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Understanding Morning Anxiety


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                                                          Understanding Early Morning Anxiety

                                                                          By Deanne Repich

         

Are mornings the worst time for your anxiety? When the alarm clock rings do you experience a feeling of dread? Do the symptoms kick in, making you tempted to roll over and snooze for hours so you don't have to face the day?

 

One reason why anxiety can be worse in the morning is that waking up is a sharp contrast to the sleep environment, which is perceived as pleasant for most people.

 

Picture this: You're sleeping peacefully in your warm, cozy bed, (for some, after many hours of insomnia). You are at peace, finally getting a break from the cares and tasks of the day. Then, BOOM! Suddenly, the shrill sound of your alarm clock jerks you awake. It triggers the "fight or flight" response, our body's inborn self-protective mechanism. And to top it off, the room is cold and dark. The dreaded worries and symptoms kick in.

 

There are several things you can do to make your "waking up" environment more pleasant. For example, get a radio alarm clock that wakes you up to your favorite music. Another alternative is an alarm clock that wakes you up gradually with pleasant chimes of increasing volume and frequency.

 

Keep a robe and slippers next to the bed so that you can warm up quickly and minimize a drop in body temperature as you get out of bed. If the bright lights of the room bother you, install a dimmer switch near your bed. You can gradually increase the light's intensity over a period of several minutes after you awaken.

 

Another reason why symptoms can be worse in the morning is because your blood sugar is low when you first wake up. You have gone all night without food. It's important to maintain a constant blood sugar level because the brain uses glucose as its fuel. If blood sugar levels are too low or drop too fast, then the brain starts running out of fuel. This causes the brain to trigger the "fight or flight" response.

 

The "fight or flight" response sends a rush of adrenaline, cortisol, and other neurotransmitters through your body to prepare you to fight or flee the perceived threat (low fuel). This process can trigger physical reactions ("symptoms") such as trembling, rapid heartbeat, sweating, panic attacks, fatigue, insomnia, mental confusion, nervousness, dizziness, and more.

 

To balance your blood sugar levels and minimize symptoms, keep a snack that contains "good" complex carbohydrates and protein by your bed. Eat it when you first wake up. You will likely notice that your symptoms improve shortly after eating the snack. You might try a combination of whole grain crackers and a handful of nuts, or a high-protein granola bar with some whole-wheat pretzels. The "good" carbohydrates will give you energy, and the protein will help to keep your blood sugar level steady over time.

 

Finally, dead-end thoughts play a huge role in creating early morning anxiety, as well as anxiety at any other time of day. Once you learn to overcome dead-end thoughts, you stop the anxiety cycle in its tracks.

 

Dead-end thoughts are negative, anxious, obsessive, or racing thoughts, that do not promote your well-being. They are based on faulty thinking patterns. These thoughts of helplessness, negativity, or anxious predictions about the future, give away your personal power and create the anxiety cycle. Here are a few examples of dead-end thoughts:

 

    * "I can't get out of bed feeling like this."

    * "Why do I feel this way? There must be something really wrong with me!"

    * "Everything is going to go wrong at the work meeting."

    * "It's a horrible day."

    * "When will this ever stop!"

 

The most important thing you can do to conquer early morning anxiety is to change how you PERCEIVE waking up. Change the dead-end thoughts that create the anxiety. Remember, physical symptoms by themselves are not anxiety. Negative perceptions are what create and perpetuate the anxiety cycle.

 

Choose to perceive waking up as a positive event - yes, you have a choice! Habitual dead-end thoughts can be unlearned and replaced with healthier self-talk. Of course, like any new skill you learn, it requires practice and patient persistence on your part to make healthier thoughts automatic.

 

Change your perception by creating a morning ritual that replaces the dead-end thoughts with healthier ones. Create a sequence of positive steps you can take when you first wake up to conquer early morning anxiety.

 

Positive rituals are helpful because they get you fully involved in the present moment (instead of the future), by focusing on one task at one time. Make the ritual automatic by taking the same steps every day in the same sequence. Here is an example of an anxiety-busting morning ritual. Use the ideas in this ritual as a starting off point to help you create your own personalized morning ritual.

 

    * Step 1: As you get ready for bed at night, place your alarm clock out of arm's reach from the bed. This action will motivate you to get out of bed to turn off the alarm when it rings the following morning.

 

      When the alarm rings, get out of bed immediately. Turn off the alarm and put on the robe next to your bed. As you do so, say aloud three times in an enthusiastic, cheery voice: "I am SO glad to be alive! What a WONDERFUL day!" Make sure to smile as you do this.

 

    * Step 2: Mentally and physically "check in" with the present moment. Accept any physical sensations without placing a negative judgment on them. Simply observe. Touch your face, hands, and legs a few times and observe the sensations. Focus intently on a few items in the room for several seconds. These simple activities help you to switch your focus from the future back to the present moment.

 

      If dead-end thoughts occur at this time (which they likely will), immediately replace them with healthier thoughts. It often helps to say the positive thoughts aloud. For example, if you're thinking: "I can't get out of bed feeling like this," replace it with: "These physical sensations might be uncomfortable, yet I know they are harmless. I am completely safe. I am physically able to get out of bed and have a great day. Watch. I can get out of bed just fine!" Then DO it!

 

    * Step 3: Turn on your favorite upbeat music CD. (Keep a CD player in your bedroom.) Sing along and dance for a minute or two.

 

    * Step 4: Eat the snack on your bedside table to help level your blood sugar.

 

    * Step 5: Take a shower and dress. Then continue with your day.

 

Once you find a pattern that works for you, use the same morning ritual -- the same steps in the same sequence -- every day. Repetition helps you to effectively unlearn old thoughts and behaviors and make the new ones automatic.

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Problem with this article, is that there is no alarm clock, it is not the waking up that triggers the flight-or-fight response, it happens during sleep and you wake up already in that state. In benzo w/d, it's physiological, not psychological. Excess cortisol made during the night would explain this. In fact, if I'm awakened by an alarm clock or some outside influence that isn't my body getting screwy, it actually avoids this whole mess as I am awake before the excess cortisol or whatever it is is produced. JMO and my experience.
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Certainly benzo withdrawal presents a unique experience and some of these tips won't put a dent in the anxiety it produces, but if someone starts practicing them now, there will be little need to reach for a pill in the future.
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Yes, I have read that adrenaline levels soar during sleep for some reason...I have woke up with a racing heart many many times and it was usually during a dream. But I still hate the sound of the alarm clock.
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Dear Pamster,

 

Thanks for taking the time to share this article and the tips recommended.

It helps to know that anxiety is caused by the  "fight or flight" response gone a little :idiot:

 

NYClady

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[95...]

Certainly benzo withdrawal presents a unique experience and some of these tips won't put a dent in the anxiety it produces, but if someone starts practicing them now, there will be little need to reach for a pill in the future.

:thumbsup:

 

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Great Tips Pam!

I usually wake up feeling pretty rotten but I tell myself If I just relax with it almost always lessens.I find once everyone esle is up  and I start doing the normal morning routine it disappears.The more I do this the shorter the anxiety attacks become.

Its boring but just the routine of jobs (empty dishwasher fold washing etc)helps.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Very good stuff!  I have found that it is imperative to replace the negative thoughts/habits with positive thoughts/habits. It is a fact that the psychological has a lot to do with the physiological. Thanks for posting Pamster!

 

William

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Morning anxiety is something new to me to the degree I'm having it in the last 3 years or so. It's worse when "my nerves" are worse and better or nonexistent when I'm "okay". Oh, by the way, I'm new. Nice to meet all of you.

 

I've never been a morning person but with the small amount of Benzo that got thrown back into my life by a caring doc and along with the actual medical problems I'm having at the moment (surgery soon), I'm not to happy about starting another day at all.

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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 ;)
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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??
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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
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  • 1 month later...
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.
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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 Angel, 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.

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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.
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  • 3 weeks later...
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.)
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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 ok 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.

 

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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....

 

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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 Angel, 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 Pam 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.

 

Angel

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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 Angel, 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 Pam 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.

 

Angel

 

I'm glad you're seeing improvement Angel.  :)

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why are the adrenal glands and whatever gland it is that gives off cortisol so active during this process?  how does this relate to the gaba receptors i wonder?

 

are the gaba receptors supposed to absorb this stuff

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Do people manage to go to work through their anxiety? I have to return to work soon following sick leave after an operation.  My morning anxiety can be terrible at times.  Do people feel that work is a help or a hinderance? I am worried about returning to work, I can't afford to not work.
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Hi,

Good thoughts for me on getting up. I think I will have to work on one thing at a time - there are so many good thoughts, I will get confused (maybe even anxious  ;D) trying to remember them all. I find comfort in knowing it is not me and it is not the day ahead, but the result of drugs/sleep/low blood sugar. Getting up as quickly as possible helps. One change at a time for now - and so many options to try. Thank you.

 

Howdie,

About work. I work. I know I am not as good at it as I would like to be, but I get it done. Funny thing to me is that I don't think most people know I am suffering. I am not 100% sure, but I really don't think they do. There have been days I can't go to work and not much I can do about that. I really, really hope that you can manage working, especially if you need to do so. It is a hard call, but with you all the best with it.

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