Scientists reveal why some people cannot quiet their minds at night

From bgnes.com

People with insomnia may struggle to quiet their thoughts at night, according to a small scientific study. Researchers found that the daily rhythm of mental activity is less pronounced in people with insomnia and shifts towards later hours compared with those who sleep well.

A team from the University of South Australia monitored 32 adults under strictly controlled laboratory conditions. The findings suggest that excessive night-time thinking may be linked not simply to the number of thoughts people have during the day, but also to the time at which mental activity begins to subside.

A person may be physically ready for sleep, while their mind remains in a more active mode associated with daytime activities

Published in the scientific journal Sleep Medicine, the study offers a possible explanation for a familiar problem: feeling mentally alert precisely when it is time to sleep. However, it does not establish a single cause of insomnia or prove the effectiveness of any new treatment.

The study involved 16 people with chronic insomnia who had difficulty maintaining sleep, and 16 people of a similar age who slept well.

Participants remained awake in bed for 24 hours under dim lighting. Meals, physical activity and other conditions were controlled to limit external factors that could affect alertness and emotional state.

Every hour, the volunteers answered questions about their thoughts. The researchers analysed how mental activity changed throughout the day, including whether thoughts were goal-directed, emotionally charged or difficult to stop.

The results showed that both groups had a distinct daily rhythm: mental activity was generally stronger during the day and declined in the early morning hours. This indicates that thought patterns also follow a rhythm linked to the 24-hour biological cycle.

However, people who slept well showed a clearer shift away from daytime patterns of thinking at night. Among participants with insomnia, this transition was less pronounced, and the peak of mental activity occurred approximately six and a half hours later.

According to the researchers, this suggests that the problem may partly be related to the timing of the mind's transition into a calmer state. A person may be physically ready for sleep, while their thinking remains in a more active mode associated with daytime activities and problem-solving.

The findings raise the question of whether approaches such as carefully timed exposure to light and consistent daily routines could help regulate this rhythm. Further research is needed, however, before conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of such methods.

The study has a limited scope and involved adults with a specific type of insomnia, so its findings cannot be applied to all sleep disorders. In addition, hourly self-reports of thoughts do not directly measure all the brain processes involved in falling asleep.

Despite these limitations, the research offers a new perspective on insomnia. Understanding how the timing of mental activity differs in people with sleep problems could help explain why feeling tired is not always enough to quiet the mind and bring on sleep. |BGNES, Knowridge

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