How to fall asleep faster: writing a to-do list will help you doze off quicker, new research shows
Jotting down tasks can speed up your trip to dreamland, while people who don’t write down all that they have to do before they go to bed, worry more about unfinished tasks and have difficulty going to sleep at night
Can writing to-do lists help you fall asleep at night?
The short answer: yes
What keeps you awake until the early hours? If you answered, “Trying to remember what I need to do tomorrow” or, “Worrying about things that need to be done”, read on.
New research from Baylor University in Texas, in the United States, found that people who don’t write to-do lists worry more about unfinished tasks and have difficulty falling asleep at night.
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“We live in a 24/7 culture in which our to-do lists seem to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime,” says Dr Michael Scullin, director of the university’s Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory. “Most people just cycle through their to-do lists in their heads, and so we wanted to explore whether the act of writing them down could counteract night-time difficulties with falling asleep.”
