seeking a host and attaching onto whatever mind will give them free reign.

I recommend coming up with a pattern that you follow when you meditate. I like to take 10 deep slow and rhythmic breaths in and out as slowly as possible. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth until I do it 10 times.

The reason for this is that this little technique is an anchor that’s attached to the work you do daily through meditation. This breathing technique will tie you back to where you’ve had success letting go of thought during your morning meditation practice.

Going back to my basketball analogy. When you’re watching the next NBA game, pick one player and watch until he goes to the free throw line at least 2 times. You’ll notice that he goes through the exact same motion before each shot.

He may dribble 3 times, then underspin the ball and let it fall into his hands, bend his knee, look at the hoop and then stay in motion. This is the exact routine he’ll do when shooting free throws until he retires.

It’s muscle memory.

It’s his anchor to his previous practice successes.

Your 10 breath technique is your anchor for when you go to bed. This is how to stop overthinking at night.

Supplements To Take

Before I share specific supplements to take that help turn your mind off I’m going to share general ones first. You’ve probably heard about melatonin and have probably taken it. If you’ve taken melatonin and it hasn’t worked, you need to read this because there’s a reason why. Melatonin isn’t a sleeping pill, it’s a circadian rhythm activator and free radical scavenger.

Other brain and mood supportive supplements would be…

1. Magnesium– 300 to 400mg is a great place to start
2. GABA – I like to start at 750mg
3. Glycine Powder – Must be in powder form in high doses 2,000 to 3,000 mg (scoops)

Now these supplements below are going to be specifically targeted toward brain, mood and the ability to stop overthinking at night.

If you cannot shut your brain off, you need to know how the COMT genetic mutation may be the reason.

If you haven’t heard of the COMT gene here’s a brief definition

The COMT (catechol-O-methyltransferase) gene encodes an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters such as dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, playing a crucial role in regulating mood, cognition, and stress response.

The COMT gene helps you to break down thought and release it. If you have this genetic mutation, you probably overthink at night. You probably lay there in bed unable to tame your thoughts. Your body is tired but your mind is wide awake. If COMT doesn’t work properly it will not create the amino acid L-Methionine, which is the component necessary for releasing thoughts.

Here are some supplements that may help you with overthinking at night.

1. L-Methionine
2. SAM-e
3. Theanine
4. Trimethylglycine (TMG)
5. Lithium – Study

There are ways to test to see if you have this particular genetic mutation. You can test for it here or here. I would work with a qualified natural doctor in your area and try some of the supplements above to see if they work. I usually give them 30 days of daily use as a test.

If they work, then you most likely have the COMT genetic mutation. If they don’t work, perhaps you can then spend the money on a test.

Act So There’s No Karma

Many times you’ll notice that you’re reliving conversations in your head. I’ve done that a lot.

It wasn’t until I learned about karma that it really hit home for me. Every action you take during the day (even having certain thoughts) creates karma that has to be dealt with. Everything must be in balance.

So if you overreacted to your spouse and got into a fight with her, then you’re going to carry some guilt about that. You’ll ponder who was in the right, and did they deserve what you said to them. If not, then you’ll experience guilt and dwell on whether or not you’ll apologize for what you said. Then you’ll spend 5 minutes thinking about the exact words you’re going to use when you do apologize.

It’s all so unnecessary.

If you really want to learn how to stop overthinking at night, one way is to eliminate situations that force you to over think at night. If you control your emotions in the heat of the battle, you’ll know you acted the right way.

You’ll have nothing to apologize for because you didn’t overreact. But also learn to communicate. Don’t be a pushover either. If you don’t express yourself with truth, you’ll find yourself ruminating on that conversation when you try to sleep.

This way there will be no regrets at night. There will be no overanalyzing or mulling over “what if” scenarios. You have control over your thoughts and actions in every moment. Don’t think that you can act however you’d like and still be able to sleep at night.

Your shit is going to keep you awake.

It’s deep work to be able to handle pressure situations with grace and charm. It’s not easy. But when you act right and do right, you’ll be able to fall asleep easier without overthinking.

Dietary Recommendations

I recommend a low inflammatory type diet to help with mental disorders. The diets I like for brain issues like excessive thought are the Paleo diet, the Carnivore diet and the Ketogenic diet. These are diets with low amounts of inflammation.

You want to avoid foods that have excitotoxins in them like MSG. These are really damaging to the brain. I also recommend getting a food allergy test because food allergies can cause many different health conditions.

We also know that the amount of bacteria you have in your gut has a direct connection to your brain and visa versa. Play around with different fermented foods like kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and kombucha. If you don’t like those foods there are some good probiotic supplements that can help also.

Meditations

There are a number of different meditations you can try which I’ve found to be helpful. You can even create your own mediation. I may be coming out with a product soon on how to create a mediation that helps you to fall asleep but also reprograms your subconscious mind at the exact same time. I’m actively researching how to put together a program that allows you to make it custom to you and your goals.

It’s in the works and something I’m thinking about and researching at the moment.

In the meantime try different ones and see how they work for you.

Sleep Tricks

There are many sleep hacks and tricks to help you calm your mind before bed. Here are some that I recommend…

• Breathwork – Take slow rhythmic breaths and count to 10.
• Relaxation – I like to focus on the muscles in my face and relax each of them individually. It takes practice!
• Arms & Shoulders – Let them sink into the bed. Pretend they’re dead weight. Relax your shoulder, shoulder blades, elbow, and hands. Do this for both arms.
• Keep Going Down – Then relax your abdomen, let it become like jelly. Let your hips sink into bed. Allow your legs and feet to feel the relaxation.
• Calm Your Mind – Pick a phrase and say it repeatedly for 2 to 5 minutes. Say it different ways and in different tones. Imagine yourself lying on the beach falling asleep to the sound of pounding ocean waves.
• Play Tricks – One thing I like to do is challenge myself to stay awake. Pretend like somebody offered you a million dollars if you could stay awake the whole night. Or they offered you a million dollars if you didn’t fall asleep. This trick works great for me.

Conclusion

One of man’s most pressing issue is how to turn his mind off. To stop thinking is that even possible? I think as long as we’re awake our mind is going to be thinking thoughts. It’s human. Your ability to figure out what thoughts are helpful vs what thoughts are stressful and keep you awake is something only you can figure out.

Our aim is to recognize we’re in a pattern of anxiety from thinking stressful thoughts. Once we recognize them, then we can work on letting go, try our best to think about other things or live in such a way to not have those thoughts to begin with.

I prefer the latter.

And then if you have these thoughts at bedtime and you want to know how to stop overthinking at night, then support yourself with a healthy diet and the supplements I recommended above. Your job is to work on letting things go. Work on releasing the grip. Realize that you don’t control anything and the world needs you to sleep well so you can have an impact in this world.

There’s no simple solution. These are deep spiritual and emotional issues that must be dealt with that are ingrained into our personality. I recommend stacking the odds in your favor…

• Create less karma by how you live during the day
• Eat a low inflammation diet
• Watch the sunrise
• Block blue light
• Take targeted supplements to help neurological function
• Force yourself to meditate each morning

As you can see these are lifestyle choices that require discipline and effort. They’re easy……but also easy to neglect.

Questions:

• When you try to fall asleep, what do you overthink about?
• How long has it been going on?
• What have you tried to stop overthinking? Did it work?
• When you brood and ponder about things, what good has ever come from it?

Comment below.