- Publish Date- Wednesday, 17 January 2018, 3:56PMGetting a good night's sleep sometimes seems impossible... especially when you're wide awake and it's now 3 am. But thanks to science, you're about to have more control over settling down to slumber. According to a new study, researchers discovered there's a simple way to lessen anxiety which often disrupts sleep. So what's the trick? Writing a to-do list. Yep, apparently people who spend five minutes jotting down a list of upcoming tasks drift off 9-15 minutes quicker! In the study, 57 people between the ages of 18 and 30 were monitored in a sleep lab. Participants who wrote a “to-do” list fell asleep at an average of 16 minutes after lights out. In fact, the longer and more detailed the to-do lists were, the faster they fell asleep. Lead researcher Dr Michael Scullin said writing a “to-do” list allowed people to “offload” their thoughts, which reduced their stress in turn giving them a better night’s sleep. “We live in a 24/7 culture in which our to-do lists seem to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime. “Most people just cycle through their to-do lists in their heads, and so we wanted to explore whether the act of writing them down could counteract night-time difficulties with falling asleep. “Writing a to-do list will 'offload' those thoughts and reduce worry,” he said. So what are you waiting for? Get that pen and paper out tonight!