Morning Anxiety

[Jen8882]

Lately I wake up every morning with mind blowing anxiety (dread, worry, guilt). My schedule has changed in the past two months from waking up at 4:30am for work and now I have a job where I work nights so I don’t get up until 10:00am on average. Still every day since changing my schedule I wake up with the same agonizing dread which goes away within two hours of getting up, but is overwhelming upon wakening. Has anyone else had this “morning anxiety” syndrome?

[Jeff1943]

You are not alone with your morning anxiety, Jenn8882, many people with anxiety disorder are familiar with it. Exactly why nobody has given a satisfactory explanation.

One theory is that it's all due to a hormone called cortisol which peaks in our bodies about 8 a.m. Our bodies think we need a boost of energy first thing on waking and pumps up the cortisol. But as we don't need it, it just sloshes around making us feel over anxious. An antidote to cortisol is believed by some to be L-Thianine which is found in green tea. It's available in concentrated form from health food shops to. I never found the tablets effective but I think when consumed in green tea on waking can be helpful. But nobody else here has reported success with it. Might be worth trying, only 75p. for 40 tea bags in Lidl.

Fifty years ago psychiatrist Claire Weekes wrote that she thought anxiety on waking is due to the sudden realisation of the problems we have to face that day. And of course people with anxiety disorder always exaggerate the problems they face ten fold.

I think this is true. I'm a 75 year old man and like most my age I need to visit the bathroom as soon as I wake up. But I've noticed that if I wake up and still have 2 hours sleep in bed to look forward to then I feel no anxiety. But when I wake up and it's time to get up then I sometimes do feel the 'first thing' anxiety.

So I think the reason for it is the realisation that another day filled with problems has arrived. Diazepam will stop it in its tracks, often for the rest of the day. But the best response is to accept the bad feeling for the time being as fearlessly as we can. This allows our nervous system to recover from the over sensitisation and once it recovers all symptoms of anxiety disperse. This includes morning anxiety.

The worst thing to do is to try and fight it, constantly testing ourselves to see if it's going, as fighting causes more stress and tension and tired nerves need less not more of those.

We win not by the punches we give but by the punches that we take.

[EleanorRose]

My anxiety is always worse in the morning too! I have anxiety throughout the day but recently it has seemed heightened in the morning and causes me to wake up early. Sometimes it makes it hard for me to get up and start the day but I always feel better once I do. I am trying to get up and get on with my day, however hard it feels, as soon as I wake - once I am washed and dressed I start to feel better. Try your best to get going, knowing your anxiety will lessen, and hopefully the sooner you get going, the quicker the anxiety will leave. You’re definitely not alone with this.

[Jeff1943 in reply to EleanorRose]

I find that if I lie on my back for ten minutes before I get up and do the breathing exercise (breathe slowly in, hold it for 3 seconds, breathe out slowly through pursed lips) several times then it counters that first thing in the morning anxiety feeling.

[Agora1 in reply to Jeff1943]

I totally agree Jeff1943.