Going To Bed Angry Or Worried Is A Bad Habit

Going to bed angry or worried is a bad habit. Yet people often do it. Most do it almost without thinking. When your emotions get the better of you, you often hide your head in your pillow and decide that you will think about it tomorrow. Unfortunately, sleeping on it rarely solves a problem, meaning it’s still there when you wake up.

Who has not experienced this? For example, you may argue with your partner and instead of resolving your disagreement, you resort to accusations and other unfortunate words.

You also resort to the kind of silence that makes you curl up under the covers and go to sleep back to back, both shrouded in childish pride and discord. So it is impossible to get a good night’s sleep. You may not even sleep at all!

Not getting a good night’s sleep always leads to a rough morning because you are exhausted and unable to think clearly. In such a state, it is very difficult to find the courage and ingenuity to resolve your disagreements with your partner. Going to bed angry or worried is bad for your health.

Moreover, recent studies show that even if you rest for a few hours, sleeping under the influence of negative emotions affects your brain. Read on to learn more about this.

Going to bed angry or worried is bad for you

If you go to bed angry or worried, you wake up in a really bad mood. This is because you are actually losing a lot of your potential. In other words, processes such as memory, reflection and creativity. In fact, the inner peace you need to proactively deal with problems disappears.

Sherlock Holmes said good rest is the solution to every problem. However, according to experts, such good advice is only true if you can put your worries aside. Lying on your pillow with the clear goal of sleeping is definitely healthy.

However, if you go to bed stressed, under pressure, anxious or angry, your discomfort will only increase. This is mainly because a negative emotional state not only makes it difficult to get a good night’s sleep, but it also negatively affects your brain.

Your brain and negative emotions at night

dr. Yunzhe Liu of Beijing Normal University conducted a study on this topic in collaboration with University College London. She said: “I wanted to know the consequences of going to bed angry or worried.” She found that the only thing that really affects sleep is the way you deal with your emotions and worries.

Using magnetic resonance imaging, scientists noticed that going to sleep angry, tormented and stressed changes different parts of the brain.

It seems to be a cumulative effect, meaning you don’t notice it after arguing with your partner and then going to bed angry with each other and sleeping separately. The most significant changes happen when this behavior becomes common practice.

The same goes for stress and constant worry. Going to bed weekly with such negative pressure changes your brain in several ways:

• The hippocampus, a structure related to your memory and emotions, gets smaller.
• When you are angry, the activity of your frontal lobes, which are responsible for rational thinking and executive tasks , decreases. This is because your mind takes on classic tunnel vision. In other words, you only see a part of reality. So you cannot compare. Therefore, your strategies to solve problems in a more reflective and creative way fail.

• Your memory starts to fail because your brain can’t perform its tasks effectively during restless nighttime hours. This becomes apparent in the difficulty of consolidating new memories.

Don’t take your problems to bed

Has anyone ever advised you never to go to bed angry or worried? There are times when problems are quite oppressive and your mind fills with knots you can’t untangle. So, what can you do in such a case to keep tension away from your pillow?

The first thing you can do is prevent all that tension and anxiety from piling up. The problems that arise will resolve themselves quickly. You should immediately confront the disagreements with your significant other or with another person. Because the things you leave for tomorrow don’t always resolve themselves. In most cases, they then become even more complicated.

Ideally, you let your body and mind rest, free of negative emotions. Techniques such as relaxation, meditation and deep breathing can help you with that. In addition, you can take a warm bath or enjoy a good book that might make you fall asleep.

A calm mind sleeps better and also helps you live your life to the fullest, in a healthier way.