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Morning Anxiety


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I thought I'm the only one who have anxiety only in the morning. I even suspect it was a side effect of the medications I take, but I checked the description on the online pharmacy site and didn't find this information there. I noticed that avoiding stimulating activities two to three hours before bedtime (watching TV, working on a computer, exercising vigorously, drinking caffeine) helps me reduce morning anxiety.
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Morning anxiety is horrible and continues throughout the day I sometimes get a little relief at night.  My anxiety and burning stomach/esophagus chase each other!

So sorry for everyone else struggling with these symptoms.

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I think a lot of my anxiety has to do with situational depression. I am on a trip to Los Angeles right now and I feel better than usual. I take trazodone for depression, and it helps some.

 

I hope my new gig helps me get over my depression. Being poor makes me depressed. I hope my money situation improves soon. I know that would help my morning anxiety a ton. I'm hopeful that my new gig will fixes the money situation. Having a boyfriend (I'm in LA, CA with him now) helps too.

 

HM

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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

 

I am just like you are. The moment I awake, the anxiety starts surging through my body. It is always a lot better (less) at the end of the day bf bedtime.

 

I use meditation and light aerobic exercise to help me deal with it. The meditation seems to be more beneficial tho.

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HM said>>>

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.

 

I actually wish this also HM. I prefer taking nothing but anxiety and panic can make life seem unbearable when you can not control naturally. If you could take benzos and never become tolerant (same dose and effectiveness as in the beginning forever) despite the addiction component, I would probably choose to just stay on until I die. That is not the case tho. These drugs do become less effective over time and eventually they start making you sicker than you were bf you started taking the drugs. Very few if any of us here were feeling great on these drugs and out of the blue thought hey, I am going to stop taking these pills even tho I feel terrific and I am not having any problems. I would venture to say 100% of the ppl here were being made sicker taking these drugs and were forced to try and come off and hope for recovery.

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AB,

 

Yes, I wish I could still take Xanax and have it work. My date took some while we were in Los Angeles this weekend and he slept like a log afterwards. My aunt has been taking it for 25 years and it still works for her. She takes it every day. I try to look at the bright side and be happy that I am not on it anymore. It did make me ditzy at times. I hit a fence while I was backing up once when on Xanax. My anxiety is getting better over time. It's worse in the mornings and I post on the 'morning anxiety' thread.

 

I hope all of our anxiety goes away. It sucks!

 

HM

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Benzos are actually some of the safest, most effective drugs in all of modern medicine. Virtually everyone can tolerate them (a one time dose for example before surgery) with virtually no side effects except maybe drowsiness, but even that might be considered a desirable one before you have some surgical procedure.

 

The caveat is you must never take these drugs long-term to manage physical or psychological medical problems. If you do, most ppl will at some point in the daily chronic administration crossover the addiction threshold even if the drug is still efficacious.

 

Then due to neuroadaptation, tolerance starts to slowly creep in over time and you have to increase the dose to achieve the same therapeutic effect. For some ppl, it can take years. For others, several weeks or months. Now, you have a real difficulty. You are addicted and must continue to take the drug or you will become extremely ill. At some point, even taking the drug as prescribed brings very little relief and the relief is short-lived, and you start to feel really ill even tho you are still taking the drug. The drug has literally pooped out on you and you find yourself horribly addicted. Now, you have no choice but to try and come off the drug(s) and hope given enough time, the brain can naturally reverse things and return you to baseline. It is a very scary process esp. as many months and even years go by and you don't seem to be feeling any better....in some cases worse. This can be very discouraging.

 

I am amazed there are always some exceptions to these rules however. Like you mentioned, there are a few lucky ppl who can take these drugs for a lifetime who do not experience tolerance to any significant degree. Also, I have encountered a few ppl who can take these drugs for a long period of time and just stop abruptly or cold turkey and experience little to no discomfort. My friend and former co-worker took 20-30 mgs of Valium daily for over 3 years. We were talking at work one day and he tells me he thinks he no longer needs the drug and is going to stop. I warned him to be very careful and told him about my experiences with benzos. Well, he did not CT but he did what I would consider an abrupt cessation. He stepped down in 5 mg increments weekly. In 3 weeks, he was completely off the Valium and told me he felt literally nothing after stopping. I could not believe it after all the pain I have personally gone through with these same drugs. I am certain genetics plays a major role in these exceptions.

 

 

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AB,

 

I hear you. That's an amazing story about your coworker. I was CT off Xanax in 2015 when I was hospitalized. I was taking .25mg twice a day back then I tolerated the CT very well. I was off Xanax for several years but then got it re-prescribed in 2020. My prescriber misheard me when I said .25mg twice a day and gave me 2mg twice a day! It only took me one year to become tolerant and for it to stop working. And what a nightmare getting off of it!

 

Sleep and anxiety are the only things I have left to get better. I just woke up a half hour ago and I am dealing with anxiety but at least I slept about 7 hours. Much better than a few months ago.

 

HM

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I am happy you got the 7 hours of sleep HM. Sleep is the only escape some of us have from all this crap and sleep is vital to feeling good and being healthy.

 

I guess my main SX is chronic anxiety and all the things that come with that. I do think better consistent sleep would help with everything.

 

 

 

 

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I agree that sleep is essential to well-being, although I have met a couple people who live on 2 to 4 hours of sleep consistently. I don't want that to be me, but it's inspiring to know it can be done and you can survive on that. I met a man who has been living on 2 hours of sleep a night for years. I also read about someone online who has been getting 3 hours of sleep for over 30 years. It's amazing.

 

Again. I don't want that to be me, but I am glad that it can be done. Makes me feel better about tolerating my recovery.

 

HM

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I hear ya HM and I agree with what you said. I don't want this to be me either (LOL).  :)

 

Is has been reported Donald Trump credits his success to sleeping only three to four hours each night to stay a step ahead of his competition.

sleep-BB.jpg

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Well, reading that makes me feel better. I prefer to get 9 or 10 hours of sleep (yay!) TBH, but I can get by on 4 hours, too. It has obviously been done more than once. Some very intelligent and productive people have managed on very little sleep, on purpose.

 

Thanks for sharing! Happy Wednesday:)

 

HM

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I hear ya HM and I agree with what you said. I don't want this to be me either (LOL).  :)

 

Is has been reported Donald Trump credits his success to sleeping only three to four hours each night to stay a step ahead of his competition.

sleep-BB.jpg

 

This is very encouraging!  I get by on 4 to 7 per night, usually averaging 5 or 6.  I feel not too terrible as long as it's over 5. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

BUMP

 

I am getting spotty sleep. I get anywhere from zero to 8 hours. Last night was 4 and it was very broken. I slept only 45 minutes to an hour and a half at a time. The night before last was 3 hours.

 

I bumped this thread because the morning anxiety is so bad!  :( I thought it was just my life circumstances but now I am thinking it is part of Xanax WD. Do you think so? Is my morning cortisol rush/massive anxiety going to subside after a while? It's so miserable. It absolutely affects my quality of life and happiness. I struggle to work and be present mentally. I am up for 2 or 3 hours before I feel better and have some optimism and that is only if I get 4+ hours of sleep. I hope it goes away.

 

Wonder what Ashton says about morning anxiety?

 

HM

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HM, I am in the same boat with the morning anxiety.  Every morning I'm extremely anxious and warding off panic for the first several hours.  It's exhausting.  Even a day that ends up being a good low symptom day for most waking hours still starts with crippling anxiety, maybe even crying. 

 

It starts with the morning cortisol rush at 4-5 am. Sometimes I can ward off anxiety for a bit but by 6 it hits hard. 

 

The waking with the surge and morning anxiety just will not go away and is the most constant and consistent symptoms I have through this whole process. 

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It's such an annoying symptom. I mean, they're all annoying. I find some symptoms tend to fall into this category of being 'indicators' of a wave rather than a wave themselves.

 

For me, I've had tinnitus for months now. But it was higher during my waves and gradually lessened the longer my window lasted. I'm having a bit of a symptomatic day today and it seems to have returned. Along with yawning constantly. The cortsol wakeups/morning anxiety is the worst of the 'indicators'. Sometimes it lingers around after I've entered a window then fades out, but its aconstant during waves.

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HM, I am in the same boat with the morning anxiety.  Every morning I'm extremely anxious and warding off panic for the first several hours.  It's exhausting.  Even a day that ends up being a good low symptom day for most waking hours still starts with crippling anxiety, maybe even crying. 

 

It starts with the morning cortisol rush at 4-5 am. Sometimes I can ward off anxiety for a bit but by 6 it hits hard. 

 

The waking with the surge and morning anxiety just will not go away and is the most constant and consistent symptoms I have through this whole process.

 

AD,

 

I hear you. My first concern is getting sleep. My second concern is morning anxiety. I was so anxious and depressed this morning. It was horrible. I always feel so much better later. It is night now, so I feel good but when I wake up in the morning, I will be loaded with anxiety and depression.

 

Wishing us both luck!

 

HM

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These swings have been crazy for me this week.  Each night in the couple hours before bed I feel normal and symptom free, like last night.

 

But then this morning I woke up at 430, fell back asleep for 45 minutes, and then was up and proceeded to have horrible anxiety until noon when it turned into panic, then went to normal anxiety again until the evening before bed.  Horrible!

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I am always slightly anxious all day long but the morning cortisol/adrenaline rush that causes anxiety is debilitating. It was slightly less the last two mornings but still there. The best time of day for me is the 2 or 3 hours before bed. I have had some success in being able to fall asleep within a half an hour but not lately. Lately, I am awake for hours after I 'go to bed' and just toss and turn until I finally get an hour or two of shut-eye. I wonder if the less sleep I get, the more I am likely to have anxiety in the morning? I am not sure.

 

HM

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I got the morning anxiety bad at 2am today!!! Slept 5 hours and boom! Got the usual with it: anxiety, intrusive thoughts, lonely, fear...you know the usual...what a hell of way to start a new day!!! This sucks!!

 

Blue

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Does everyone else here feel much better in the evening? From my experience there seems to be a direct link between those of us who have the morning anxiety, cortisol, whatever it is, and those of us who have evening mini windows.
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