Worried at 2 a.m.? Ethan Kross asks about tomorrow morning

On Huberman Lab (November 2024), psychologist Ethan Kross, who directs the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan, told host Andrew Huberman about what he calls his 2 a.m. chatter strategy. Every so often, he said in that conversation, he goes to bed content and wakes in the small hours with his mind racing toward the worst. When that happens, he asks himself one question, out loud in his head and by his own name.

"I say, Ethan, how are you going to feel about this tomorrow morning?"

Ethan Kross, Huberman Lab, 2024

Two kinds of distance in one question

Kross explained that the question blends two tools he has studied. Using his own name is a way of talking to himself as he would talk to a friend, from a step outside the worry. Asking about the morning is a jump forward in time, which he called mental time travel.

The answer he gets is nearly always the same. In his experience, he said, a worry is never as bad the next morning as it was in the middle of the night. Remembering that reminds him the feeling will pass, and that is often enough to turn the volume down and get back to sleep.

He was describing his own habit, not reporting a study result. That matters, because the morning answer belongs to him. Yours may be different, and the question still works if the answer is "I'll still need to deal with it". Then the worry gets a step, and the step can wait for daylight.

What the research says

The name part has lab evidence behind it. In a 2014 set of seven studies led by Kross, people prepared for stressful tasks such as making a first impression or giving a short speech. Those who reflected using their own name or "you" felt less distress than those who used "I", and in the speech study they went over it less afterward (Kross et al, 2014). These were short lab tasks, mostly with students, so treat the result as a direction for everyday life.

The night part has an idea behind it, not a proof. In 2022, a group of sleep researchers proposed what they call the "mind after midnight" hypothesis: when people are awake in the small hours, mood tends to dip and the brain's brake on dark thoughts may loosen (Tubbs et al, 2022). It hasn't been tested directly. Still, it fits what Kross describes, and it gives you a working rule: the size of a worry at 3 a.m. tells you more about the hour than about the problem.

The question isn't a way to argue the worry down or push it out. It moves it to a time when you can look at it properly.

How this fits the Reduce worry and overthinking program

In the 1h Protocol to Reduce Worry and Overthinking, chapter 5, "The small hours", works on this exact moment. It asks you to treat the size of a night worry as tiredness talking, to park it in a few words on the notebook by your bed for the worry slot you set, and to get up if it keeps you awake. Talking to yourself by name or as "you" is one of the lines for people whose loop is the Replay, and this minute of Kross's interview is on the program's listening list. The first chapter is free, and it shows you which of the patterns your worry follows.

Source: Huberman Lab, Dr. Ethan Kross: How to Control Your Inner Voice & Increase Your Resilience, 25 Nov 2024 Research: Kross et al, 2014 · Tubbs et al, 2022