10 Ways to Stop Early Morning Anxiety for Good


Do you often find yourself waking up with anxiety? If so, you’re not alone. Morning anxiety is one of the more common forms of anxiety out there.

Unfortunately, many people find it hard to deal with (or even talk about) because there’s no obvious cause or trigger for the anxiety—“I’m anxious the minute I’m awake” is the way it’s usually described.

The good news is that waking up with anxiety doesn’t have to be a mystery. There are reasons why you are waking up feeling anxious. And more importantly, there are very good ways to stop the cycle and end morning anxiety for good.

In the rest of this guide, I’ll walk you through how morning anxiety works and then give you some practical tips to stop the habit of waking up with anxiety for good.

Let’s dive in!


What is morning anxiety?

waking up with anxiety wignall

Morning anxiety is when you feel anxious or afraid immediately after waking up from sleep.

For most people, there isn’t even a moment when they weren’t anxious—it’s as if they were anxious in their sleep and simply woke up into that anxiety.

Typically, morning anxiety lasts while you are still in bed but tends to decrease quickly once you get up and start your day. Although, for some people, the anxiety persists or even gets stronger as the morning goes on.

Common signs and symptoms of morning anxiety

Here are some common signs or symptoms of morning anxiety:

  • Worries and negative thinking. If you find yourself waking up with anxiety, it’s common to experience a flood of worries and anxious thoughts. Typically they are about the immediate future—things you have to do that day, for example—but they can also focus on regrets in the past or how you are feeling in the present. Worries about feeling anxious in the morning are common.
  • Nervousness, fear, or dread. In addition to the mental symptoms of worry and negative thinking, morning anxiety also leads to many anxiety-based emotional states like nervousness, dread, or a sense of impending doom.
  • Tense muscles or restlessness in the body. It’s not uncommon to also have physical manifestations of morning anxiety. Muscle tension and a general sense of restlessness or agitation are common. Stomach discomfort is also frequently reported.
  • Trouble going back to sleep. Once you’re feeling anxious and worried, it’s very difficult to go back to sleep. Although most people who struggle with waking up with anxiety do remain in bed for a while trying to go back to sleep, they’re rarely successful.
  • Panic. Occasionally, morning anxiety gets to very high levels and can lead to a panic attack. Generally, this happens when there is a lot of worry about feeling anxious and the symptoms that go along with it (especially bodily symptoms).

Why do I keep waking up with anxiety?

One of the most frustrating parts about morning anxiety is that there usually isn’t an obvious cause or trigger.

Here’s the critical key idea you need to understand if you want to know why you keep waking up with anxiety:

There’s a big difference between the initial cause of your morning anxiety and the maintaining cause.

Any number of factors can cause morning anxiety initially:

  • A period of high stress
  • Insomnia
  • Relationship conflict
  • Physical illness or medical issues

But there’s usually only one thing that maintains morning anxiety and keeps it going: the habit of worry.

Almost always, the pattern with morning anxiety looks like this:

  1. Some external issue causes a period of morning anxiety initially. For example, if you have a 2-week period of work that is incredibly stressful, it would make sense that that work stress would be on your mind first thing in the morning. Or, if you had a bad case of the flu for a week, it would make sense that you might start waking up and immediately worrying about how you’re going to feel.
  • You get in the habit of worrying about waking up anxious. If you’ve had a temporary period of waking up anxious, it’s understandable that you would get in the habit of “checking” whether you were anxious first thing upon waking. The problem is that when you get in the habit of looking for signs of anxiety first thing in the morning, it quickly turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy because you’re training your brain to worry as soon as you wake up. Eventually, it becomes a habit that’s so automatic it just starts happening on its own.

To sum up:

Many things can cause morning anxiety initially, but it’s worrying about being anxious that keeps you waking up with anxiety.

We’ll talk about some practical ways to break this habit of worry and escape the cycle of morning anxiety in the final section of this guide.

Is morning anxiety common?

Morning anxiety is more common than you would think.

Because morning anxiety seems so strange (usually there’s no obvious explanation), most people don’t talk much about it. And as a result, it feels more uncommon than it actually is.

In fact, one of the most painful parts of waking up with anxiety is how lonely and isolating it feels to have this major struggle you deal with that no one else seems to understand.

Is it possible to stop waking up with anxiety?

Absolutely!

In my clinical practice, morning anxiety was something I saw all the time. As a result, I developed a set of pretty effective tools and strategies to help people break the cycle of waking up with anxiety, and instead, retrain their brains to wake up into peace and calm instead.

The key idea, though, is that morning anxiety is a habit. This means that it will take some time, effort, and a little patience if you want to break it.

In the next section, I’ll walk you through 10 of the best strategies I’ve found for ending morning anxiety for good.


10 tips to stop waking up with anxiety

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The following is a collection of the most effective ways I know to break the habit of morning anxiety.

Don’t feel like you need to start doing all of them right away. The first tip—stop sleeping in—is actually the one I’d recommend most people try first. In many cases doing that one thing alone is enough to break the habit of waking up with anxiety.

For others, you might need to try a few different ones and see which apply most to your particular situation. For example, if your morning anxiety seems to be highly related to worries about work and what you need to do during the day, numbers 7, 8, and 9 might be most applicable.

1. Stop sleeping in

Remember: waking up with anxiety is a habit. And if you want to get out of this habit, you need to break the pattern of immediately worrying and then feeling anxious when you wake up.

The simplest way to do this is to just get right out of bed in the morning. No snoozing, no “trying” to fall back asleep, no breathing exercises in bed to calm yourself down. Just get up and get on with your day.

When you get out of bed immediately, you don’t give your brain the chance to worry and be anxious because you’re preoccupied with other things—taking a shower, making breakfast, going for a walk, etc. Do this repeatedly, and your brain will start to unlearn this nasty lesson that the most important thing to do when you wake up is worry and feel anxious.

Easier said than done, of course. But I have seen many, many examples of people who struggled with morning anxiety for years, and after implementing this one change—no snoozing or trying to go back to sleep—their morning anxiety was gone in a matter of weeks.

Set yourself a challenge of not sleeping in for 7 days in a row and see what happens to your morning anxiety.

2. Distinguish physical discomfort from anxiety

One of the most subtle but powerful reasons morning anxiety sticks around is because we mistakenly interpret physical aches, pains, and discomfort as signs of anxiety, which then leads to more worry and anxiety.

It’s an easy mistake to make because anxiety often causes physical symptoms like muscle tension, stomach pain, tingling in the extremities, headaches, etc. But just because these things can come from anxiety, doesn’t mean they always do.

There are all sorts of reasons you might wake up with physical pains and discomfort that don’t involve anxiety: sleep apnea, for example. Or even a poor mattress or bad sleep posture.

In any case, if you frequently wake up with physical pain or discomfort, it’s important to not automatically assume it’s a sign of anxiety. Instead, acknowledge that discomfort and try to think of one or two non-anxiety causes for that discomfort.

Learn More: Cognitive restructuring is a powerful technique that can help you change the way you think to be more realistic and positive.

3. Validate your anxiety

Ultimately, what causes anxiety to stick around is that we worry about anxiety.

When you worry about anxiety, it teaches your brain that anxiety is dangerous. This means your brain will be more on the lookout for anxiety in the future and more likely to make you feel anxious if it notices any. This creates a vicious cycle of anxiety leading to worry leading to more anxiety and more worry.

So instead of immediately starting to worry about your anxiety and analyze where it might be coming from and what type of negative consequences will result, try this instead: validate your anxiety.

Validating your anxiety means that you acknowledge it plainly and remind yourself that just because it feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad.

For example, if you wake up feeling panicky, you might say the following to yourself:

Well, I’m waking up anxious again. But, you know what, it’s not really surprising since it’s a habit. And even though I don’t like feeling this way, I know it’s not dangerous to feel anxious. The best thing I can do right now is to get out of bed and take a shower. I know that I usually start feeling better once I get on with my day.

Learn More: How to Validate Your Emotions in 3 Simple Steps

4. Create an enjoyable morning routine

As I mentioned, the key to breaking the habit of morning anxiety is to get right out of bed and not let your worries start building and reinforcing the habit.

But getting out of bed right away is tough!

Over the years, I’ve found that people who regularly get out of bed right away have one thing in common: an enjoyable morning routine.

Having a morning routine you actually enjoy (instead of dread) pulls you out of bed each morning so you don’t have to push yourself so much.

For example:

  • You might set your alarm an extra ten minutes early so that you have time in the morning to make a nice cup of coffee instead of grabbing a mediocre and expensive one at Starbucks.
  • Maybe you make time each morning to get to the office a half an hour early and work on that side project or hobby you keep saying you’re going to start.
  • Or maybe you save your favorite podcast for your morning commute instead of listening to it in the evenings after work.

Whatever you choose to do, remember this: When you have something genuinely enjoyable to look forward to first thing in the morning, you’ll be much more likely to get right out of bed and start to break the cycle of morning anxiety.

5. Get moving early

Research shows that exercise and increased physical activity are one of the best antidotes to anxiety. And this is just as true for morning anxiety as any other.

When you’re laying in bed with very little movement or stimulation, your worry brain has free rein over your experience. But when you’re up, moving, and exposing yourself to new stimuli, you have a lot more competing with your worry, which means it’s going to be easier to break the worry cycle and keep your attention on something else.

The other benefit of some kind of exercise or physical activity early in the morning is that it gives you a small sense of accomplishment and healthy pride. And when you genuinely feel good about yourself, it tends to counteract worry and anxiety because it’s confidence-building.

6. Minimize daily stressors assertively

It’s a simple fact that you’re more likely to worry and feel anxious if you’re stressed. And that means that you’re more likely to stay stuck in the cycle of waking up with anxiety if you’re chronically stressed.

Now, most people struggle with chronic stress because of one big mistake:

They try to manage their stress instead of managing their stressors.

Stress is how you feel (mentally, emotionally, and physically) after being exposed to a stressor. The key to having less stress in your life—and minimizing the morning anxiety that comes with it—is to manage your stressors so that they don’t lead you to getting stressed out in the first place.

For example:

  • Getting stressed about having to do extra work on the weekends isn’t the real problem. The real problem is that your manager keeps assigning you work and you’re too afraid to set boundaries and say no.
  • Feeling resentful and stressed out because your spouse is not being more affectionate isn’t the real problem. The real problem is that you’re afraid to ask for what you want directly.

When you’re chronically stressed, you’re much more vulnerable to waking up with anxiety. But managing your stress is just a Band-Aid. To really be less stressed, you need to manage your stressors—the things causing the stress in the first place. And to do that, you need to be more assertive.

Learn More: An Expert Guide to Assertive Communication

7. Make your to-do list the day before

A lot of morning anxiety stems from feeling overwhelmed with everything you have to get done:

  • Upcoming deadlines and to-dos for work
  • Personal projects you’ve been procrastinating on
  • Tasks you need to accomplish for kids or family members
  • Etc.

While no one item on your to-do list is undoable, the fact that you’re juggling so many can become pretty overwhelming. And when the mind gets overwhelmed, it’s easy to get lost in worry and anxiety.

One way to address this problem of to-do overwhelm is to build a small habit that I call The 4:55 Drill. The 4:55 Drill simply means taking a little bit of time at the end of your workday to list out the most important things you need to get done the next day.

This simple practice can help a lot with the problem of waking up with anxiety because it’s a way to reassure your brain that you’re on top of all your to-dos and that nothing will slip through the cracks.

And when your brain believes this, it’s much less likely to throw lots of unnecessary worries and anxiety at you.

Learn More: The 4:55 Drill

8. Scheduled time to worry on purpose

Worry is the engine of anxiety: The more you worry, the more anxious you’re going to feel.

So whether you worry at work or at home, in the evenings or first thing in the morning, the only way to control your anxiety is to control the worry that produces it.

And the best exercise I know to get your worry under control is a little routine called scheduled worry. The basic idea is that you make a little time each day to worry on purpose and on paper. By getting your worries out of your head and actually acknowledging them, you train your brain that there’s a right time to worry—and by extension, not to worry during other times.

It seems counterintuitive, but making time to worry on purpose at a regular time is by far the most powerful way I know to reduce the habit of worry. And when you get better at breaking the habit of worry, you’ll end up feeling much less anxious.

Learn More: Worry Free: Essential Skills to End Chronic Worry

9. Improve your sleep

Poor quality sleep is detrimental to your morning anxiety for two reasons:

  1. Poor sleep makes you more vulnerable to anxiety generally. After a bad night’s sleep, regulating our difficult emotions like anxiety and frustration is much harder because our frontal cortex isn’t functioning optimally. So when you wake up from a night of low-quality sleep, your ability to acknowledge and detach from your worries and anxiety is impaired. On the other hand, if you’ve gotten deep, restful sleep, you’ll find it much easier to manage your worries and anxiety.
  2. Poor sleep makes it harder to get out of bed right away. As we discussed earlier, the key to breaking the habit of waking up with anxiety is to not stay in bed once you’re awake. But if you didn’t sleep well, the urge to stay in bed is going to be very strong. On the other hand, if you’re well-rested, it’ll be a lot easier to just get up and start your day as soon as your alarm clock goes off.

Unfortunately, a lot of the advice you hear about getting better sleep is either misguided or just the same old drivel about sleep hygiene.

Learn More: Insomnia Myths & Misconceptions with Dr. Daniel Erichsen

10. Rethink your career

I’ve saved the toughest for last…

Sometimes the biggest cause of morning anxiety is working in a career you hate.

This one’s tough because a career is obviously not something most of us can just change quickly. What’s more, many of us have other people dependent on our work and career, so switching to something that’s more meaningful can seem like it’s not an option.

And honestly, maybe it’s not.

However, I think you owe it to yourself to at least consider this point strongly if you’ve tried all the other tips on this list without much success.

Because if you think about: Why wouldn’t you be waking up with anxiety each morning if you had to go spend all day doing work you despised?

One clue that your morning anxiety may be rooted in your work is if it’s noticeably worse on mornings when you have to go to work and noticeably less when you don’t.

In any case, hard as it may be to confront, if your job or career is the root cause of your stress and anxiety—and you’ve tried everything else—it might be time to seriously explore the possibility of changing careers. Or at least seeing if you can change jobs, companies, or even divisions/departments within your company.


All you need to know

Waking up with anxiety is a painful and surprisingly common struggle many people suffer with. But there are very good ways to deal with it if you’re willing to put in some work and be patient.

At the end of the day, morning anxiety is a habit. And habits can be broken.

If you struggle with morning anxiety like this, I’d encourage you to try out one or two of these tips for a week or two and see if you can’t start to make some progress on this anxiety.

47 Comments

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Oh man, this hit hard this morning. I’ve been waking up to nightmares the last few weeks and I don’t need your training to realize that it coincides with the start of school (I’m a grad student). I know I’m struggling between getting back to my part-time job I don’t fully enjoy, it’s ongoing meeting scheduling, financial insecurity and the pressure to perform in school. I know from the past that I tend to struggle with morning insomnia where I end up waking up earlier and earlier. Right now I wake up about 30-40 min before my alarm, but I can end waking up hours before and crashing in the afternoon. Do you still recommend just getting up?

Hey Gabriela, so, the suggestions in this article are about anxiety specifically. If insomnia is the bigger issue, I think it’s important to address that first.

I have been getting morning anxiety on and off for over a year. I sometimes get it during the day. I could be watching my TV and the horrible fear feeling comes on out of the blue..it then starts to become other symptoms a dry mouth shakes and other things like dizzyness etc. my doctor has said i have PTSD after the passing away of my husband last year after 52 years of marriage.i have tried medication like diazapam but i couldnt handle the side effects. So when the attacks come on I use breathing exercises which do help alleviate the symptoms. I live alone with just my dog Gracie. Anxiety is horrible it can be very draining and hard to cope with I find.

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Hi Eleanor I can relate to your anxiety..I get the same myself. A few weeks ago I had a awful anxiety attack came on in the afternoon and lasted
quite awhile.. I had to go and get some items at my local shop I don’t know how I got there and back. My anxiety has also been caused through a beheavement. My health hasnt been good lately flu chest infection and food poisoning salmonella. Which has left me very exhausted. And the anxiety is exhausting too.

I have been waking up with anxiety since I fell and sustained a mild concussion last November. None of my providers seem to be able to help me manage this.

Nick, your blog is big help . The problems are relatable , suggestions practical and solutions workable . Thank you

Something is missing in this article, sleep apnea or even excessive snoring can cause anxiety. Your body is starved for oxygen so you wake up anxious or even in a panic. Make sure to speak with your doctor. I went through a period of waking in a panic. I went to counseling, got some bad advice. Turned out it was apnea/snoring. Fixed completely with a C-PAP, sleep like a baby now.

Hey Paul, I appreciate the input. I did mention sleep apnea in #2. I definitely agree that sleep apnea is a serious issue. My point is that while sleep apnea can cause many distressing physical symptoms, it doesn’t lead to anxiety directly.

Sad your examples all relate to people who work. Nothing for the aged pensioner who has had chronic debilitating depression / anxiety for at least a decade. The young are always priority because they have time still to make changes. I, however, have run out of time at 67. No hope for me.

I can relate to you I’m 73 suffered on and off all my life with anxiety and panic attacks anxiety caused by different things . My problem now is my anxiety on a morning is I wake up anxious I’m going to have anxious stomach which I’ve been diagnosed / IBS so now I fear it and it’s the first thing when I wake up is go to the loo . I then become more anxious about . Had therapy was told it was anticipated anxiety but still doesn’t help me to stop feel I’m a lost cause !!!!

There is still hope for you! You might try energy healing practices like EFT Tapping and Eden Energy Medicine, a lot of videos for both on YouTube, and both can be extremely helpful for depression and anxiety. Hope that helps!

good Lord, I am 83 , 67 sounds sounds an adolescent to me. You have plenty of time to take advantage of many things in this program. I have experienced the good results of getting up and get moving and it works but I have always liked going back to bed for that extra time. Most of the time the anxiety keeps me from getting back to sleep. I am going to place my alarm to where i have to get out of bed to turn it off, and make myself stay up. I have some rehab exorcises to do and if I can get by the toilet I am going to do them first. And tomorrow start a note book in the evening for plans and accomplishments. Going to have to make a reminder in my phone for that . I am not very disciplined for that kind of thing. I quit smoking in 1972 so I think I can do this. My morning anxiety, which I have had since I was a kid was pretty much under control until my wife wanted to sell our house, in a very short time. and move closer to the new great grand baby

Can you relate this article to the dreadful morning anxiety associated with an unexpected separation, even after many joyless and sad months.

Hi Nick,
Really interesting article 🙂
I have a couple of questions:
1. Is ‘not sleeping in’ not a form of avoidance, distraction or a coping technique? I.e., ‘I’ve woken up. I feel bad, so I’ll take an action in order not to feel that way’.
2. What counts as sleeping in vs. waking late in the night? Staying in bed after my alarm goes off is clearly sleeping in, but if I wake 2 hours before it, I could get back to sleep but sometimes don’t, but I can’t know which is going to happen unless I stay there. Is it a case of noticing when I’ve gone into ‘worry/fixing mode’ and then getting up?

Hi Rhon, I respectfully suggest that it’s not at all too late for you and there is, indeed, lots of hope. Please talk to someone about your chronic depression/anxiety if you haven’t already. I wish you peace. ????

Hi Nick, I found your explanations and advice really helpful. I have been suffering from debilitating morning anxiety for about 2 months. I consulted my doctor and am on medication for anxiety now but not finding the relief I need as I still experience the awful range of symptoms from 4.30am in the morning. But the realisation that I am indeed worrying about feeling anxious – the vicious circle that perpetuates the anxiety – is actually quite profound. While I have already been implementing a lot of your recommendations (eg getting up out of bed rather than lying in with compounding feelings, daily exercise etc) I will try to start some of the other suggestions. Wish me luck! Thanks for advice.

I’ve suffered in and off most of my life with anxiety and panic attacks with good spells anxiety can be caused from something different each time . My present one is I wake up on a morning anxious I’m going to have diarrhoea and sure enough I do . Then that upsets me best part of the day . So for me not so easy to just jump out of bed and stay busy or concentrate on something else have you any other advice on this please .

I’m not an adult yet but I do get a heck of a lot of morning anxiety, maybe I stay up to late at night on a screen lol

And I’m extremely sensitive, (I also have social anxiety)

These tips are gonna be a great help in the mornings!

I started having anxiety a few years ago , About two year ago I saw a Dr about a problem that kept me thinking about it most of the day ( no details as it was a silly thing to worry about but that’s how anxiety works I was put on some tablets take 1 at night but the side affects waking up at 3 or 4 am , weird dreams etc and I am now going to try your idea and get up no matter what time it is anything is worth a try

Had ca dx 5 years ago in remission. The anxiety started then. Wake up with it. Dr gave me lots of meds, nothing worked except klonapin and I take smallest dose possible b/c it calms me a little but makes me groggy. I am so tired in the morning but I seem to have good night sleep. I am pretty miserable and quality of life is not good. I have gratitude thankGod for all I have. Exercise by walking every morning. Today I feel terrible took klonapin but feel bad. Did you have patients in remission from cancer that you helped, what more can I do? I’m taking a master class that focuses on breathing.please help me. Thank you

For me, the anxiety started when I went to college. I am in two degree programs which I love but which are also very difficult. When I get up on a school day or school-year weekend it seems like there is a mountain of tasks I cannot possibly get done, but I get them done anyway. Even so, it still seems impossible. Also, to the contrary, taking a 10-minute nap after my alarm goes off actually helps me.

Thanks so much for this! I struggle with morning anxiety every day. So I stay in bed and it just gets worse. I’m going to try to get up right away and hopefully it will settle down my morning anxiety. Can’t thank you enough for these very helpful and informative articles.

I deal with the same thing and it seems the longer I stay in bed, the worse the anxiety gets. As difficult as I know it’s going to be, I’m looking forward to trying some of Nick’s suggestions.

Well, I wake up at 330 or 4am with anxiety. It is a bit early for a shower etc. Any ideas to help get back to sleep?

Does anyone get heating issues like buildup of wax and noises like ringing in the ears etc. when you get a anxiety attack. My ears have been awful since the attacks came on. Sometimes I can hardly hear.

I have been dealing with intense anxiety for the first time in my life. I didn’t even know what it was because it was so bad. I had no idea anxiety feels like this. That feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, extremely tight chest, sweating, beyond agitated and anxious. Its so terrible and I almost checked myself in somewhere. Doctor put me on medicine and I was thinking it was helping but am still having these episodes. It will get better for like a week, then it will just slam me again. I’m looking forward to trying some of these suggestions. Has anyone on here had success in trying these? I’m going to start off with waking early and exercising right away. I’m desperate and feel so worried this will be my new reality forever, which adds to the anxiety. I have way more compassion for those who deal with it. I had no idea.

Hi Krista, did the anxiety medicine eventually help? Would you mind sharing what it was (or a combination of which)? I’m going through this now and every single morning I’m a wreck. Eventually level out around 10 am but from 5 am to 10 am I’m anxious, shaky/weak, and waves of nausea. I try to eat something first thing and get out of bed pretty soon after waking but I have no appetite during all this either. I hope you’ve gotten much better since your post! Best of luck to everyone reading this who deals with anxiety disorders because they are truly a battle that we have to re-win each and every day.

I’m struggling with debilitating morning anxiety. I have most of my life but this last year has been the worst. I’m trying to break the habit but it’s been rough. Any other tips you can offer? Thanks

My recent issue with anxiety waking up early in the am’s is a bit different from what I’ve read above. For years I woke up early for 1st shift as a nurse, and still am on a day shift for the ast 8 years after I stopped working and went on disability after suffering 2 work injuries scared me. Lately though, I panic when first awake early am’s thinking I’ve signed up to work, and worry I’ll be late, even though no such thing is true, I no longer work! Once I’m awake and up, I’m fine, and oriented to the day and laugh at myself for this ridiculous thinking that I’m still working. Why, am I going thru this every morning? This is the only time of day I feel disoriented!

I have been going through very intense anxiety cycles for the last 2 weeks.. I think it started after my Dad had a heart attack. When the anxiety is at its highest I feel so disassociated and disorientated that I think I’m losing it. The mornings are worst and by the end of the day I usually feel more ok. I wish that others weren’t going through this too …but somehow reading these comments gives me some relief to know that I’m not alone. I find talking to people and being as open and honest as I can really helps. So please speak openly about how you’re feeling to family, friends and professionals. Don’t suffer alone in silence.
Sending out love to anyone and everyone experiencing anxiety. May we all be free from suffering and the root causes of our suffering whatever they may be. And may we all be happy.

Thanks for this article/blog. When things get stressful it manifests as the morning anxiety described; the second I wake up I’m in a full blown panic. My brain immediately goes right to all the problems. I just started dating again dealing with those feelings has been very hard territory to navigate. Work has been crazy and borderline being harassed by people “under me” for help, estranged sister resurfacing, volunteer work with cat rescue, throwing my back out, my car’s brakes giving out one weekend and popping a flat the next weekend., anniversary of cutting off a dear friend (we were co-dependent) who ended up passing away in May…while getting ready to go on vacation next week and getting ducks in a row…are all these things. It can get very overwhelming. I wish I could just compartmentalize these things. I’m on meds, therapy, mediation, literally everything I can think of under the sun. I have a good support system. I’m just waiting for this episode to pass. I pray tomorrow I can wake up with some relief. Even a little better than it was today would be fine. Thanks for your explanation of this and for anyone else reading this message.

Hello, it’s hard to believe so many are experiencing the same thing as I am. I am going to try getting up and starting the day instead of laying down with nothing but those thoughts in my mind. I’m glad I saw this. I hope only for the best for all of you. Thank you all for your comments.

Hi deb and other sufferers. Morning anxiety is horrible.i also get anxiety if I fall asleep during the day. I.can relate to your anxiety issues. I have had a rough time since last year. I looked after my husband of 52 years as he had lots of health issues. Unfortunately after a stay In hospital of 3 weeks he came home and sadly had a bad fall and never recovered and died a week later poor man .i stayed with relatives for 3 months I did get anxiety when I was staying them in the mornings. But it did start to ease off quite a bit thankfully. I have now returned home to try and cope with living alone. Which I am finding very difficult as I have never lived alone before
Recently the anxiety has returned waking me up at 5 in the morning. Shakes in the chest and stomach area that terrible fear feeling dry mouth and other symptoms. I have been told I have stress related tinnitus recently so that has made matters worse. Some days I find it hard to get motivated as the anxiety drains me. I also find I get very stressed over the most simple tasks and start to panic too.

I’m al.most 89. Suffering from severe awakening anxiety and GI distress. Found information on C.A.R. cortisol awakening response. Considering an appointment with an endocrino!ogist to get my cortisol / adrenal gland checked.
Many serious age-associated worries – no family etc. Think I will try the set-up right away routine first. Opinion?

Hi Krista it’s awful isn’t it. I can relate to your problem. I am getting exactly what you describe in your comment. That terrible feeling of dread I find is the worst symptom
My anxiety has been caused by a beheavement last year. My husband passed away after being ill for 15 months
.sadly he came home after a spell in hospital and unfortunately had a bad fall at home and never recovered. My health has been a rollercoaster of events not just the anxiety issues. But hearing problems and weight loss and stress related hair loss. After I get the anxiety attacks which can last up to an hour I feel so drained it is a effort to get going again. I agree I didn’t really know a lot about anxiety and panic attacks until I got them myself.

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