Even More About Morning Anxiety: Its All About Your Attitude
Morning anxiety fascinates me. It also haunts me and I hate it with a passion, but its a curious thing. How is it that the moment you open your eyes you can go from peaceful sleep to out of control fear and panic?!? And how is it that sometimes its in my life on a daily basis and other times its nowhere to be seen for long periods of time?
I've done a lot of research on this topic not only because I struggle with it often, but its also the number one search that brings people to this site, so I know that a lot of you are struggling with it too.
Usually when the morning anxiety sets in, it takes me about a week or so to really remove it from my morning routine. Every time it comes one of two things happen. I either fear the morning anxiety and feel guilty and ashamed when it shows up, or I expect it to be there and tell myself its not a big deal and I can handle it. There are lots of little tips I have spoken of before but I have learned over time that for me, the best medicine for my morning anxiety is my attitude towards how I approach it each morning.
When I feel guilty and embarrassed about my morning anxiety, and when I give into the fear thinking that its too much to bare, a funny thing happens. My anxiety gets even worse and I am usually sick all day long until right before bedtime when I can finally eat something and relax. This can continue for a few days where I hardly eat anything because I feel so sick.
It gets so bad that I am forced to change my attitude. I tell myself the night before that I don't need to get upset if I wake up with anxiety. In fact I tell myself I should expect it to be there and stop worrying about if it comes again. I say, when I wake up and the anxiety hits, this is what I am going to do. I am going to tell myself that its ok that I feel this way, its not a big deal, and I can handle it. I CAN handle it! I can do whatever I need to throughout the day with the anxiety.
Then I will get out of bed and do something to distract my mind. Just start my day. Lately if my little girl is still sleeping I will get out my iPhone and play this app that I am addicted to called Scramble. Really, I am pretty addicted to it, and the sad thing is I am not even that good! But its an easy distraction. I have observed that when I can stay positive and treat my anxiety this way instead of as such a horrible thing to dread, it is much less severe throughout the day and eventually after a couple days of thinking positively about it, I will wake up anxiety free.
The positive affirmations stuck around my house really help to reinforce the positive thinking. I have one on my light on my nightstand so its the first thing I see when I wake up. I have one in my closet so when I get dressed I see and read it. You get the idea.
Sure there are some days as I have chronicled where I don't want to work at being positive. Its too draining and I just want to vent because I am annoyed that I even have to deal with this in the first place. But I find that I have more strength and have more positive days than the days I just want to vent and have a pity party for myself.
I hope you find this useful for your own morning anxiety because it really is an awful thing that if you let it, can effect your whole day. But waking up with anxiety doesn't have to set the tone for your day. You can accept it instead of fearing it and in doing so, you are controlling it and not letting it control you.
If you enjoyed this post Get the Reality of Anxiety via RSS or Email
17 comments:
Great post. I was one of the people you mentioned that arrived at your site looking at morning anxiety. It's amazing how within 5 seconds of waking up I am in an anxiety state. Like you mentioned, the days it is the worst are when I just lay in bed and think about it. You are right in that if you can change your attitude toward it, you can then change your response and eventually your morning anxiety.
Yep, great post again. I do find that if I just push through and get moving into something positive, it deminishes. But it leaves its scar during the day in the form of exhaustion. So much of this horrible disorder has to to with switching the attitude. I noticed in the throws of a monstrous panic/axiety period, I stopped caring about my appearance, my home, and ignored the things I needed to do to keep my small business on sound footing. Taking those things back has been hard and fought for. It starts for me EVERY DAY. because I wake up with the damn anxiety every day and start pushing through it as I can. I hope that one day it will not be my bed partner any more.
It seems to me that 'morning anxiety' is one of the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome. I faced the problem and it looked more like a mild depression...horrible period to say the truth. One of the reason of it is a lack of immunity as well as malnutrition, overfatigue, etc.
Hello
I just wanted to thank you for your blog. Your description of the symptoms and the safety behaviours rang many bells.
I've started to blog about my own experiences (http://goodbyetoanxiety.wordpress.com/) as I am coming to terms with this unwelcome guest and learning to combat it.
Thanks
Luke
Very interesting article...Thank a lot great information about "Morning anxiety"
I used to wake up at times middle of the night with panic for no reason. But once morning comes, I'm just normal and no anxiety at all. I wonder what is the cause of this.
I feel for you guys. Made me more grateful of my own lot in some ways. I used to have so many problems that I dreaded seeing the light of day. But attending support groups and joining spiritual renewals allowed me to go through life a lot more confident. Friends help. And I agree with you guys that having the right attitude about the situation and the condition is one factor in dealing with it squarely.
The morning is tough for me, too, when I'm having a severe bout of OCD. Being in the shower alone makes it worse, because my thoughts don't have any competition for my attention. You're right--distractions remedy that, but it's work! ...Work that's worth it.
Bloggerwithocd just posted about ADHD at www.itsmewithocd.blogspot.com.
I don't know how to begin except to tell you that I used to wake up anxious. Things changed for me not quickly and it's a work in progress on a daily basis. Whenever I wake up, I give myself a few minutes to be thankful for being alive. I humble myself for being gifted with life. I take my day from there.
Thank you so much for the morning anxiety post. I'm an on/off sufferer of anxiety for 14 fricking yrs now. When my severe attacks occur, I always 'fight' them "go away!" and and "God please make it stop!" I am not a deeply religious person, however, I prayed to God to help me help myself in dealing with this. soon after I came across your blog here searching for affirmations. When I read that paragraph about changing the attitude..saying "I can handle it" and it's ok if i have anxiety tomorrow, something just CLICKED! Why haven't any of my doctors told me this??? I am now working this new way of thinking into my life. So far it's helping a lot and the anxiety is a lot less. thank you SO much for sharing this. Bless you!
Wow great post!
Morning anxiety is a bit of a mystery. I wonder if you've ever looked into meditation (both active and inactive) techniques, exercise, and dietary alterations, as these seem to have a wide effect on many related problems related to anxiety, depression, etc.?
I also would be very curious to get your take on the mental health recovery model that is hitting the psychological field by storm, especially in reference to treatment plans for anxiety?
I would love to quote you on my blog devoted to informing people about and collecting all viewpoints regarding the mental health recovery movement at my Mental Health Recovery Blog if you would be comfortable with that! If you would rather I not quote you I would still of course love to hear what you have to say on the matter!
I look forward to speaking with you more on the subject!
All the best,
Lex
MHCD Research and Evaluations
Googled "morning anxiety" and there you were. Just getting through a 3 week period of GAD that started with a false heart attack and and an overnight at the hospital. Currently on 10mg of Paxil in the morning. Seems to be getting better. Your blog is spot on with fresh ideas. I just realized that at 50, I've had morning anxiety for years! I'll be following your blog.
--
Bill
As an effective medicine, paxil would surely provide you immense relief if you are in the grip of panic disorder, depression or generalized anxiety disorder but it is altogether true that the usage of Paxil occasionally facilitates certain side-effects such as headache, low blood pressure, irregular heartbeat et al. These side-effects can yield serious results if not treated immediately hence take this medicine only on proper prescription.
I commend you for holding that little alligator. It seems to be symbolic of facing ones fears head on. Great article!
Funny, i was driving in this morning thinking i should start a blog about my anxious mornings. I work at a highly stressful job, but they treat me well, however i hate the commute and hate the deadlines. I seem completely fine on the weekends. I have started Lexapro (after not doing well on Zoloft for a few weeks) and i was on Effexior for 8 years before that.
I've handled the stress fine over the years, but our 1 year old seems VERY demanding and its driving my wife and I crazy. Our 5 year old is starting Kindergarden so there is alot of stress for us there too. I hope to follow your blog and benefit from it myself. Great job.
Hi there,
I don't have any suggestions but I just wanted to say that I have also been experiencing morning anxiety and it has been increasing in severity in the past few years. I guess it started during my 4th year teaching prac. I had many sleepless nights and would wake up sometimes 5 times during the night thinking about all the things I had to do before the morning or having sudden inspirations for lessons. By the time morning came I was exhausted and struggled to get out of bed. What followed were days of feeling extremely anxious (I had palpitations and was very teary, I would even feel as though I needed to be sick..though I never did). Even after finishing my prac and getting my degree the morning anxiety has persisted. I am doing supply teaching at the moment (as i'm not sure I'm capable of teaching full-time) but even on days when i'm not sure i'm teaching I wake up feeling extremely anxious with the same symptoms. It is really debilitating. I have seen a psychologist in the past but i'm not sure that she was much help. I think I may suffer social anxiety because I do have a fear of failure and it has resulted in my avoidance of certain situations (i.e. full time teaching work as I feel I'm not cut out for the job and might not be able to cope with the stress). Anxiety is a really tough thing to deal with but i'm finding this blog really interesting and helpful. I too am quite small. I've dropped about 10kg in the last 4 years (due probably to stress) and no matter how much I eat I just can't gain any weight. It's very frustrating and I do resent people telling me I don't eat enough because I love food!
Anyway, I look forward to reading more
X Daniela
I have had terrible morning anxiety that would ultimately last throughout the entire day. I had trouble sleeping at night and when I did finnaly fall asleep the panic would spark right as I opened my eyes (either in the middle of the night or in the morning). It is very tough and frustrating, but I know anyone who struggles with this can get through it!
The best thing for me was to take it one little step at a time. I would play soft, soothing music when I woke up and take deep, controlled breaths. I know my blood sugar is low in the morning, which can spark an attack, so I would have a banana and some almond butter next to my bed. The first thing I would do is eat, something small, one bite at a time. This would help, along with the breathing and soft music.
I also wrote positive thoughts to place around my house. I had a note taped to my tissue box next to my bed that said "You are going to be okay." It helps!
Post a Comment