Can't Sleep

Its 3:00 am and here I am, laying in bed unable to sleep. Luckily I have already had a little sleep but I have had nowhere near enough. Of course my mind is begginning to whirl with thoughts about what I have to do today. I know that worrying wont solve anything but I cant help It. Unfortunately this is all a part of suffering from anxiety and I know that all I can do in order to feel less anxious is to keep thinking positively and try to stay as calm as possible.

I need to get up early so that I have plenty of time to get ready and drive the 2 hours into Launceston and find my hotel (which is also where the training course is held) All before 8:30 am. The wind is roaring outside my window which makes sleeping even more difficult. I know that the worst thing you can do while trying to sleep is use your phone/technology but I thought that writing a post like this may be able to help me think more calmly and rationally.

While being unable to sleep when I don't have anything important to do doesn't really worry me at all, it can be quite frustrating being unable to sleep when you have a big day planned. I know that tiredness can make my anxiety 100 times worse so days like today I really cant afford to be tired. I have already accepted the fact i'm not going to get a very good nights sleep however and am trying not to panic about it. Worrying about it wont change anything so I just need to believe that I will make it through the day.

I am the type of person that is effected by tiredness in one of two ways. I either get into an over tired stayed whereby I have tonnes of energy and almost get hyperactive or I totally crash no matter what I am doing and feel awful and drained until I get some decent sleep. Hopefully my body reacts to my tiredness the first way today and not the second ;).

It really is amazing how your body can look after you sometimes. I will never forget my year 11 end of year biology exam that I took after not sleeping at all the night before. I was nervous and my mind was racing all night, leaving me unable to sleep and I was convinced I would fail my Exam. It turns out however I did really well, getting straight A's in every criteria.

I dont really have any good strategies to try and get to sleep but I find that I only usually manage to fall asleep once I stop trying to. Like if I get frustrated with being unable to sleep and get up and start watching tv, I then fall asleep when im not trying to.

What do you do to try and make yourself sleep if you are anxious or just unable to sleep?