Smart People Usually Have A Hard Time Falling Asleep Because Their Brains Do 3 Things When They Lay Down
New Africa | Shutterstock Why is it that when all you want to do is sleep, your mind won't let you?. Research suggests it's kind of a good thing, actually. Because people who have a hard time falling asleep at a reasonable hour are smarter and more creative, too.
It seems almost unfair. You spend the entire day wishing you had more time to think, and then the second you actually have it, you desperately want your brain to stop. It becomes a battle between mind and body, and the mind just won't stop running.
Things smart people's brains do that keep them from falling asleep at night:
1. Replay past moments
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Not to quote Scott Disick, but while some people stay up late thinking about “everything bad that has ever happened to me,” this might only be the beginning of an intelligent brain’s nighttime routine.
Active minds at night correlate with intelligence. During the day, there are constantly things competing for our attention. Work, school, conversations, errands, notifications, people asking questions, emails that need answering, and approximately millions of thoughts that somehow manage to happen at the exact same time. When the distractions of the day finally disappear, your mind has an opportunity to process things that it didn't necessarily have time to process earlier.
Sometimes it’s something important to you, like a falling out with a friend or a big work presentation. Other times, it’s something so insignificant that you almost have to laugh at yourself for remembering it. Why did I say that to my doorman? Did that person notice that I messed up their name? Or did anyone see me trip on the crosswalk today?
Smart people's brains can bring the entire memory back, almost like they're watching a tiny movie inside their head. That doesn't exactly make falling asleep easy, unfortunately.
2. Reflect on different outcomes
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Once you've replayed a moment enough times, your brain can start rewriting it. For highly intelligent people, lying awake at night can start feeling less like remembering and more like trying to solve a specific problem.
We often hear that there is no point in dwelling on the past because you can't change it. And, technically, that's true. You can’t go back and change what you said or magically return to Tuesday afternoon and make a different decision. But reflection itself is actually a powerful tool when it comes to overall well-being.
Thinking about something that happened can help us understand why we reacted the way we did and what we might want to do differently next time. In other words, your brain isn't always just torturing you with memories from five years ago; it's trying to make sense of them. Once your brain has replayed the past and started thinking about what could have been different, it can start solving your problems.
3. Solve every problem
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Intelligence is often attributed to our brains constantly working. Whether that means solving a literal math equation or creating a situation that hasn’t even happened yet and trying to solve it, our brains are constantly looking for something to work through. When we replay past moments and reflect on them, we are subconsciously trying to solve a problem, even if there isn’t an obvious solution.
When we solve a problem, our brain releases dopamine. This dopamine may be part of why smart people's brains keep going when they're trying to fall asleep. It feels great to solve the problem, so their brains chase that feeling.
For smarter people, the threshold of problems their brains need to work through may be higher, making nighttime more active. My solution would be to not fight it. Let your mind take you where it needs to go to earn that shiny gold sticker that says all problems solved, that good-to-go thumbs-up that finally lets you drift away.
Julia McNulty is a writer with a Master’s degree in Literary & Cultural Studies who specializes in lifestyle, relationship, culture, and human-interest topics.
