I think everyone gets their thoughts stuck and circling at times. I have trouble if I wake in the night, I'm sure I'm going to get sick, die, my husband is going to die, I'm going to be old and alone, I don't have enough friends, etc.

The thing that helps me the most is distraction but at night that's pretty hard to come by when it's dark and quiet, etc. The second best help is confronting a a fear or two, acknowledging it and and working to make it less of a fear. I'm working with my husband to help with our finances and investments so if/when he dies or becomes disabled I'm not clueless. I'm using the worst night fears to motivate me to do something about my health, to exercise (or put up with the fears in the middle of the night, my choice) and when my fears don't make sense, I look to see what really is happening in my life that it's easier to worry about nonsensical things than think about. When my husband use to go away on business trips, I'd suddenly be sure people were breaking into the house at night. Easier for my brain to have that fear that isn't likely to come true and will instantly go away when he comes back rather than think about my "abandonment" fears and my husband being away for real and me being "alone."

Grab a fear or three and look at it closely; they don't stand up to scrutiny. Make lists of things to do to help yourself so you don't feel as helpless and to make any real problems less likely and search for any "real" underlying fears to confront. Take thoughts to their logical conclusion.

The other night I had a wonderful experience in the middle of the night, I thought about times in the past where I've been awake worrying about other, different problems and wondered, why not just "trade" the worries; past middle-of-the-night worries are comparable to present ones aren't there? Since I've lived through the past ones and those problems have been resolved, if I had them now, I'd know what to do and so wouldn't worry, right? (No, I'm not any better at not worrying now than I was then :-) "Trading" made the whole worry thing look stupid. I was worried about getting work/having enough money, etc. and lived through that so I'll probably live through getting older and losing health and having my husband have problems, etc. If I were 30 again with those problems, I probably wouldn't do anything differently, just like now when I swear I'm going to start ____________ (exercising, eating better, studying harder, etc.) tomorrow. We do what we do and it all turns out fine; worrying literally doesn't help.