Understanding Morning Anxiety

[[Buddie]]

what i got from this is the awareness of how i almost dread going to sleep knowing how i have been waking up so now i am going to go to sleep thinking of the morning as  a challenge to do better with the thinking when i awake.  thanks everyone

[[Buddie]]

Does anyone know if this morning anxiety disappears totally when you are fully-recovered or have the benzos damaged to you to an extent where you will always have it .. Even if you never had anxiety before??

[[Buddie]]

i was wonddering about that too.  i had many years of serenity and now i feel like my body is trying to jump out of my skin.  crazy

[[Buddie]]

Mornings are horrible in the sense that getting up is a big task, but it really doesn't hit me hard until I have to walk out the door and face people sunlight, even driving is scary. If I could quit my job and lock myself in my room for a long while, witch I can't, my taper would be faster. When I worked nights I had all day to freak out about work and many other things and as the day went on my body hurt more. So mornings take a little bit of the edge out at least for me.

[[Buddie]]

Does anyone know if this morning anxiety disappears totally when you are fully-recovered or have the benzos damaged to you to an extent where you will always have it .. Even if you never had anxiety before??

If you didn't have it before benzo's, you won't after you heal.  It all goes away [...], all of it, well except the memory of course.  But that memory loses it's power after awhile too, I don't have PTSD or any other labels from this experience, just profound gratitude to have learned a valuable lesson.

[[Buddie]]

I am inclined to think that must be a hormonal thing.  I have the reverse prob.  I feel much better in the morning than in the evening.

[[Buddie]]

think someone already mentioned this, but Andrew Solomon's book "Noonday Demons: An Atlas of Depression" says that it's fairly common for morning to be the worst (this is for depression, rather than anxiety but there's often a link between the two) - he cites something about elevated cortisol levels. not that that helps. BUT i usually feel a little better once I'm actually up as opposed to lying in bed ruminating. (i haven't STOPPED lying in bed ruminating yet, though I know it will probably help - for that I'll try putting something in the morning ritual that is calming and/or has a chance that I'll look forward to it eventually.)

[[Buddie]]

Mornings are by far the worst for me. I *usually* feel better in the late afternoon. Back to feeling bad at bedtime.

 When I wake up I feel pretty good, then I feel my symptoms  slowly creep into my body. It is weird how I can be [...] for a few minutes. I don't think I bring on the symptoms with my thinking, as I am usually cheery when I first wake up.

It takes a lot of positive self talking to get through the mornings. But I think about how much better I will feel by the afternoon.

[[Buddie]]

Anxiety = fear + uncertainty. That is a threat that we don't know how to avoid it. Thus if we change how we think about benzo's so we can feel we can handle the 'threat' we are able to reduce the anxiety.
You can move from thinking I have insomnia to I have a overactive brain. This is a lot easier to manage ie I need to do things that keep my brain calm, chamomille tea, calming music, less activity....

[[Buddie]]

Does anyone know if this morning anxiety disappears totally when you are fully-recovered or have the benzos damaged to you to an extent where you will always have it .. Even if you never had anxiety before??

If you didn't have it before benzo's, you won't after you heal.  It all goes away [...], all of it, well except the memory of course.  But that memory loses it's power after awhile too, I don't have PTSD or any other labels from this experience, just profound gratitude to have learned a valuable lesson.

Thanks [...] That is encouraging ... I am further along in my recovery since my last post on this thread - the major morning anxiety has now gone but I still have difficult moments when waking in terms of a kind of nervousness.  But overall it is improving slowly.

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