More anxiety upon first waking up?

Hi there Scaredy Cat -

Yes, I'm doing well thanks! And I'm glad you were able to give a good approval of L-Theanine on Yaffa's thread here, so that others can consider checking it out. Months ago, when I explained my severe anxiety to my preventative care physician, he immediately had me start taking it to help put my brain waves into Apha mode (& no prescription needed is a plus!) I keep it in my pocketbook at all times. :)

At the peak of my anxiety problems this would happen to me a lot. Same thing, I could get to sleep, but then wake up in a panic. Once you get the anxiety under control, you will be able to stay asleep better. I still occasionally wake up in the night, but I no longer panic, I can just go back to sleep, and yes, I still use the mantras to help!

have awoken and fallen asleep at 3 seperate times today. Each sleep is less than 30 mins and when I wake up its like with a bolt and my head is spinning.

Hi pjkong and welcome.:)

I am sorry to hear that you are dealing with this issue...it is awful to wake up feeling this way!

Have you consulted your doctor about a therapy referral? This would be especially good if you are wanting to treat the problem without upping any of your meds.

I have found such relief through CBT. There are others here who can say the same, and recommend other forms of therapy such as Mindfullness as well for anxiety and panic issues.

I would urge you to look into it if you haven't already. We also have some great self-help ideas in our Resource Guide here. If you practice the breathing and relaxation exercises in the video links there, you will find that it helps decrease your symptoms nicely.:)

Keep posting with us as well. It is healing just talking with others who understand. We are here to support and care.:)

Talk to you soon,

Scaredy Cat

I HAVE A SOLUTION!

Long term solutions are good but extremely painful to wait for months or years to be effective (Who can bare feeling sick every day and still go to work, let alone concentrate?) What we need is a quick, use as daily, in the moment solution that can ease the pain of mind suffering and entrapment within 15-minutes of getting up in the morning. Sounds good?

The quick solution will make it bearable to get through each day feeling better, and as we feel better it will be easier to work on our long term solutions like reading self-help books, seeing a therapist and changing our thinking etc.

Here are the steps:

Step 1: Wake Up
Step 2: Do 4 Sets of Push-ups. Do as many as you can per set and as you do them think positive thoughts like: "I will overcome my anxiety" "I am a positive person" "I will get through this starting today" "I can do this" "I am changing myself for the best.
Rest between each set
Step 3: Take a shower and continue to think positive thoughts. Think about the time when you were happy, or relaxed, or on a nice vacation. Think that it is possible for you to overcome this.
Step 4: Get dressed up nicely and eat breakfast.

I did this today and it gave me sudden energy and a door to fresh air opened, which allowed me to sign up and write this post (I wouldn't have written it otherwise)

The feeling of being anxious is horrible: Feeling like we are stuck in a hot furnace and cannot escape, like we are on an exhausting treadmill with bars all around so we cannot get off. It is impossible to fake being well when we are not, yet I know so many of us have to go through this each day. It really is a feeling of being sick all the time, especially if you have Generalized Anxiety Disorder like I do.

Remember, We need quick solutions to take the edge off and then long term solutions for our own development. But don't forget, Another part of anxiety may come down to things you are putting off like work, bills, and other stresses. What I recommend for this is the following (This practice should help for one of your long-term solutions)

1. Grab a note pad and make a list of everything on your plate that is stressing you out. Leave room under each task so you can write sub tasks.
2. Break each task into smaller to-do items that may only take you 1-5 or 10-30 minutes and write them as bullets under each task
3. Prioritize each task in the order you would feel best doing them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.
4. Assign each task to a day in your calendar this week to get done. The good thing about this is you won't need to think of all your tasks at once because you have scheduled them for a specific day to get done.

I hope this helps you! Remember, if you keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, that is considered insanity as Albert Einstein put it.

Best of luck to all of you. I am also on this battle with you and I hope we can begin to live life the way it is meant to be lived!

Scaredy Cat said...
It is a sneaky trick for the panic to strike when you have just woken up and can't even think clearly enough to use your calming tecniques! So my therapist encouaged me to practice, practice, practice my breathing exercises, so that they would be second nature to me and I could automatically start them the second I woke up. I also chose a mantra. This can be a simple phrase, prayer or whatever you choose to repeat to yourself slowly and calmly (mine was "I'm okay, it's just fear") These are two things you can do right in bed without getting up. Although sometimes it is good to get up and have a little walk around to burn off the adrenaline! Practice these tools during the day, even when you are feeling calm, so that they are really familiar and you can use them when needed. One breathing exercise that I found to be the best for me was "the divided breath" While inhaling, imagine filling the first top third of your lungs with air, in the same inhale-now fill the middle, and finally the bottom third. Exhale in the reverse. Blow out the bottom third, middle and then the top. (be sure that you have just one inhale and exhale per round-just pausing in three parts.) I hope that this will be helpful.
Scaredy Cat

Scaredy Cat, you hit the nail on the head in this post!
Your first sentence is exactly what I feel when I have just awakened and I immediately feel the anxiety. It's lousy when it comes on first thing. It doesn't start the day right and I don't even get a chance to talk myself into thinking that it'll be a good day if it starts with feelings of anxiety right away. And it's good to know that it's the cortisol that's the culprit. I couldn't figure out why I started having so much anxiety after just waking up. I thought I was having bad dreams and not remembering them.