Can't sleep? Time to write your to-do list, study says

https://goo.gl/CMfj2Y

A new study brings good news for those of us who can't make it through a day without making lists, especially if we also happen to have trouble falling asleep at night. It turns out that to-do lists may be the answer to some of our troubles, at least.

Do you like lists? Do you spend half an hour each morning writing down your tasks for the day ahead in bullet-points? Do you sometimes have trouble falling asleep at night?

If your answer to all of those is "yes," then I have good news for you. You may be able to achieve that sweet night's sleep much faster if you start writing your to-do lists just before bed, instead of first thing in the morning.

Recently, Michael K. Scullin and other researchers from Baylor University in Waco, TX, set out to investigate whether writing down all the tasks that we have to finish over the next day or two could help us to achieve a more peaceful state of mind, conducive to falling asleep more easily.

"We live in a 24/7 culture," Scullin says, "in which our to-do lists seem to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime."