fear at night

[bugswhiskers]

I keep waking early in the morning feeling very afraid, and the darkness makes me feel suffocated. I can't go back to sleep, however much I tell myself it's only anxiety and it will pass. It doesn't pass until I get up, and I feel really tired. It comes back during the day, but there are more distractions and it does pass at times. How do other people cope with this?

[Jeff1943]

You cope with it by doing nothing. That's right, nothing. You accept it for the time being. You agree to co-exist with it for the moment. You engage in 'masterly inactivity' to use the words of the woman who cured tens of millions of anxiety disorder.

And most important of all: you must stop fighting these feelings when they come. Do the exact opposite of what instinct tells you and you will recover.

If you continue to fight the feelings you generate more tension and stress, more of the fear hormones such as cortisol ans adrenaline. More fear hormones is the last thing your over-sensitised nervous system needs.

So Accept your symptoms for the moment unpleasant though they are. But it must be true 100% acceptance, not just "putting up with". Don't let first fear be followed by a flash of second fear. Eventually your nerves lose their over-sensitivity, of course: your no longer swamping them with fear hormones.

The power of anxiety is limited. It will not kill you, disable you or make you lose your mind. All it can do is make you subject to bad feelings and troublesome thoughts. Anxiety is a toothless tiger. Its only power is to imitate organic illness and make every minor worry become exaggerated ten fold.

You are a rock on the shore. The ocean sends mighty waves to crash around and over you. Then the sea draws back. Great is the fury of the sea but the rock endures. You are that rock.

To recover you need understanding, an end to bewilderment and a road plan for recovery/desensitisation of the nervous system.

You have two choices. Continue to frighten youself to death every five minutes or Acceptance. Choose Acceptance. Choose the quiet mind that follows. Choose having your life back.

Of course you can do it, you are among the bravest people on Earth: people with anxiety disorder. Everybody knows that.

*acknowledgements to 'Self help for your nerves' by Claire Weekes, the woman who cracked the anxiety code.

[Hidden in reply to Jeff1943]

How can you accept the feelings 100%

What does that feel like and how would I know ive accepted it fully?

[Jeff1943 in reply to Hidden]

Feel any obstructive thought float away out of your head, imagine it doing so recognising that it is only a thought or feeling and you need not be tricked into giving it attention.

Imagine yourself floating effortlessly through your day as if carried along on a cloud. When you think about yourself floating along you relax and it is the opposite of fighting. So feel yourself floating round the supermarket, floating round your local park, floating effortlessly through preparing a meal. Use your imagination and it will relax you and make you feel you can achieve anything and everything.

Weekes explains this manoeuvre more fully in the book which is also published under the title "Hope and help for your nerves".

[Hidden in reply to Jeff1943]

thanks

[Plato27 in reply to Jeff1943]

I like your statement about anxiety being a toothless tiger!

[bugswhiskers in reply to Jeff1943]

Thank you Jeff1943. I believe what you write, because I very much believe in the theories of Dr. Claire Weekes who advocates acceptance, and rationally I understand, but find it so hard to do, though I see that actually there is nothing to do!

[MountainLover22]

I feel this so deep in my soul, I’m the exact same way. I dread going to bed now, because I am worried about when I’ll wake up and how afraid I’ll be.

[Eddie1987 in reply to MountainLover22]

Same night time is so bad for me too.. Can't sleep with it or wake up anxious

[Dolphin14]

I use meditation to help me with this.

[Hidden]

Darkness is super stressful when you have anxiety and wake for periods in the night like I do.

Red light helps me. It’s calming, brings back sleep quicker once I’ve calmed and relaxed. Instead of me saying, oh hear we go again, I accept that it came and refocus on being calm cause if I get angry and frustrated the adrenaline shoots up then I have to calm my heart rate back down too. Something warm to drink helps me as well, it’s just as much about making it as it is taking a few sips that calms me.

I’d say find that one thing that does this for you. I will encourage if you choose distraction, listening to calm nature sounds, reading a book or magazine for a few minutes in very dim light helps me, I also have a sleep app called Sleep Genius that has a very relaxing program I listen to as well (you may find an app like this or similar).

[Lm92]

I leave my TV on one of the shopping channels and turn down the brightness level on it so it's just enough light to see my surroundings when I wake in a panic. The sound of people talking is soothing to me too. Before I moved a TV into my room, I bought some plastic glow in the dark shapes and put them on my ceiling.