When writing your to-do list at night, naturist sleep doctor Catherine Darley, ND, previously told mbg that you’re basically putting stress to bed. She recommends spending a few minutes doing it about an hour before you want to fall asleep.
When we contacted licensed clinical psychologist Elena Welsh, Ph.D., for her take, she confirmed the mental health benefits of a good night list. “There are investigations that point [to-do’s] down, thus relieving the brain of having to keep track of it, is associated with longer sleep and better sleep quality, ”says Welsh.
The best evidence of this comes from a 2018 study by the Laboratory of Neuroscience and Sleep Cognition at Baylor University. For this research, 57 healthy college students completed a 5-minute writing task before controlling sleep. Either they made a diary about tasks they had already completed or they wrote about tasks they had to remember to complete in the next few days.
Students who wrote future assignments fell asleep significantly faster than those who wrote about previous assignments. And, interestingly, the more detailed the to-do list, the faster they fell asleep. This led the study authors to conclude that “to facilitate insomnia, individuals can gain benefits by writing a very specific to-do list for 5 minutes at bedtime instead of making a diary about the finished activities “.
Welsh says this research tracks what we know about human psychology. “If we have something we want to remember to do, it feels like an open tab in our brain. It takes up resources there,” he explains. When we remove it from the paper, we rinse some mental space so that the brain can switch more easily to sleep mode.
Once you do, Darley suggests you follow up with another calming activity to keep your mind going before bed. You can read a book, do a relaxing meditation or take a supplement to promote sleep. (Here are our all-time favorites to enhance your zzz.) *