Hi Ashley. My tip is to face the fact that your mind races. Been there. Next, accept the fact your mind races. Then allow your mind to race, and lastly surrender to it. While doing this, don’t judge yourself for the thoughts you have, just note them, don’t engage with them, just calmly observe them without interaction. This takes practice, it does NOT have to be perfect, all that is required is you do the best you can without forcing yourself. Fighting racing thoughts only makes them worse. By allowing and accepting without judgment, you take the power out of them. Just do what you can, keep practicing, don’t expect miracles, it’s a process that will desensitize the mind and body. Best of luck, hope this helps.

Start doing a relaxing, night time routine.

Stay off social media at night. Stay off your phone and computer, too, as those are too distracting and wake up your mind. Don't watch scary or dramatic stuff on TV before bed. Watch boring stuff on TV before bed, or put on some relaxing music. Stop drinking caffeine by the afternoon. Take a hot shower or bath in the evening. Make sure your bedroom is a cool temperature, and dark enough and quiet enough for you.

Keep a journal and write in it at night, right before bed. Write anything and everything, stresses, worries, whatever is on your mind. Getting it out of your head and on to paper helps your mind relax.

Hello Ashley. Welcome to DS. Sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here.

Did making this post help any? Racing thoughts and thought loops just might be my most consistent anxiety symptom. A post something like this one is among my most effective tools for dealing with them. Journaling and/or contact with someone within my therapy support network are equally effective. Methinks the important part is taking a step outside my head and connecting with something more solid than my nebulous, stormy thought loops. In my own case, my racing thoughts are typically as circular as a CD and as repetitive as when my CD player hits a scratch in the surface in the CD. Within that analogy, I think of that outside contact as a bump to the CD player to get it past the surface scratch.

You are not alone, Ashley. Every case of anxiety is unique and you need to find what works for you, but it helps to have someplace to vent and/or lean when needed. Hope you feel safe doing exactly that here. Welcome aboard.

Welcome the anxiety board at DS.

You've taken the important first step in writing it out.

Racing thoughts...distract...do..direct. You can find your better balance!

1. Remember what your last dream was. Go back to that place. If you can remember what your last dream was, that is a portal back into sleep mode

2. Visualization. I imagine I am high atop a hill. I'm sledding down the hill. Or maybe I am flying. Lifting off the ground. Or rolling. Or I am on a long swing, soaring out over an ocean. Be creative. The goal is, to imagine motion. The visualization of soothing motion... somehow tricks the mind into a dream state

I once took a DBT class (Dialectical Behavior Therapy). On this topic, to stop the crazy=ness, we were told to just say, yell out, or even to yourself in your head, say STOP really loud. After I practiced it a few times, it worked!! I was able to stop the thoughts.

So many good tips!
I try to surrender so I don’t get worked up about the racing thoughts because that just seems to foster more anxiety and more racing thoughts for me. So a lot of times I just let the thoughts race and in the mean time just lay very relaxed. If I go to bed with a lot on my mind, I try to write it down to release a bit of that intensity.

Sometimes listening listening to an app that plays white noice or certain nature sounds helps me relax enough to start shutting things off in my head.

I never get what I believe to be good sleep because I wake every few hours. I've tried almost all things including sleep aids and it just does not work for me. Music is probably my best way to fall asleep. Probably different than many, watching videos (TicTok or Youtube) actually makes me sleepy. I laugh, I listen to music, and soon find myself dozing. It may not be for long but it's better than staring at the ceiling with my mind in worrisome thoughts. Good luck!

Sometimes when I have a hard time ‘shutting down’ I have snack. Sometimes the digestion needs for energy help my mind focus on that and I can get the sleep. My ‘go to’ thing is a bowl of chick peas ( garbanzo beans). We need energy to process and regenerate from the previous day and so maybe that is why too. We need enough fuel to stay asleep!:)

I thought of another tip.

Exercising regularly, but earlier in the day, helps promote better sleep.

Also, are you doing enough physical activity in general, each day? I know for me, if I have a day where I didn't do much at all that was very physical that day, that I am not tired or sleepy enough to go to sleep later that night. It helps to have done something active or physical during the day, and then you will just conk out at night! If I'm just lounging around one day, then I have no reason to feel tired or sleepy that night.

The body needs to have done enough (physical) during the day to be tired enough for sleep that night.

Welcome Ashley, I am glad you decided to come here to talk about your racing thoughts. I know it is not easy to deal with them but allow your brain to relax. I help myself by relaxing at night by listening to music, especially music from the 1980s, or play a game, anything that is distracting for my brain. I had started a new habit of listening to music on one computer and playing a game on the other computer. I focus on that then find myself thinking about those things. Sometimes I would take a hot shower (I would just stand in the shower and let the water run over my body).

Before I began doing those things, I would be full of thoughts that depressed me, made the muscles in my body tightened up, or just get aches and pain. I do not sleep with the television on because whatever program that is shown, my brain would pick it up and then I would dream about it