A Three-Minute Bedtime Journaling Habit: Let Go of the Day and Sleep

You've turned off the light and closed your eyes, yet only your mind is oddly wide awake. That one remark today, the message you never replied to, tomorrow's schedule — what the daytime bustle kept at bay now floods in all at once through the quiet. Every time you turn over you check the clock, and the more you think "I have to sleep," the wider awake you become.

At the end of the day, the brain is full of thoughts it couldn't finish processing. Lie down in that state and the head keeps working on its own. What helps on nights like these is a three-minute bedtime journaling habit. This article shows you how to write out the day's feelings, let them go, empty your head, and sleep — and how to keep the habit.

Why the mind wakes up before sleep

During the day, chased by the tasks in front of you, there's no room to slowly feel your emotions and worries. But once you get into bed and the stimulation stops, the thoughts you couldn't finish processing rise up all at once, looking for somewhere to go. This is what "thoughts won't stop once I'm in bed" really is.

The trouble is that thinking it over in your head mostly produces no answers. Rumination — the same worry circling — sets in, and the brain, far from resting, keeps working. What you need here isn't to strain to stop the thoughts, but to get what's in your head out once and set it down.

Three minutes before bed, move your head onto paper

The method is very simple. In the three minutes before bed, write a few lines, off the top of your head, about what unsettled you that day.

• What snagged at you today. "That way of putting it rubbed me the wrong way" is fine.
• The worries still on your mind. Put them straight into words.
• What you have to do tomorrow. As a list, it's easier to set down.

The trick is not to try to make it neat. There's no need to end on a positive note. Get the murk out as murk. When you finish, don't reread it — turn off the light just as you are.

Turn tomorrow's worries into a to-do list and let go

Much of what surfaces before sleep is anxiety about what you have to do from tomorrow on. Kept in your head, the brain holds on to it "so as not to forget," and can't rest.

This is where it helps to write out what's on your mind as a to-do list. Once you've written "reply to that email," "check the document," and set it outside you, the brain no longer needs to grip it. One study reported that people who wrote out the next day's to-dos before bed fell asleep faster than those who wrote about what they'd finished that day. Moving worry from head to paper itself seems to help you let go.

Don't dig too deep — before bed, just "set it down"

One caution: don't dwell at length on painful memories before sleep. Writing that faces feelings deeply works well in the daytime, but done right before bed it can wake you up instead.

Before sleep, the lightness of "getting it out once and setting it down," rather than analyzing, is about right. On nights it feels too stimulating, don't push it — a single line is fine. On nights you're too sleepy, not writing is a fine choice too.

Keeping it up, and a place to write

The single best trick for keeping it up is to lower the bar by keeping a notebook or phone by your pillow. If it's within reach, it becomes a habit more easily. And don't aim for perfect — the nights you manage it are enough.

But what surfaces before sleep isn't always tidy words. Some nights bring anger at someone, or words that blame yourself. Those are hard to write where others might see. We built Noroi Nikki as a place where you can write out those night feelings in the form of a "curse," seen by no one. Set down what you've stored up all day, gently, before you sleep. A three-minute habit makes tomorrow just a little lighter.

References

• Scullin, M. K., Krueger, M. L., Ballard, H. K., Pruett, N., & Bliwise, D. L. (2018). The effects of bedtime writing on difficulty falling asleep: A polysomnographic study comparing to-do lists and completed activity lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. A study on the relationship between writing the next day's to-dos before bed and falling asleep.