Yes — but anxiety changes the way the method should be used
You can use SATS when you feel anxious, provided the practice remains brief, optional and easy to stop. SATS involves using a short imaginal scene while physically relaxed or drowsy, traditionally associated with a “state akin to sleep”. When anxiety is high, that structure can accidentally become a reassurance ritual: you repeat the exercise not because it is useful, but because stopping feels unsafe. The safer target is a bounded session followed by a return to ordinary activity.
Know the specific trap
For SATS, watch for chasing the perfect drowsy state, replaying the scene for long periods, or interpreting sleep difficulty as evidence that the technique failed. Anxiety can make that pattern feel urgent. It may tell you that one more repetition, one more correction or one more check will finally create certainty. Do not let the anxious feeling set the session length. Decide the boundary before you begin.
Lower the demand of the exercise
Use the smallest workable version. With SATS, that means you can choose one simple scene, keep it short, rehearse it once or a few times, then let the session end naturally and protect normal sleep, but you do not need to complete an elaborate routine. If the normal version takes ten minutes, try three. If it uses several prompts, choose one. Finishing while you still feel uncertain is allowed. The ability to stop matters more than achieving a particular emotional state.
A realistic anxiety example
Suppose you are using the method around briefly imagining closing a laptop after finishing a project, then allowing the scene to end rather than extending it into a full fantasy. Do one planned pass and write the next action that is genuinely available. Then move into that action or another ordinary activity. If the situation depends on information that has not arrived, schedule the next time you will check rather than using SATS every time worry returns.
Use P3369 once, then close it
Open P3369 for the planned session, save the entry and leave the tool. Avoid reopening it to inspect wording, chase a calmer feeling or make sure the ritual was done correctly. If reminders, streaks or saved histories encourage repeated checking, disable or ignore them. A digital tool should support the boundary, not undermine it.
Do not treat anxiety as a prediction
Feeling tense does not mean you have attracted a bad outcome, damaged your manifestation or revealed a hidden truth. Anxiety is an internal state, not a forecast. SATS should not replace sleep, medical care, practical planning or consent. A vivid scene is not proof that an external outcome is secured. Keep deadlines, evidence, professional advice and other people’s choices visible while you use the practice.
Choose a stop rule
For SATS, set the endpoint before you begin and make it concrete enough that anxiety cannot renegotiate it halfway through. Stop at that boundary even if uncertainty remains. The aim is to practise leaving the SATS exercise unfinished emotionally rather than using extra rounds to chase reassurance.
Know when a simpler option is better
If SATS repeatedly increases checking, interferes with sleep or work, or becomes something you feel compelled to perform before ordinary tasks, reduce or pause it. Rest, movement, practical problem-solving, social support and appropriate professional help may be more useful than intensifying the technique. The scene is most usable when it is simple enough to remember without effort; complexity tends to turn a short rehearsal into prolonged mental work.
Drowsiness is not a target you need to force
Anxiety can make the instruction “state akin to sleep” frustrating. If trying to catch the perfect state keeps you alert, move the exercise earlier or do it seated during the day. Keep the scene brief and let ordinary sleep take over when you are in bed.
Avoid repeating the scene until anxiety disappears. The scene can end while your body still feels unsettled. If SATS becomes associated with sleep struggle, pause the method and protect the normal bedtime routine.
Bottom line
Yes, you can do SATS while anxious. Keep the practice small, decide the endpoint before you start, and do not use it to neutralise every uncomfortable thought. The useful version supports functioning while uncertainty remains.