terrible anxiety, panic attacks at night

[hamster lady]

Hi everyone

I am really struggling with terrible anxiety at night and I was just wondering whether any of you guys suffer with the same thing. My problems started a year and a half ago when I woke up suddenly from a nightmare with my heart racing out of control, I was so terrified that I was having a heart attack that I ended up having a massive panic attack and this set of a vicious cycle of anxiety and panic attacks day and night, a bit of a nervous breakdown really. I went to the doctor and had an ECG which was normal and I have just completed a session of CBT by telephone which has helped my agoraphobia but not my problems at night.

I go to bed everynight terrified that my heart is going to race out of control again, just like it does when I have a panic attack. I can usually get to sleep OK but I wake up almost everynight from about 3 in the morning with my heart pounding and I have vivid, disturbing dreams and nightmares for the rest of the night, every night!! I wake up suddenly, remember the dream and then my heart starts going fast and I have to fight hard for it not to turn into a full-blown panic attack! I also sometimes wake up feeling really hot and sweaty. I have been to the doctors to check for possible perimenopause (I'm 40) but the test came back negative so it seems like it is just anxiety. I am just so fed up with my terrible, disrupted sleep, I feel like a bit of a freak because of my bad dreams, my husband said that it was weird, he hardly ever remembers his dreams. I have very high anxiety levels at the moment because I am a carer for my 10 year old son who has been poorly with M.E. for a year now. I am just wondering whether my anxiety just comes out at night because I have to keep it under wraps during the day.

I absolutely dread going to bed now, I know that the next thing that will happen after I nod off is to wake up from some really distressing dream. I also often have really strange hallucinations as I'm drifting off to sleep or just waking up, I have also had this since my first attack of palpitations a year and a half ago. feel so exhausted in the morning due to my heart racing on and off all night. I have tried lavender oil which didn't help and I have also tried Kalms night herbal tablets and I think they helped a little bit because I slept until 5 am the other night when I took them.

My sleep problem is really holding back my recovery and if I have a bad night I feel so awful that I can't face going out because I feel so panicky. Have any of you guys had similar problems with anxiety and panic attacks at night and was there anything that helped you get over it, I'm getting really desperate now, I don't know how much more I can take of this. I'm so sorry for the long, rambling post. Many thanks in advance, hamster lady:weep:

I would

[Stormsky]

hi
Yes woke up myself a couple times last night having an attack ( i say attack, because i dont panic) You have an attack and THEN you panic.... You cant stop an attack, but you can choose not to panic... I was boiling hot, burning hot, sweaty, confused, head spinning.. scary stuff... but i choose not to dwell on it, because if i do i will setting myself up for the same thing tonight too!
Because of your fear and dread of bedtime, and you say YOU KNOW you will be woken up, then you are setting yourself up for exactly what you fear to happen.... I tell myself, im going to have a great nights sleep, that i love bedtime, that tomorrow will be a great day...(doesnt matter if your mind backchats saying 'yer right dont believe that') I just reinforce the positive statements and ignore any negative thoughts.. We are our thoughts, if we tell ourselves we wont sleep, or we will panic, then WE WILL, weve already made up our minds, so it will happen sure enough..
I also get the weird feelings/thoughts before drifting off and on awaking... but thats all part of the sleep process, so wouldnt worry about that... and the anxiety we suffer does come to bed with us too...
What do you have to lose by thinking positive thoughts about bed? give it a go...

[PanchoGoz]

Hey hamster lady,
have you thought of keeping a dream diary for a while? Maybe if you make friends with your dreams instead of fearing them you will see they are trying to tell you something? Unless you know that they are too wierd and abstract to have messages - usually when your dreams are really vivid like this you are under stress or a bit ill, PMT, that kind of thing.
The hallucinations are in the hypnagogic space between waking and sleeping, which can overlap with some people causing hallucinations or paralysis. Bad sleeping causes this, butI don't need to tell you that really :blush:

[hamster lady]

Thanks so much for your replies Stomsky and Pancho Goz, I really appreciate your help and advice. I agree that I seem to have got myself into a cycle of getting really stressed about going to bed, I really wish I could get out of it. Stormsky, I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad night last night, your symptoms sound very like mine, with waking up boiling hot and sweating with a feeling of disorientation. My panic attacks are more or less under control during the day but at night it is a different story and if I wake up with my heart pounding there is nothing to distract me and I just lie there concentrating on every heart beat and panicking about heart attacks! I have also developed a bit of a health anxiety about my heart due to my palpitations and my anxiety therapist has put my name down to have one to one CBT to try and help, there is a one to two month waiting list though!

A lot of my nightmares involve my poorly son as helping him through his illness is extremely stressful, he was an active, sporty boy before he became very poorly with a severe viral illness last November and it is heartbreaking to see him so poorly. I am considering writing a dream diary to see if there is some sort of pattern emerging. I do find that if I go to bed with my heart already pounding with anxiety I have a really bad night. I have been trying to do relaxation exercises before I go to sleep, they help me get off to sleep but I still wake up with the damn nightmares! I have even thought of going back to the doctors to get some sleeping tablets to see if they stop the dreams but I have heard that they are addictive and that doctors don't really like perscribing them.

Thanks again for your help guys, here's hoping for a peaceful night,.....not!!

[Meewah]

Hamster Lady, Only time will cure this one, I started exactly like you and as you say I feel I had a nervous breakdown, On top of this the Night jolts were the worse, my body would try to wake me up and save me from disaster by making me feel like I was falling. This would instantly put stop to my sleep. Over time I became cross with my inability to sleep and tried adopting a routine of going to sleep at different times, sometimes trying to stay up as long as I could. When I lost interest in this obsession of getting sleep and accepted that this was how it was the sleep recovered. It sounds crazy but it's only a problem while its a problem.

You will get over this and when you do you will be sleeping too much.

Mee

[hamster lady]

Thanks Meewah for your reply, I really do hope that in time my sleep problem will get better. I had a really bad night again last night when I woke up from a bad dream feeling extremely hot and sweaty and my stomach was churning. I went to the bathroom and splashed my face with cold water, went back to bed and tried to do some relaxation exercises but I felt really panicky as if something was really wrong with me and when it happens I always panic that I am going to end up with a heart attack and die, it is so scary. I managed to get back to sleep but woke up again from another bad dream with my heart pounding. Can anxiety really make you feel ill in the middle of the night? I have felt terrible all day today, really exhausted as if I haven't slept at all. I am really considering going to my doctors to get some sleeping tablets so that I don't keep having these awful dreams, I feel like I live two lives, one at night and one during the day, and the one at night is like being in hell. I used to love going to bed before I suffered that horrible attack of tachycardia a year and a half ago, I dread going to bed now.

I have been doing a bit of reading on the internet about anxiety and depression and I have read that anxiety can cause nightmares but my doctor said that it would go off as I felt better during the day, and after my CBT but this hasn't happened. I sometimes wonder whether I am suffering from sleep apnea and that this is causing me to wake up many times a night with my heart pounding, and maybe this could be causing the nightmares as if my body is trying to wake me up. I did mention this to my doctor a while ago but she didn't seem to want to send me to a sleep study and said that it was just anxiety. The trouble is that I keep thinking about the bad dreams all day long, especially if one has been really scary, this sleep problem is ruining my life really.

Have any of you guys noticed problems with your sleep since you have had your anxiety or panic attacks and have you noticed an increase in bad dreams? I'm really worried that I am going mad, I just feeling like crying about it all it is making my life a misery.

Any help and advice would be much appreciated, I'm almost at my wits end!

hamster lady:weep:

[surfmonkey]

Night times have been difficult for me also, but they are improving at the moment. I have a real dread of going a whole night without sleep and then seeing that stretch into a week etc. I have been woken just as I drop off by jolts and panics and it feels really unpleasant.

All I can suggest is what has helped me, so please feel free to try!

1. Acceptance - tough I know! Claire Weekes has a great chapter in her book on sleep. I decided that even if I woke with a panic, I'd mentally and physically turn toward it, accept it and know it wouldn't hurt or damage me (mainly from other posters here and on a site called sleepnet). Once you let one of the night panics go, you might find them easier to face and eventually they will calm or at least they won't bother you so much.

2. There is a great 'mindful' technique on a site called Crystalcalm. Look under midnight panics. This might help.

3. Yoga in the evening! I'm just doing a basic workout I found in Yoga for Dummies. It really helps me to relax!

4. Cut out caffeine

5. Dreams - My dreams are all over the shop at the moment, but they are a reflection of what is in your day, to a certain extent. I think writing them down and understanding that they are just the production of an anxious mind, might help with it?

It's your body and mind trying to protect you. Awful though it feels, trying to embrace it, even just moving 1% in the direction of acceptance might start a chain reaction.

:hugs:

Hope you feel better

---------- Post added at 16:03 ---------- Previous post was at 15:59 ----------

Sorry I should have said, lack of sleep will only make you feel tired. It's the anxiety we heap on top of not sleeping that makes us feel awful!

My sleep has gone from 2 hours a night with panics and wakings to 9 hours with lovely dreams over the course of the last month. It might come back, insomnia is just something that I'll have to learn to live with sometimes :yesyes:

[lustyglaze]

Something that has helped me was getting a cheap MP3 player, & you can download very soothing music &/or guided meditaion tracks for about 80 pence each. Some last over 1 hour so good value. Also Dr Claire Weekes book on Anxiety, or you listen to her lectures on
http://www.junior-anxiety-depression-exchange.org.uk/Relax.html

Good luck

[hamster lady]

Thanks so much guys for your help and advice, I really appreciate it and I will give them a go! I have got a Dr Claire Weekes book, so I will read the chapter on sleep again. That is a great idea about the MP3 player and music, I might just give that a go so that I can calm myself down in the night. I do have caffeine during the day but not after 3pm. I have two cups of tea in the morning, possibly a cup of tea mid morning and then another cup of tea in the afternoon, around 3pm. I don't know whether I could give up my early morning cuppa, I'm like a bear with a sore head without it! I took 3 calms tablets again last night but they didn't help really. I am already stressed about going to bed, I really need an OK night because I've got a busy day tomorrow and if I have a bad night my anxiety levels are really high the next day. Oh dear, it seems as if a vicious cycle is emerging:wacko:

Thanks so much again for your help guys:flowers:

[Mindful]

Hamster Lady, Only time will cure this one, I started exactly like you and as you say I feel I had a nervous breakdown, On top of this the Night jolts were the worse, my body would try to wake me up and save me from disaster by making me feel like I was falling. This would instantly put stop to my sleep. Over time I became cross with my inability to sleep and tried adopting a routine of going to sleep at different times, sometimes trying to stay up as long as I could. When I lost interest in this obsession of getting sleep and accepted that this was how it was the sleep recovered. It sounds crazy but it's only a problem while its a problem.

You will get over this and when you do you will be sleeping too much.

Mee
Great post Mee!

I was the same a few years back, every night without fail i would wake so many times with a sudden jolt, awful dreams, to the point where i was screaming out for my life, night terrors i have since been told they are called. Also lots of sleep paralysis, bloody horrible and very scary.

Like you it was when i accepted it as part of my life, stopped obsessing over it ( think i moved on to another to obsess over) it went on its on.

---------- Post added at 19:30 ---------- Previous post was at 19:12 ----------

Hamsterlady, hi :)

I occasionally still wake with a jolt and have that awful adrenaline rush and all that comes with it sometimes and these days i recongnise it for what it is and dont add any more fear to the situation. I know thats easy said but its something that will come with time. I let the adrenaline do its thing, it passes pretty fast and without adding any more fear it all passes off and i am back to sleep.

I think Stormsky is spot on, you have expectations for bed time now, who wouldnt after this? I know i did and you can bet your last pound that as bed time approaches you are already setting the scene of whats to come.

Try practicing from tonight to not add anymore fear. If the panic comes in the night, try taking a different look at it, try to look at it as your body protecting you, after all thats what its doing, its preparing you to either fight or flight, doesnt matter to the brain whether its a lion in your room or a panic attack in your sleep, it reacts the same. Thankfully, imagine if the fight-flight had to assess the situation first? We would lose valuable seconds while it decided if this ''danger'' was worthy of the fight-flight reaction or not! We would be mauled to death by said lion by the time it made its assessment.

Try to whisper a little thankyou to your inner self when it happens in the future, also add in a '' its ok, false alarm'' if you react to your night panics in a calm way, which you will with practice, then your brain will feed off that calmness. x

[sjp]

Hello, I suffer from panic disorder& write my diary on a blog called confessions of panic disorder . blogspot . com :) without the spaces. I have been on medication and now go to counselling. I write the diary so that other sufferers of panic do not feel alone&can see someone else's personal journey through treatment and life. I hope this is helpful to you! xxx