Why Do I Keep Waking Up with Anxieties?
Nearly everyone is familiar with those occasional restless nights when the thoughts are rushing through our brains so fast that we can't shut them down. We follow these racing thoughts into the worst-case scenarios of our anxieties and wake in the morning feeling as exhausted as the night before. But why is it such a struggle to calm those anxious feelings and prevent waking up with anxiety? This article will help you understand and manage morning anxiety.
What Is Anxiety?
First, let’s discuss what anxiety is. Anxiety is the feeling of intense and persistent worry about everyday situations. Some anxiety is occasional and normal, such as feeling anxious before an interview. However, some people experience more chronic and debilitating forms of anxiety, known as anxiety disorders.
There are several types of anxiety disorders. Some of them include social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and specific phobias.
People with anxiety disorders all display a different set of symptoms, both physical and mental, but there are common symptoms that these conditions have in common. These symptoms include but are not limited to:
- Feeling weak and fatigued
- Difficulty breathing
- Mental confusion and fear
- Nervousness or a feeling of impending doom
- Restlessness
- Insomnia or difficulty sleeping
- Tingling/numbness in the hands/legs
- Excessive worrying
- Sweating and chills
- Tight chest
- Upset stomach or diarrhea
- Muscle tension
Causes Of Morning Anxiety
Consistently waking with anxieties can have a very debilitating impact on a person's well-being. Our hours of sleep are used by both our bodies and our brains to heal illnesses, mend injuries, resolve emotional conflict, gain inspiration, and even solve problems!
Our sleep is the reset button for our day. If we wake with anxieties, we're running the same program we ran yesterday and compounding it with the worries of today. There is no pause to refresh, only the building momentum of our anxious thoughts.
So why do so many people keep waking up with anxiety? Well, there are a few factors that trigger anxiety in the morning.
First of all, it’s important to know that any anxiety disorder can contribute to the symptoms of morning anxiety. Whether you have a specific phobia or social anxiety, these can easily contribute to anxiety in the morning. Therefore, if you already are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, then this is probably what’s causing you anxiety in the early hours of your day.
If you don’t have an anxiety disorder, there is always the potential that pre-existing health conditions are causing your morning anxiety. A serious medical condition such as diabetes, heart disease, and thyroid problems have all been known to contribute to anxiety symptoms. Therefore, if you have one of these health conditions or another medical concern, talk to your doctor to determine if they are causing your anxiety.
If you aren’t waking up with anxiety but experience it soon after, you should observe your morning routine to see if it is affecting your mental health. For example, listening to chaotic music or eating an unhealthy breakfast (or consuming caffeine) may be making your anxiety symptoms worse. Therefore, you may be able to ease anxiety in the morning by eating a healthy breakfast or listening to calm music (such as classical music).
And of course, if you are feeling anxious about particular stressful events in your daily life, those are bound to be causing you sleep problems and be the reason you are waking up with anxiety. Whether it be financial stress, job stress, or family stress, life events that trigger anxiety throughout the day will also affect your morning stress levels.
But no matter the external cause, you can still thank your cortisol levels for the reason you feel anxious. Cortisol is one of the stress hormones in the body that is released by the adrenal glands and helps us detect threats. But since humans don’t typically have to deal with dangerous threats that often, we instead experience an increase in cortisol (i.e., increased stress and anxiety) in normal, everyday situations. People who frequently experience waking up with anxiety experience increased levels of this stress hormone within the first hour of their day, which is called the cortisol awakening response. Though all people have this response, people waking up with anxiety seem to have higher cortisol levels than average.
Taking Control
When you’re experiencing excessive anxiety in the morning, it’s understandable that you would want to take control of the situation. Luckily there are a few self-care strategies you can do to reduce your symptoms of morning anxiety.
Change Your Lifestyle
Your physical health is tied to your mental health. Therefore, it’s essential to take care of your body in order to care for your mind. This means eating healthy food, getting regular exercise, and sleeping well are crucial to maintain great mental health. Physical activity in particular is a great option for people experiencing an excessive amount of anxiety and need to release it in a healthy way.
People with anxiety often experience sleeping problems and disorders that keep them from getting the rest they need. If this is the case for you, then talk with your doctor about some professional treatment options that will promote you staying asleep the whole night.
Change The Environment
Our surroundings affect our moods. If you tend to listen to loud music, watch dramatic and stressful shows, and have a disorganized environment, you are more likely to experience anxiety and negative thoughts. This kind of environment can also cause difficulty concentrating, which prevents you from doing anything to tackle the causes of your anxiety.
Therefore, you need to ensure that your environment promotes calm and happiness and that you have a relaxing evening and/or morning routine. For example, you can fill your home with relaxing music and calming colors, or you can take a nice relaxing bath before heading to bed.
Meditate
People all around the world experience relief from their anxiety by practicing mindfulness meditation. Over 200 peer-reviewed studies have shown the effectiveness of meditation for various mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression. So if morning anxiety is beginning to feel overwhelming, incorporate a guided meditation or deep breathing session into your routine.
Talk To A Professional
While the self-care strategies listed above are great ways to reduce your anxiety symptoms, it is best to combine professional treatment with them to experience the best results. Professional help can come in the form of a therapist or psychiatrist or in the form of your primary doctor.
You should see your doctor if you have a health condition related to your anxiety or you are experiencing painful physical symptoms. They can provide you with treatments that will help the physical symptoms and may even be able to prescribe you anxiety medication. However, not all anxiety drugs are equal, and some are dangerous for people with particular conditions. Therefore, talk to your doctor about the most up to date information on anxiety medication to pick the right option for you.
But if you’re a person feeling a bit overwhelmed and don’t have physical conditions that are complicating your anxiety, then you may want to talk with a therapist. A therapist can figure out and help explain the causes of your morning anxiety and stress, and work with you to find treatment options and self-care strategies that will bring you relief.
Our emotions are so complex. Keeping them harmonized is like trying to fine-tune an extremely complicated musical instrument. It can be difficult to place a determining line between normal and abnormal, but if you are waking with stress or anxieties in the morning, something profound is happening internally, if not externally.
Help is always available at BetterHelp.com, where you can depend on a team of therapists to help you through periods of anxiety and related symptoms. All counselors are licensed and experienced and have dealt with cases similar to yours before. At BetterHelp, you will learn to confront your anxieties, resolve problems and find closure with past issues. Contact us to start today.
Other Commonly Asked Questions
What causes anxiety as soon as you wake up?
How do I stop waking up early with anxiety?
Can you just wake up with anxiety?
Why am I waking up at 4am every morning?
What is the 3 3 3 rule for anxiety?
Does magnesium help with anxiety?
How common is morning anxiety?
Why do I wake up at 3am with anxiety?
Why do I wake up panicked and confused?
What does morning anxiety feel like?
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- What causes morning anxiety?
When you have an anxiety disorder, waking up with morning anxiety can be a frustratingly common occurrence. It can also take a toll on your physical and mental health. It is most commonly a symptom of generalized anxiety disorder and is triggered by an overabundance of the stress hormone cortisol.
Generalized anxiety disorder means that you have had near-constant anxiety symptoms for a period of at least six months that have been medically reviewed leading up to your diagnosis. It is characterized by constantly feeling anxious about most aspects of your life, unlike more specific anxiety disorders, such as social phobia or bipolar disorder.
Certain anxiety symptoms have been medically reviewed and are believed to impact morning anxiety. Going to bed worried about something or experiencing negative and anxious thoughts makes it more likely for you to experience morning anxiety.
Your cortisol awakening response gets activated within the first hour you are awake and can be exacerbated by a bad night's sleep, caffeine, or excess sugar consumption.
If you are experiencing morning anxiety more often, have the symptoms of your anxiety medically reviewed by your therapist or doctor to see if anything has recently changed. They may be able to offer you a better diagnosis or treatment plan.
- How can I stop waking up with anxiety?
The best way to limit morning anxiety if you have generalized anxiety disorder is to first seek medical advice. Your doctor or therapist will have your health history medically reviewed and may have a treatment strategy specifically for you.
After that, you will want to seek ways to reduce anxiety in your everyday life. Constantly feeling stress and anxiety without addressing the source of the anxiety disorder will only exacerbate your anxiety symptoms.
For example, if you are feeling stressed at work, you may feel anxious, experience a panic attack, have an increased heart rate, have difficulty falling asleep due to worry, or experience other anxiety symptoms.
Speak with your doctor for medical advice about relieving your anxiety symptoms. They will likely recommend deep breathing exercises, talk or behavioral therapy, or exercise.
If you feel anxious about going to sleep, try some deep breathing exercises to calm your mind and relax your body.
- Why do I wake up with anxiety in the middle of the night?
Waking up with morning anxiety or from panic attacks in the middle of the night can make your anxiety disorder worse if left untreated and will take a toll on your mental health.
If you have just recently begun experiencing symptoms of anxiety and have not yet been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder such as generalized anxiety disorder, then have your symptoms of anxiety medically reviewed. Your doctor may be able to give you medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment options.
If you wake up feeling anxious for no apparent reason, you may have an anxiety disorder. It is important to have your symptoms medically reviewed by your doctor to rule out the possibility of an underlying health condition such as sleep apnea.
To minimize morning anxiety, try to reduce anxiety at night. This can be done by adopting a nighttime routine of relaxation and practicing relaxation techniques such as meditation. If you continue to experience morning anxiety without relief, consult your doctor.
- What is sleep anxiety?
Sleep plays an important role in good mental health. It is also an important part of managing morning anxiety and anxiety disorders. Sleep anxiety is technically a type of performance anxiety because you are worried about sleeping well and getting a good night’s sleep. It is commonly associated with insomnia and generalized anxiety disorder.
It is usually brought on after a few days of morning anxiety, and in turn, it causes an increase in anxiety symptoms, which makes morning anxiety more common. It can be a vicious cycle.
Luckily, it can be treated just like morning anxiety. If you notice that you are experiencing sleep anxiety or insomnia, get a sleep study done to have your sleep patterns medically reviewed.
After they are medically reviewed, your doctor will be better able to offer advice, diagnosis, or treatment options to you.
- What is the significance of waking up at 3 am?
There are many scientific reasons why you may be waking up at 3 am. One is an extremely early form of morning anxiety. Other reasons are insomnia, stress, medications, or certain health conditions like arthritis, GERD, or sleep apnea.
If you only occasionally wake up in the middle of the night and don’t often experience morning anxiety, then there is no need to be worried. If it is a recurring occurrence, however, you should speak to your doctor about their medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment options.
They will likely have you conduct a sleep study, may provide medications to help you sleep better, or recommend a change in diet or exercise. They may also recommend therapy, relaxation techniques, or other treatment options once they have medically reviewed your history and sleep study.