What keeps you up at night? Chances are, it’s not just your worries that are disrupting your sleep. Age and experience have taught me that happy moments can bring their own stress – especially in the excitement of the build-up.

So, if you’re anything like me (and I’m sure you are), you’ll be lying awake at night thinking about both bad and good things.

By “bad” things, I mean work stress, money stress, family stress. Worries about what could go wrong – or what is going wrong – and how you can solve the problem. Maybe it’s a tricky client or a flaky supplier. Maybe it’s the amount of money you’ll have left at the end of the month or – as I once heard someone say – the amount of month you’ll have left at the end of your money! It could be a family concern, like a sick parent or a struggling child… or a friend who’s going through a tough time.

That’s bad stress – or distress – and it happens when your stressors pile up. Distress keeps your sympathetic nervous system activated and your cortisol elevated – and it’s what triggers anxiety, digestive issues, inflammation, and emotional overload. When your mind is in distress, your body can’t return to a calm and healthy baseline.

But that’s not the only stress in your life, is it? Oftentimes the things that make us happy can also keep us up at night. Wedding plans. Decorating (and redecorating) a new home. A big birthday. A presentation or a pitch at work. A huge order that needs to be fulfilled before a looming deadline.

That’s all good stress – or what psychologists call eustress – and it’s what gives you energy, focus and motivation. It activates your mind and body’s stress response in the short term, but once the big moment passes, the stress cycle completes and your body returns to its healthy baseline.

Good stress doesn’t harm your body in the long term because once the storm has passed, your body resets.  Heart rate: normal. Muscles: relaxed. To-do list: checked.

But in the short term, it can definitely mess with your sleeping patterns. Trust me. I got married in March, and I didn’t sleep for days before the big day! Marriage, moving house, celebrating a milestone birthday… These are all huge, happy moments – and they have my mind racing all day and all night.

The sleep solution is the same, whether your nights are being disrupted by good stressors or bad. I’ve been leaning into three tried-and-tested remedies, which have been helping me get the rest my mind and body need.

The first is sticking to my bed-time rituals. I try to have a regular bedtime, supported by a routine that sends my body (and my brain) the clear signal that it’s time to switch off for the night. Bath, bed, book, lights-out. Nothing fancy, nothing elaborate – just a consistent set of behaviours that I repeat (or try to repeat!) every night.

A big part of that is having a bedroom that feels like a sanctuary – and that’s where the second remedy comes in. I try, as far as I can, to set a hard stop on evening emails. That means switching off my laptop and avoiding blue-light screens. It’s not easy, but it really helps leaving work outside the bedroom.

The third remedy is… I can’t think of a delicate way to put this… doing a proper “brain dump” at the end of the day. I’m a big fan of journalling (hence this Sleep Journal), and writing down my tasks, reminders, ideas, and whatever else is on my mind. It helps me to organise my thoughts and – when I keep my Gratitude Journal – it gives me a positive reminder of how happy and lucky I am.

Good stress is a blessing, because it means that I have a lot to be happy and excited about. But it’s still stress, and it needs to be managed.