EvolutionHealth.care

Home
Main Forum
Anxiety
Mastering Your Fear in Specific Situations
At Night?

Advanced Search Form

At Night?

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 11213

Welcome acr36,

Anxiety is often triggered by thoughts we have or physical sensations that trigger thoughts. Working the program will allow you to fully understand your triggers and then challenge them. It will take time and hard work but it can be done within a relatively short period of time (a few weeks). You may also want to check out the sections on Worry and Relaxation techniques in order to find some quick relief.

It sounds like you are already challenging those negative thoughts you are having that are triggering your anxiety. This is an important step in cognitive behaviour therapy! Great work. Have you had a chance to check out the program? Any questions so far?

Ashley, Health Educator

Here to help :)

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 162

My anxiety is usually at its worst early in the morning, and continues on until mid morning. I wake up and within a few minutes I can feel myself starting to get restless and anxious. I usually have to get up out of bed because I can't calm down enough to go back to sleep.

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

With any anxiety disorder there is a tendency to exaggerate the negative. Negative is a normal survival skill and we play these 24/7 but normally not this strongly. There is a very good reason why it happens. But it can get complicated as to why it happens now. Basically we subconsciously search memory for past experiences that are related to what we feel now. The more of these thoughts the stronger the reaction. The more negative a person is (survivalist in this case not so much down) the more they tend to have these thoughts. The normal is to subconsciously check once and drop it. If it cycles around more than once it becomes conscious. Still normal, even with the temporary panic that comes with it.

Like a night mare. The more intelligent you are the more capable you are of accessing memory for things to scare you. Most are only mildly related. A cat moving around can become a burglar you once saw in a movie that you don't even remember. The wind can become a disaster you saw on the news. And these thoughts can be just below the surface so you get the terror but not the thought that caused it. It gets worse if you try not to think about it. Eventually it becomes routine and in my case happened regularly every night to the point I woke up at the same time every night in terror. It became a condition I had to follow. A routine. An unwanted one but there never the less.

The rest is history. It didn't take a lobotomy but it did take a change of thought patterns which is I suppose similar since it meant replacing the thought reactions to the triggers. Eg. The cat became a cat again and the associated memories were just more cats, no cat burglars or sabre toothed tigers. Whether the negative thoughts came with them I don't know only that they didn't surface. I do know that now if I wake frightened it goes away real quick and I go back to sleep.

Panic attacks are terrifying because you can't get away from them till they run their course, unlike fainting which would be a relief. People don't pass out with panic, that would be too easy. They just feel like they will. And that is a whole lot worse.

Visualization works as a very good distraction to break the thought cycling. If you hear the cat, turn into one and follow it around looking at all the noises it hears (you) and check them off as harmless. Visualize sitting in a chair or window ledge. Any thing but thinking about burglars and axe murderers. Become the cat even. Anything to break the cycle.

It takes practice but it works.

Davit.

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1

I tend to have more anxiety at night, right when I am ready to go to bed, I make specific checks on every door. When I finally turn off the lights, the noise in the house seems to be deafening. Each sound is like someone breaking in or something unknown is coming, writing it out makes me feel like I am very paranoid and like something is wrong with me. I know what I'm hearing is just my cats or the neighbors who always come home late, but during that time I feel my heart pumping and my hands sweating and think Oh God somethings coming... wow it feels good to get it off my chest, but I feel really embarrassed. During those times when I feel bad for waking my husband up, I rationalize what every noise is and find myself eventually calming down. Sometimes I don't sleep for hours just so I am tired on purpose so when my head hits the pillow I know I will go straight to sleep. Can the time of day be a trigger? What am I suppose to do when I know every night, it will get dark? I don't know, I'm not even sure this is the right message board to post on!

Reading this thread:

today's top discussions:

This Month’s Leaders:

Most Supportive

Most Active

Most Loved

At Night?