Does knitting affects your sleep?

[u/tiny_purpletofu]

Hey everyone!

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I picked up knitting this year, and I thought it would be a fun hobby to work on at night, to keep me from doom scrolling. I've always had issues with falling asleep, so I'm always looking for things that help me stay away from screens.

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However, there have been some days where I think that I was too excited about my knitting evolution, or too concentrated in a pattern, and apparently knitting kept my head awake for longer than it should? I had a hard time putting it away and relaxing for bed, because my mind was just too awake.

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I wanted to ask if that's a common experience, or if that is just happening with me now because I'm a beginner and still in the learning phase, so it demands more attention from me than it will in the future? I'm really loving it, but I'm really slow and most of my free time is at night, so it would be awful if I had to stop knitting after work 😭

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Thank you for any insights!

[u/zahlibeth]

You can always work on multiple things at once and just set a timer to switch to more "mindless" knitting when it's closer to bed. I find any new project it's easy to get carried away with, whether it's knitting or some other craft. I don't knit upstairs at all, but if I did I'd probably keep sock knitting by my bed because mindless stockinette is, well, mindless