Recent Posts
A Counsellor’s Response to Channel 4’s The Great ADHD Myth?
I didn’t want to write another blog about ADHD so soon after my last one, but the Channel 4 documentary -
August 28, 2026, 2:29 pm
Women’s Mental Health: What about hormones?
Picture by LugiL – Deviant art
I had the pleasure of watching Dr Louise Newsome on stage talking about the impact of hormonal imbalance at the
August 3, 2026, 3:39 pm
Why Workplaces Can Be Toxic for Neurodiverse People: The Challenges of “Fitting In”
The AI picture of me is how a corporate Elaine should look apparently. It doesn’t look or feel like me, in fact it’s uncomfortable to look at. But it’s what I tried to be for a couple of decades , always wondering why I...
June 2, 2026, 9:59 am
We cannot always control what is happening in our lives, we often find work, families add to our stress levels, anxiety, physical or mental illness affects us, and we can become exhausted with all of this. The only thing we can control is how well we look after ourselves. This is really essential to build resilience. When we are tired, run-down or not eating well, we find life and all it throws at us even more difficult to deal with.
Self-care is big expensive treats or holidays, it starts with some basics, boring stuff really. Sleep is a big part of self-care.
Get enough sleep- go to bed early if you need to, protect the time you need to sleep from other things like just watching one more episode of the box set or staying out for one more hour. Sleep is very important for our emotional and physical well-being. Lack of sleep will impact our ability to deal with stress, increase our anxiety and for our mind and body to function properly. We often find it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep if we are anxious so there are a few sleep hygiene tips we should follow –
- Light exercise like walking or yoga can help us release tension
- Pay some relaxing music before going to bed
- Have an hour with no TV or internet before going to sleep
- Take a bath with some muscle relaxing bubble bath
- Write down whatever wakes you up at night – I write my work to-do list before I go to bed, so I don’t wake up thinking about what I must do! Writing down feelings also helps to clear your head before relaxing
- If you really can’t sleep think of your time in bed as rest and try some breathing exercises.
Anxiety often gets much more intense if we have no sleep, tiredness allows anxiety to find more things to be frightened of and lessens the other part of our brain’s ability to rationalise what is actually happening.
Anxiety also increases when we feel isolated and alone, it is then able to magnify the smallest issues, like ” someone looked at me funny, I’m being judged..” and create a whole scenario about not being good enough, everyone hates me I’m ugly the list is endless. The middle of the night is one of the most isolated times for us.
If all of the above things to help us sleep fail its time for us to find some way to distract or diffuse our thoughts. Listen to music, write or find a way to gently take our thoughts away from our anxiety.
Sometimes we need to ask for help from friends or family or even a professional to help us deal with a lack of sleep or anxiety. Please reach out the more people you have who can sit with your anxiety the less power your anxiety has.