Using Mindfulness to Deal with Stress

In the past few months, I have been under more stress than usual.  (I have been attempting to start a psychological practice to provide Applied Behavior Analysis to individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, including Autism.)  It has been stressful for a number of reasons that are irrelevant;  we all feel stress at times. 

I display a symptom that is pretty common when I'm under stress; I typically wake up around 3:00AM with a sense of dread and all sorts of worries about the problems I am trying to solve.  It is highly unlikely there is anything I can actually do about these problems at 3:00, but the worry is often very persistent.  In fact, it is so persistent it frequently interferes with sleep, which is very maladaptive since I need to be well rested to effectively deal with the problems when I actually can do something about them. 

I lost sight of another great use for the practice of Mindfulness.  Since I remembered I could use Mindfulness when I'm under acute stress, I have been able to solve the problem of worries that occur in the middle of the night.  I simply lay still in the present moment with an empty mind, while I just wait for whatever comes next (usually natural sleep).  How did I forget about this? 

I often forget the most important things when I'm all stressed out.