Mind racing at bedtime? Write tomorrow down.
A 5 minute dump
The light is off. Your body is tired. Your head is not. Emails, plans, a thing you forgot to buy, a thing you said last week. It all comes back at once.
This small experiment gets it out of your head and onto paper before you lie down. It takes 5 minutes.
Step 1. Take paper and a pen, not your phone. Set 5 minutes.
Use plain paper and a pen, and keep your phone away. Put a timer on for 5 minutes. When it rings, you stop.
What to expect: the timer is a gentle fence. You do not have to finish everything.
Step 2. Write everything on your mind. No order.
Tasks, worries, ideas, names. Do not fix the spelling. Do not sort. If you run out, write "nothing" and keep the pen moving.
What to expect: your list may look messy. That is the point.
Step 3. Circle the one thing to do first tomorrow. Close the notebook.
Read your page once. Circle one thing. That is your first move tomorrow. Then close the notebook and put it away.
What to expect: closing the notebook is part of the step. The page now holds it, so your head does not have to.
Try it today
Tonight, just before bed, set 5 minutes and do the three steps. Keep the notebook next to your bed or on a table. Tomorrow morning, open it and start with the one thing you marked.
Why it may help
In one small study of 57 healthy adults aged 18 to 30, people who wrote a to do list for 5 minutes before bed fell asleep faster than people who wrote about tasks they had already done. The more specific the list, the faster they fell asleep. In human words: the page holds your tomorrow, so your mind may not need to. It may help your mind stop holding onto it.
The honest part: that study tested lists of tasks. This version is a little wider and has not been tested. It is not a cure for sleep problems.
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