Why do my thoughts race at night? An examination of mediational relationships involving selective attention, attentional control, worry, and insomnia

To improve the management of insomnia, we need to better understand its causes. Research conducted in anxious individuals suggests the possibility that attentional bias to negative information and impairment in attentional control may contribute to excessive worry, which in turn drives insomnia. However, to date the hypothesis that these attentional processes exert an indirect impact on insomnia through worry has not been experimentally tested. This thesis reports four studies that present new evidence concerning the associations predicted by this hypothesis. The results further understanding of the attentional processes that predict the elevated anxiety and excessive worry plausibly contributing to insomnia.