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Morning Anxiety


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I know some people experience their anxiety the worst during the night, before going to sleep, but for me it’s worse in the morning and gradually gets better throughout the day. I wake up with severe anxiety, a racing heart (checked a million times with a cardiologist in the beginning) and just racing thoughts of all the what if’s (I have health anxiety). Does anyone deal with worse anxiety in the morning? I feel like most people I talk to experience it at night, and what do you do to help with it
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I get morning anxiety as I started taking 30 mg of restoril in the morning last August and 30 mg to go to sleep.  Thus, I keep running out of pills.  I try to take 15 mg in the morning and 15 mg to go to sleep, but I still get extreme fear in the morning and wake up in the middle of night with anxiety.
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I get morning anxiety as I started taking 30 mg of restoril in the morning last August and 30 mg to go to sleep.  Thus, I keep running out of pills.  I try to take 15 mg in the morning and 15 mg to go to sleep, but I still get extreme fear in the morning and wake up in the middle of night with anxiety.

 

I thought purpose of this forum was to get off benzos 😂

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Anxiety in the morning is very common and has been attributed to cortisol elevations which fluctuate throughout the day.  Cortisol starts rising at 3am, reaches its peak at 8am, and then gradually declines and reaches a low at midnight.  I find my symptoms follow this very trend.  The am symptoms can be attributed to what they call the "cortisol awakening response".

 

But then my pain symptoms are all over the place and usually reach a high at night after a long tiring day.

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Is there anything to be done about the cortisol issue?  I've been waking up at 4 pretty consistently again for the last few weeks after several months of good sleep and I don't know why.  The chest tightness and anxiety persists until morning, about that 8 am time that you describe.
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One thing I did was I bought a grounding mat and use it to sleep and throughout the day when I'm resting.  Grounding to the earth is supposed to normalize cortisol and increase circulation.

 

https://www.earthing.com/

 

Cortisol is a normal and necessary hormone.  The price of healing.  It definitely will lessen and go away.  The thing to do is not take anything that makes it worse as we are so sensitive and many things like food preservatives, vitamins, etc are stimulating.  Mine has become very mild now, very tolerable and it always passes by mid morning if I feel it at all.

 

 

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Hello,

I can relate. For me it's about going to work, there are times where I don't feel like going to work and times where if there are a list of things I have to do that day, with work or outside of work. Basically being force to do something brings on my anxiety. Pre anticipation that gets my mind racing. I've never been like this before but if we subject our selves to this daily it catches up too us. That saying goes "What we resists will persists". Any kind of resistance in our actions or thoughts is I guess not healthy. I'm still dealing with this tho. 😒

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  • 4 weeks later...

My morning anxiety has hit a peak and I am going to slow my taper because of it. I really wish I was one of those people that could take Xanax for life and have no issues but I hit tolerance at 4mg a day and it quit working for me. Now, I am down to .12mg a day and I have extreme morning anxiety. It does get better as the day goes on, but I am still anxious all day.

 

I wish I could afford to get massages all the time. They help tremendously with anxiety but I am dirt poor so that isn't an option.

 

I wish this anxiety would calm down. I am going to ask my Dr. for some Vistaril and see if that helps.

 

HM

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Yup, my anxiety is worse in the morning, gets better, then stays with me in one form or another throughout the day. Fortunately, it hasn’t affected my sleep too much (except I’ve been consistently waking up at 3 or 3:30 in the morning.)

 

Sometimes it gets bad in the eve, but I seem more affected by morning anxiety.

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Is there anything to be done about the cortisol issue?  I've been waking up at 4 pretty consistently again for the last few weeks after several months of good sleep and I don't know why.  The chest tightness and anxiety persists until morning, about that 8 am time that you describe.

 

I’ve been searching for an answer to this these past 9 months.  I get this every day and it is pretty severe.  The ONLY thing that has worked for me to delay the surge for an hour is a weighted blanket AND going to bed at 8pm.  For some reason the weighted blanket helps me sleep an hour longer.  So instead of waking up at 2-3am I can sleep to 3-4am.  Other than that I have not found anything that helps.

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Was one of my worst symptoms.  If I had a cortisol rush at 3am-4am, the day would always be a struggle.  I found vistaril worked well for me.  I usually wake up at different times during the night.  I started taking 10mg vistaril at 12midnight or 1am.  This seemed to help reduce the cortisol rush.  It seemed it would be much better if I could sleep till 5am or 6am without waking.  Or, if I could go back to sleep after the cortisol rush at 3-4am.  Also, I noticed my cortisol levels seem to be low in the early evening until 3-4am so I started going to bed at 7pm or 8pm at the latest.  It seemed I could get some sleep because it always was difficult after 3am.  Something to try.  Hopefully it helps.  Everyone is different.

 

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I go to bed at 9 because I live with my dad and he goes to bed at 9. The walls are paper thin and he gets up and starts banging stuff around at 5am, so I want to have gotten the majority of my sleep by then.

 

Often, when I wake up, I can feel the cortisol rush happening. It's like getting an IV shot of adrenaline. I hate it!

 

HM

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I always feel better when I go to bed than when I wake up. Especially, if my anxiety is low. I have been getting better sleep lately but I still wake up with the cortisol rush and the anxiety. I hope it gets better soon!

 

For both of us!

 

HM

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  • 2 weeks later...

On my AWFUL days, it always is worse in the morning/early afternoon the evening it lightens up a lot and by bed time I feel sad the day has to end while I'm feeling so much better.

 

On my bad-but-not-awful days it tends to last until much later and almost not really fade at all.

 

 

Hope you guys have been seeing improvements!

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mine has a weird pattern --- I wake up and have like 7 minutes where I think I might be okay --- and then BAM ---

anxiety/fear/terror/agitation hit and stay with me off and on and there are like 'surges' during the day -- especially around 2-3pm for a few hours

 

then by 9pm things start to calm -- often by 10pm I feel a bit normal and so I stay up until 1am or so to be able to delight in just a bit of a window and then its back again --- I do sleep typically 6-7 hours as I am on mirtazapine at night

but sleeping doesn't seem to make my days any better -- every day is really really rough

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My morning anxiety is directly related to the fact that I am broke. If I won Powerball, my anxiety would be cured. I have had a really hard life. I woke up again this morning worrying about bills and money. It sucks.

 

HM

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Yes, I wake up in the morning, usually around 5 pm. with anxiety, tingling and nervousness and when I walk to the bathroom or kitchen, very dizzy.  It does get better as the day wears on and I am busy.  It seems worse lying down.
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  • 2 weeks later...

I was blessed to sleep around 7 hours last night but I woke up at 6am with a cortisol rush that was almost painful. I hope this gets better over time, as I get further along in my taper and jump.

 

I have PTSD and it contributes too.

 

HM

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  • 1 month later...

Same here.

Every day after wakeup stress or anxiety, also derealisation, sad mood etc.

Most of the time it get alot better after dinner and further in the evening.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I am exactly the same. I am anxious and sad in the morning after I wake up. I lay in bed trying to self-comfort for an hour or so before I get up. I feel a lot better as the day goes on. My best hours are before bed. I still have some insomnia so I sleep better on some nights than others.

 

Hope you're having a good new years so far!

 

HM

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I have pretty much the same pattern, but not always waking up with anxiety, sometimes waking up pretty okish / functional, while the anxiety kicks in the afternoon (after taking the Escitalopram) and getting better after 9-10 PM, while at 00 I am almost 100% good.
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Morning anxiety has been a constant through my struggles with anxiety/depression I always wake up with fear, heart racing and it gets hard to get out of bed most days. One of the reasons I was prescribed a benzo in the first place. I usually feel much better and “safe” at night which is why I have trouble going to sleep because I don’t want the night to end and feel like 💩 in the morning lol
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Morning anxiety has been a constant through my struggles with anxiety/depression I always wake up with fear, heart racing and it gets hard to get out of bed most days. One of the reasons I was prescribed a benzo in the first place. I usually feel much better and “safe” at night which is why I have trouble going to sleep because I don’t want the night to end and feel like 💩 in the morning lol

 

That's exactly me! I feel great right now! Optimistic and happy and it is 11pm. I am going to bed now. I hope to get at least a few hours of sleep as I am still battling insomnia. I know I will wake up with a cortisol rush and be anxious and have to spend 2 hours warming up to the day.

 

HM

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