Terrible morning anxiety

[Shutterbug65]

Hi All. First off thank you so much for the positive support you've shown in your responses.

My anxiety and overall feeling of dread seem to be at it's worse in the early morning hours. I'll wake up early , 6:30am on a Saturday, even earlier on a weekday, with a racing heart, sweating and horrible thoughts. My thoughts center around something going wrong with my health, something going wrong with my house or car and not having enough money to fix it. One of my worst thoughts is not having enough money to retire. And Losing my insurance, I'm on Obamacare so who knows what will happen with that. I'm 52 so this fear is real. Much of it is my fault, through the years I never thought about this stuff and now it's here, just a looming catastrophe in front of me. This is only a sample of the morning negative thoughts I have. Every morning this is what I go through and it's not until noon or later that I start to feel better. I see a phychiatrist and I'm prescribed Effexor and Xanax XR. Does anyone else experience this morning anxiety. Love to hear your thoughts. Thank you.

[Bigbread]

"Dread" is exactly how I describe the dark feelings that come over me fairly regularly, but at night before I go to bed. My mind races through fears that are out of my control - also around health, my own and that of my loved ones. Thankfully, a companion to these thoughts has become the realization that they always lift the next morning to some extent. Do you experience a similar lessening as the day progresses? I find it helpful to remind myself through written word on paper: e.g. - "I feel scared and frightened right now, but I know that this feeling is an energy that will pass through me eventually. I know this because that has been my experience 1,000 times before. With that knowledge, I'll stop resisting the dread, and allow it to run its course". For some reason writing it is more powerful and soothing than speaking or thinking it. I hope sharing this is in some way helpful to you.

-mg