So, what is the cause behind this beginning of the month anxiety?

Internal and External Pressures at the Start of the Month

The start of a month marks the end of an old month and the beginning of a new one. It is also a reminder that time keeps passing by.

1. Internal Pressure from Unmet Goals

When time passes while your previous month’s goals remain unfinished, while new month goals are starting or piling up, your brain feels that the burden is growing heavier.

This is pressure coming directly from within yourself.

2. External Pressures Appearing All at Once

However, that is only one part of it. The beginning of the month is also when a lot of external pressures appear at the same time:

• Rent, utility bills, and bank loans

• Employee payroll or a series of bills that must be paid

If you overspent last month or face a account balance deficit, your brain instantly recognizes this as a risk to your safety.

For many businesses, the start of the month is also the time for inventory, audits, performance evaluations, or summarizing the previous month’s results. This continues to increase the pressure.

How the Brain Uses the Past to Predict the Future

When internal and external pressures appear together, the brain begins doing a very familiar thing: scanning for risks to predict the future.

• If you handled these pressures smoothly in the past: If you consistently achieved your goals and created good results, your brain registers that this is a familiar and safe situation. You step into the new month with confidence and calm.

• If you struggled to get through previous months: If you experienced failure, were reprimanded, lost face, or fell into a financial crisis, your brain will use those exact experiences to predict the future.

The more your brain recalls those past failures, the more unsafe it feels. When this unsafe state combines with a series of internal and external pressures that may exceed your capacity to process, an anxiety signal is triggered. The more pressure there is, the stronger the anxiety signal erupts, even turning into new month anxiety and fear.

In short, you find the start of the month scary because large pressures are combining with a past where you struggled or failed to overcome those pressures.

The True Root Cause: Overthinking and Avoidance

However, that is still not the root cause.

The reason you fail to overcome these pressures time and again usually revolves around just two behaviors: overthinking and avoidance.

• Overthinking drains your energy without creating any solution.

• Avoidance makes the problem bigger day by day because it is never addressed.

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The end of the month is a time when multiple pressures appear all at once.

Money in your bank account is running low, or may even be completely gone. Work results for the month are being summarized, yet your goals might still be unfinished or below expectations. Meanwhile, a new month is about to start, bringing a whole new set of bills and upcoming expenses. Simply looking back at your account and realizing the remaining money isn’t enough can easily trigger a feeling of anxiety.

How Financial and Work Pressures Pile Up

Money isn’t the only stressor; work also adds to the burden.

A new month starting means new goals ahead. But if your goals for the month that just passed remain incomplete, the pressure escalates. The brain naturally tends to predict the future based on your most recent experiences. If you failed to reach your goals last month or had to struggle immensely to get there, your brain will predict that the coming month also carries a risk of failure.

These exact predictions cause your brain to enter an unsafe state.

If you have read the book “Decoding Anxiety, Fear, and Anger”, you will understand why this unsafe state is the very foundation that gives birth to anxiety, fear, and anger.

Why You Feel Irritable, Fearful, or Sad

Once you are in an unsafe state, even a minor pressure regarding money, work, or relationships is enough to activate anxiety. When interacting with family members or people in a weaker position, you easily become irritable and snap. Conversely, when standing before someone in a higher position, such as your boss, you tend to feel anxious or afraid.

Additionally, if you see others achieving their goals, getting rewarded, and feeling happy—while you worked very hard but still didn’t get the desired results—you will easily become disappointed in yourself. And from that disappointment, a feeling of sadness emerges.

Summary

In short, the end of the month is a time when many pressures converge. Pressures surrounding money, work, and the future put your brain into an unsafe state, making it easy for end of month anxiety, fear, and irritability to arise.

Meanwhile, when you look back at unfinished goals or progress that fell short of your expectations, you naturally feel sad and disappointed.

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However, understanding it alone is not enough. If you do not handle it properly, your anxiety will continue to be triggered.

This article will guide you through the correct approach so you can finally break free from anxiety.

Why Understanding Anxiety Is Not Enough (2 Common Mistakes)

Anxiety is an internal signal alerting you to a threat to your safety. As long as that threat remains present, anxiety will keep being triggered. When dealing with anxiety, most people fall into two major traps:

Mistake 1: Forcing positive thinking and using willpower to fight anxiety

For example, imagine you have an upcoming bank loan payment due but lack the funds, or you hear rumors that your company is planning lay-offs. You tell yourself: “It’s okay, everything will be fine!” or “I need to stay positive, a solution will come!”

You try to force positivity, but when you lie down at night, your heart still pounds furiously, and you suffer from sleepless nights. Your brain is not stupid: it realizes the actual threat has not disappeared, making all positive reassurances feel like self-deception.

Mistake 2: Suppressing and ignoring anxiety

You put on a cheerful, happy front for the outside world while suppressing your internal anxiety.

For instance, you throw yourself into work, binge-watch movies, scroll endlessly through TikTok, play video games, or go out drinking to forget your worries. But the moment you stop being busy and face yourself again, the feeling of anxiety returns exactly as before.

The Correct Process to Resolve Anxiety

So, what is the correct way to deal with this?

Step 1: Acknowledge your anxiety without resistance

The first and most important step is simply admitting to yourself that you are feeling anxious. You recognize what you are anxious about—plain and simple. No avoidance, no suppression, no ignoring.

You do not necessarily have to show your anxiety in front of others; knowing it within yourself is sufficient. Whether you choose to share this with someone else is entirely up to you and does not affect the success of this process.

Step 2: Bring your body back to a state of safety

Very few people know this: when you feel anxious, energy is drained away from your cerebral cortex and concentrated in the limbic system, which controls emotions and bodily responses. Right now, you no longer have your intelligence. Every thought you have at this moment is garbage and wrong.

That is why positive thoughts fighting against anxiety or solutions you try to devise while anxious always fail. Therefore, the second crucial step is resetting your body back to a state of safety. Take 10 deep belly breaths to re-establish safety for your brain. Only then does energy flood back to your cortex, restoring your intelligence. Your thoughts will now be logical enough to solve the problem. Most people skip this step—they use an anxious brain to solve an anxiety problem. That is why they stay stuck in anxiety for so long.

Step 3: Use your restored clarity to eliminate the threat

After returning to a state of safety, use your restored intelligence at this moment to eliminate the threat:

• If the problem is easy: Resolve it immediately.

• If the problem is difficult or you are tired: Set a regular schedule when your brain is at its clearest to tackle it. For example, dedicate 30 minutes every morning to reflect on a solution.

In this case, even if the threat isn’t fully resolved yet, you have a plan to handle it without avoidance. Your brain will stop alarming, and your anxiety will pause.

Summary

In short, these 3 non-negotiable steps work together to help you break free from anxiety:

1. Acknowledge: Recognize that you are anxious and pinpoint what you are anxious about.

2. Reset: Take deep belly breaths to bring your body back to safety. Without this step, your attempts to solve the problem will be irrational, leading to endless ongoing anxiety.

3. Resolve: Use the clear intelligence restored from Step 2 to address the threat. If the issue is complex, break your time into regular sessions to handle it until the threat no longer exists.

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For example:

• You have already checked your front door lock three times, but you still go back to check it a fourth time. You know the odds of forgetting to lock it are practically zero, yet the underlying feeling of insecurity refuses to leave.

• You know your partner is simply replying slowly because they are busy. Yet, your mind continuously churns out dozens of scenarios: they stopped loving you, they are angry with you, or something bad has happened.

So, what is the root cause behind this irrational anxiety?

Anxiety is a warning signal sent from your subconscious brain up to your conscious mind, alerting you to a threat. Recognizing that your worry is irrational is a function of your conscious mind. Conscious logic can easily push away weak or insignificant anxiety signals. However, when the alarm signal is overwhelmingly strong, you become compulsively trapped in anxiety—and willpower alone is completely powerless to stop it.

Think of it like sitting in a car with your foot firmly pressing down on the brake. A small scooter hitting you from behind won’t move your car, but a 10-ton truck certainly will. The second that heavy truck hits the gas pedal behind you, your car will creep forward despite how hard you slam down on the brakes.

Why Is the Anxiety Signal So Strong Even When It Makes No Sense?

Why does irrational anxiety carry such intense force? There are two primary cases:

Case 1: Long-term Anxiety and the “Anxious Brain”

If you have continuously experienced anxiety and fear for years or decades—or have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder—your brain has effectively turned into an “anxious brain.”

When your mental energy has been focused on anxiety over a prolonged period, the neural pathways associated with fear are continuously reinforced. As a result, the anxiety signals transmitted by your brain are always exceptionally strong. Even though your reason knows it is unreasonable, you are still compulsively trapped in anxiety.

Case 2: Ancient Evolutionary Survival Triggers

Through millions of years of evolution, the human brain has etched specific images, sounds, and signals associated with physical danger into its wiring. The moment these signals appear, anxiety or fear erupts intensely, forcing you into a state of anxiety.

For instance, when watching a horror movie, even though you consciously know it is just a film, the sudden appearance of a grotesque face bearing sharp teeth will instantly trigger fear.

How to Stop Irrational Anxiety (Effective Solutions)

The biggest mistake most people make is tensing up and trying to force their willpower to fight against anxiety. As explained above, willpower simply does not work against a powerful anxiety signal.

Instead, follow these steps to manage it:

1. Bring Your Body Back to Safety First

When your body feels safe, the anxiety signal turns off automatically.

• Practice deep belly breathing: Take at least 10 deep belly breaths. (Check the comment section below for the guided belly breathing exercise). You will escape anxiety right away.

2. Shift Your Attention to the Present Task

A moment later, your logical mind might try to drag up old memories to ruminate on, bringing you back into anxiety. When this happens, focus on what you are currently doing:

• If you are resting or entertaining yourself, focus on the entertainment.

• If you are working, focus on your work.

• If a threat-based thought pops up, simply bring your attention back to what you are doing.

• What if the anxiety signal is still too strong? Take another set of deep belly breaths. Gradually, the signal will weaken and fade away.

3. Long-term Adjustments Based on Your Situation

• If you belong to Case 1 (Long-term chronic anxiety): Diligently practice daily meditation to re-establish a baseline of safety for your brain. Once your body feels safe again, chronic anxiety will disappear.

• If you belong to Case 2 (Situational anxiety triggers): Simply isolate yourself from the threat.

Summary

After watching this entire video, which case best describes your current situation? Feel free to leave a comment below!

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So, what is the root cause?

Anxiety is a signal sent from your subconscious to your conscious mind, alerting you that you are in an unsafe state and facing a threat that your brain evaluates as exceeding your current ability to process.

Your subconscious mind is constantly predicting the future and firing off alarm signals whenever it perceives a risk to your safety. Because this process occurs outside of your conscious awareness, you sometimes feel anxious before you can understand exactly what you are worried about—and sometimes, you remain completely blind to the cause.

3 Common Reasons You Feel Anxiety for No Reason

1. Thinking Psychological Traits (Thinking - T)

People with personality traits leaning heavily toward logic and intellect (Thinking - T) tend to encounter this situation more frequently. They naturally analyze things with reason rather than observing emotional signals. As a result, their subconscious has already recognized a risk and triggered an anxiety signal, but their conscious mind has yet to identify the specific cause.

2. Your Brain Has Become an “Anxious Brain”

For people dealing with intense, prolonged stress or living in a state of insecurity year after year (including those diagnosed with anxiety disorders), the brain has effectively turned into an anxious brain.

At this point, they can no longer see the true cause of their anxiety clearly, because the brain evaluates almost everything as a potential risk. Consequently, they experience anxiety for no reason—or rather, without knowing precisely what they are worried about.

3. Ancient Survival Mechanisms Embedded in the Brain

The human brain has evolved over millions of years and retains many survival mechanisms that our conscious mind is completely unaware of. In the past, specific shapes, environments, or signals associated with danger were etched into the brain’s memory.

Re-encountering similar signals can trigger anxiety or fear before your conscious mind even has time to comprehend the cause.

For example, many people are afraid of the dark. Walking into a forest at night, even without seeing wild beasts, robbers, or any visible danger, they still feel anxious or fearful. Intellectually, one might explain that darkness makes it harder to observe, raising the risk. However, modern life contains many far more complex situations that consciousness cannot immediately recognize. As a result, you may still feel anxious for no reason you can readily explain.

Solutions: How to Identify and Resolve the Cause of Anxiety

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For Thinking Types or Those Who Haven’t Identified the Cause

If you still feel anxious, set aside 15 to 30 minutes each day to reflect and scan for the underlying cause. Examine recent events and analyze them. The brain never raises an alarm without cause—it always leaves clues.

These clues may appear in your dreams, recurring mental images, or thoughts that keep returning over and over. Once the true cause is resolved or no longer evaluated as a threat by your brain, the anxiety signal will gradually disappear. Furthermore, practicing regular meditation will help you quickly recognize the root cause of anxiety the moment it arises.

For Those with Chronic Anxiety or an “Anxious Brain”

If you suffer from frequent anxiety or a diagnosed psychological condition, your brain has become an anxious brain, viewing almost everything as a threat. The solution here is to practice meditation to reset the brain back to a state of safety.

Practice Kikazik’s streamlined meditation method to achieve the best results. By spending 10 to 20 minutes practicing meditation daily, you will witness true miracles happen in just 2 years. The more consistently you meditate, the sharper you become at detecting the brain’s earliest alarm signals before anxiety has a chance to escalate.

Summary

Anxiety never appears without a reason. If you cannot see the cause yet, it does not mean the cause does not exist. Do not try to suppress or ignore it. What you need to do is learn how to read the signals your brain is sending you.

So, what is the root cause behind this troubling experience?

Why Do I Wake Up Feeling Anxious and Heavy?

Right after you wake up, your brain reaches its most alert state. At this exact moment, your subconscious automatically scans for threats and risks to evaluate what might be endangering your safety.

However, this anxiety or fear you feel in the morning doesn’t just come out of nowhere.

In reality, it started long before you woke up—perhaps yesterday afternoon, last night, or several days ago. Because you avoided the issue or haven’t found a solution yet, the threat remains intact. Every time you continue overthinking it (overthinking means playing thoughts repeatedly without generating any real solution), the anxiety signal grows a bit stronger. Day after day, it quietly builds and compounds.

Once that signal crosses a threshold — the point where your brain decides this can’t wait any longer — you’re going to experience waking up with anxiety or fear the next morning.

In other words, that heavy feeling in the morning was not created that very morning. It is the result of long-term anxiety accumulated over days, months, or even years.

How to Resolve This Once and For All

To eliminate this condition completely, you need to take two specific steps:

First: Address the problem during the day

During the day, set aside 30 to 90 minutes solely to face the issue and write down a clear action plan instead of continuing to avoid it. When your subconscious sees that a clear solution exists, it will stop firing alarm signals the next morning.

Second: Stop overthinking in bed and move your body

The moment you wake up, do not stay lying in bed overthinking. Sit up immediately and practice deep belly breathing for 10 to 20 breaths to quickly bring your body back to a state of safety.

After that, dive straight into a specific morning task. Once your focus shifts toward action, the signal of morning anxiety and fear will naturally fade away.

So, what is the root cause behind this alarming middle-of-the-night reaction?

Why Waking Up at 3 AM with Anxiety Happens

1. For People Without a Diagnosed Psychological Condition

When a threat to your job, finances, or personal life emerges, anxiety naturally appears. Instead of finding ways to deal with the problem, many people choose to avoid it by ignoring it altogether.

People usually avoid facing their issues for two main reasons:

• Ego and Image: Wanting to appear strong and successful even when work or life is going poorly.

• Overwhelm: Not having found a clear solution yet, while simultaneously being buried under other daily tasks.

Around 3 AM, after several hours of sleep, your brain begins its recovery process. Even while you are fast asleep, your subconscious mind remains active. It automatically pulls out unresolved issues to process them.

However, when your subconscious fails to find a solution and predicts a negative outcome, a fear signal is triggered. The worse the predicted outcome, the stronger the signal becomes. Fear is a risk-alarm signal designed to protect your safety—so when it spikes, it abruptly jolts you awake.

For most people, experiencing extreme terror at night is the result of day-to-day accumulation. Stress accumulates little by little until it can no longer be suppressed, resulting in a sudden burst of midnight panic. From that point onward, chronic insomnia often begins.

2. For People with Existing Conditions (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Phobias, Panic Disorder)

Individuals who have lived with chronic anxiety for years develop a kind of inertia — a deeply ingrained pattern of anxious living. Decades of living in fear keep their brain in a constant state of feeling unsafe—effectively turning it into an anxious brain. At this stage, even a minor change or a small life event can instantly trigger intense fear.

For example, if a boss sends an email asking for a performance review meeting on Monday morning, a person with an anxious brain might suffer from severe insomnia on both Saturday and Sunday nights.

They tend to avoid the problem, but it never actually goes away. As they sleep until 3 AM, the brain restores its energy and automatically scans for potential risks. If the brain’s predicted scenario looks grim, panic strikes—forcing them to wake up in a cold sweat.

Daytime Steps to Prevent 3 AM Panic

To stop waking up at 3am in a panic, you first need to understand that the root cause of nighttime panic is daytime avoidance or the lack of an action plan. When your subconscious predicts that an unresolved problem will severely threaten your well-being, it fires off a powerful alarm, yanking you straight out of deep sleep.

To prevent nighttime panic, you need to dedicate specific time during the day to deal with the threat:

1. Set aside 30 to 90 minutes daily (depending on the scale of the problem) solely to address the issue.

2. Cap it strictly at 90 minutes. If you haven’t found a solution within this timeframe, continuing to overthink will only heighten your waking up at 3am anxiety and exhaust your mind, because your brain is already fatigued.

Using your conscious mind to actively address the issue signals your subconscious that the problem is being handled. This stops the internal alarm system from firing, allowing you to enjoy peaceful sleep.

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Once you have dedicated your daily time slot to problem-solving, simply shift your focus back to whatever task you are currently doing whenever anxiety or fear pops up during the day. It really is that straightforward.

How to Fall Back Asleep After Waking Up at 3 AM in Panic

If you find yourself suddenly awake in the middle of the night, follow this two-step reset method:

1. Promise yourself: Set aside a specific time tomorrow to deal with the issue directly.

2. Practice deep belly breathing: Take 10 to 20 deep belly breaths. Belly breathing instantly restores a physiological sense of safety, allowing your body to relax so you can fall back asleep.

(Check the comment section below for the detailed belly breathing exercise guide).

Important Advice for Chronic Anxiety and Psychological Symptoms

If you have symptoms of a psychological condition and your brain has become an anxious brain, you must add daily meditation alongside the steps above to rebuild a lasting state of safety for your mind.

• Practice meditation for 10 to 20 minutes every single day for 2 consecutive years. You will witness a genuine transformation in your mind.

• Do not quit after just 5 or 7 days claiming it doesn’t work. Rebuilding your brain’s sense of safety takes consistency. If you do not persistently rebuild a feeling of safety in your brain, you will likely remain trapped in anxiety-driven exhaustion for the rest of your life.

Why does this happen? What causes why anxiety turns into anger so suddenly?

Some experts explain that anger is merely a cover-up for underlying emotional pain. But this is actually just a surface-level perspective. Exploding in rage draws everyone’s full attention toward you — how could that possibly be called “hiding”?

If you have read the book “Decoding Anxiety, Fear, and Anger”, you will see that the mechanism behind anxiety and anger is surprisingly simple.

In the book, I revealed the activation formula for anxiety:

Anxiety = Feeling Unsafe + Weak Position

And the activation formula for anger is:

Anger = Feeling Unsafe + Strong Position

Both anxiety and anger share one common root: a feeling of being unsafe. This means that when anxiety arises, you are already in an unsafe state. The moment your relative position of power flips — when you become stronger than the other person — your anxiety turns into anger.

Real-Life Examples of Why Anxiety Turns into Anger

Imagine you get reprimanded, warned, or yelled at by your boss at work. You feel unsafe. Because you are in a weaker position than your boss, you do not dare fight back, leaving you trapped in anxiety.

However, when you return home, you see a messy house, dinner is not ready, and your child is glued to video games. Now, because you are in a stronger position at home, you displace your frustration onto your family. You snap, shout, ban your child from gaming, and complain about your spouse being lazy.

At this moment, your anxiety turns into anger.

The exact same thing happens when a supervisor puts pressure on you, and you take it out on your subordinates. Typically, people vent their anger toward those in weaker positions — women, children, subordinates, younger siblings, or close loved ones like spouses and friends — while rarely daring to show anger toward strangers.

The Vicious Cycle Destroying Your Relationships

This habit destroys your relationships. You bring the feeling of being unsafe from work back home to your family, or from home into the workplace and onto your team.

Because your loved ones are absorbing the insecurity you bring into the relationship, they cannot offer you a sense of safety in return. Instead of ending within a single day, that unsafe feeling comes back to you through the very people you took it out on. This creates a prolonged cycle of insecurity, leading to chronic anxiety.

If this cycle is not broken, it can lead to insomnia and exhaustion, and in more severe cases, psychological symptoms.

How to Stop Anxiety Turning into Anger (2 Practical Steps)

To escape this loop and understand why anxiety turns into anger in your daily life, you first need to recognize that you are projecting your insecurity onto your loved ones.

Take a moment to reflect: Have you recently been frequently angry with family members or people weaker than you?

If yes, ask yourself whether you are feeling stuck in a specific area of your life — such as your career, finances, romance, or personal relationships. Parents struggling to make a living or facing difficulties at work often end up snapping at their children without a valid reason.

Once you realize this, take these 2 immediate actions:

Step 1: Make a pledge against displaced anger

Promise yourself that starting today, you will no longer displace your anger onto others. Treat those in weaker positions with love and kindness. This promise acts as a powerful reminder, alerting you when you are about to dump your insecurity onto someone else.

Step 2: Practice deep belly breathing before reacting

Whenever a wave of rage is about to erupt, take 5 to 10 deep belly breaths before venting. Once your mind regains its calm, you may realize that you no longer need to explode.

Summary

Deep breathing brings you out of an unsafe state, helping to calm the anger. Meanwhile, your commitment not to vent on those in weaker positions serves as a “code” that helps you stay calm and prevents impulsive behavior. This can help you manage anxiety and anger before they harm your relationships and your life.

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If you want to fully understand the underlying algorithm of Anxiety, Fear, and Anger — and learn how to master your own survival system — check out the book: “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger – What Psychologists Never Told You.”

Currently, a lot of people are facing this issue. During the day, they function normally, but as evening approaches, anxiety gradually creeps in. Some even experience a full-blown night panic attack.

Statistics in the US show that nighttime anxiety spikes significantly, with about two-thirds of adults having experienced it. That is a staggering number.

Why is my anxiety worse at night than during the day?

So, what is the root cause?

If you read the book “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger”, you will see that anxiety is only triggered when two conditions occur simultaneously: a sense of insecurity and a depletion of physical energy.

1. Energy Depletion and Reduced Brain Control

After a long, exhausting day of work, your energy is mostly drained, and your problem-solving ability declines. Right when both your energy and your brain’s cognitive control are weakened, even a tiny potential risk is enough to trigger nighttime anxiety or even a night panic attack.

2. The Brain’s Instinct to Predict the Future When Idle

During the day, you work, focus on tasks, and your brain is busy processing information. But when night comes, the brain becomes idle and free. Your brain naturally tries to predict the future. With no daytime tasks left to handle, it begins scanning for potential risks to warn you.

3. The Anxiety Spiral That Leads to Nighttime Panic

This prediction of potential threats brings back a sense of insecurity. When insecurity merges with a depleted body, anxiety at night before sleep is triggered.

When anxious, the brain starts trying to figure out a solution. But because these issues aren’t simple enough to solve immediately, and the brain’s processing power is reduced at night, you fail to find an answer. Finding no solution makes you even more anxious. Anxiety builds upon itself, causing the brain’s alarm signals to grow stronger and stronger. If you can’t stop these anxious thoughts, they can escalate into a night panic attack, causing severe insomnia.

3 Steps: How to Stop Anxiety at Night Effectively

So, what is the solution for this nighttime anxiety?

The biggest mistake most people make is trying to solve the problem late at night or passively letting anxiety drive them. This only creates more panic, exhaustion, and sleeplessness. To escape this state, don’t force yourself to stop thinking or unnaturally force positive thoughts.

Step 1: Bring Your Body to a Safe State

First, bring your body back to a state of safety by taking 5 to 10 deep breaths. Focus entirely on the air flowing in and out of your body. After just a few breaths, you will begin to calm down.

However, this is only a temporary fix. The brain habitually predicts the future, so nighttime anxiety will soon return if it feels the issue still lacks a solution.

Step 2: Silence Your Brain’s Alarm with a Clear Plan

To turn off the brain’s alarm signal, give it a clear commitment: Promise yourself that you will dedicate a specific block of time (e.g., 30 minutes) the next day — when your mind is fully sharp and alert — to address this matter.

Once your brain recognizes that you have a concrete plan, it stops sending threat signals. For complex problems, setting aside 30 minutes each day will help you resolve them step-by-step and eliminate the alarm state from its root.

Step 3: Focus on Extended Relaxation Activities

The next step is to keep your mind gently focused throughout the evening: focus on relaxing activities like watching a movie, listening to music, or chatting. Avoid short-form videos under 60 seconds or endless scrolling, as they only make your brain more agitated.

Prioritize activities that last longer than 15 minutes so your mind can settle down. If anxiety at night happens to interrupt your relaxation, simply bring your attention back to what you were doing.

Conclusion on Nighttime Anxiety

People experience more nighttime anxiety than daytime anxiety because their physical energy drops while the brain has too much idle space to predict future threats. It is this combination that triggers anxiety.

Therefore, do not try to use willpower to force yourself to stop worrying. Bring your body back to a safe state first to mute the anxiety signal, then dedicate time to address the problem when your brain is in its most alert state. Once the threat has a clear plan for handling it, the brain will stop predicting it, and the anxiety signal will no longer be reactivated.

If you frequently struggle with anxiety at night before sleep, try applying these steps over the next few days and share your results in the comments below.

👉 To understand more deeply the underlying algorithm of Anxiety, Fear, and Anger — and how to master them completely — you can read the book: Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger: What Psychologists Have Never Told You.