Stressed? Writing down a to-do list might help

If you find it hard to get to sleep, then a solution might be at hand – a pen and paper.

If you ever struggle to get to sleep, you might find that one of the things that keeps you awake is worrying about just how much you have to do the following day, especially if there are tasks that you've started, but not yet completed.

In a study of employees at a German IT company, those who had unfinished tasks left over at the end of the working week were more likely to think about their work problems over the weekend compared with those who were more or less on top of their workload. The researcher Christine Syrek from the University of Trier wrote that their results indicated that "the perception of not having completed the week's tasks furthers employee perseverative cognitions and impairs sleep on the weekend, even above and beyond the impact of time pressure".

Those with unfinished tasks were also more likely to find their sleep was disturbed over the weekend.

"Perseverative cognitions" are continuous thoughts about negative things that have happened in the past or might happen in the future. And they were also more likely to find their sleep was disturbed over the weekend.

Sunday nights can be particularly difficult. If you've had a lie-in that morning, you might not be as sleepy at bedtime as usual. Tomorrow it will be back to work and time to face all those undone tasks, along with some new ones, no doubt. So, what can you do to stop these whirring worries from keeping you awake?

You could count sheep. You could read a book for a while, taking yourself into a world far away from your worries. You could practise some mindfulness, concentrating on your breathing and the sensations you can detect around you. Or you could turn the light on and make a list of all those things you need to do.