[Kindred]

I second exercising- or at the very least getting out and about and doing something if you have a day with nothing planned. In my experience, it's very easy to lie down at bedtime and try to sleep and for your mind to start racing and going over things because you're not quite tired enough to fall asleep you know? I guess I described that pretty badly, but I always find if I'm really tired I'm generally okay on a nighttime but if I try to sleep and I'm not tired, I'll toss and turn and worry and get myself all worked up over nothing!

If you're going to use your laptop late at night, you can download screen dimmers. I use mine when I have a mild migraine, so I can't say personally if it'll work for sleep, but it's worth a shot right?

Writing in a journal is also a good idea, any thoughts that go through your head. You can also get apps on your phone that let you write down your thoughts, then it makes you go back over them and identify unhealthy thinking patterns ("I'm going to screw up tomorrow" is fortune telling) and change it into something healthier ("How do I know I'm going to screw up? What's the evidence for that?). In the long term, this might help change the way you think. It's part of CBT which is great for anxiety. An example of this is pacifia, which I use, but I'm sure there's loads and you can do this in a journal, just without the prompts.

Another thing you can do when you're worrying about something is just to repeat to yourself that you'll handle it. So what if you say something stupid? You'll handle it. So what if x,y, z happens? You'll handle it. Try to let that be a full stop and just repeat it to yourself, don't let yourself keep thinking what if. There is no what if- you'll handle it

If you find yourself struggling to sleep, I'd give it half an hour and get up. You don't want to give yourself time to just lie there and stress about not being able to sleep on top of everything else. Get up, have a warm drink, just walk around for a bit or read a book. Wait until you're a bit more tired and try again. Even if you end up staying later than you wanted to, if you get up early in the morning then the next night hopefully you'll sleep even better!