Advice for waking up on a panic?

[Giraffe11]

Mornings are my worst time. Lately waking anywhere between 3-6am .. I wake up, turn over and try to go back to sleep but then feel it starting..

In my CBT session this morning she said that next time it happens to get up, don't stay in bed fighting it, go downstairs, do something like a crossword, have some herbal tea & fill in my panic sheet...

Do any of you have panic on waking? What techniques do you use?

It sets me up for a really crap day :-(

[Miche31]

YES, for a month now. I don't know how to resolve this either. I fight it, I get up, nothing works. I'm exhausted. What is a panic sheet?

[xvolatileheart]

I'm having the same thing lately. I usually try to distract myself, so I guess what your CBT therapist said essentially. I'll do anything to stop the anxiety building. It's so cruel when it happens upon waking because you're not mentally prepared to battle it, it just swoops in and takes over before you know what's happening!

[Leah1971]

Yes I get that too. It's horrible. I try to do some meditation. I have read before to get up and not just lay there. But when it's 3am I'd prefer to do the meditation and even if I get just a little bit more sleep I'll take it. I'm on lexapro at the moment and have just done an increase to help with this. So, I do feel your pain with waking with anxiety and panic. It sucks to start the day like that. I keep telling myself just because I had a shitty morning doesn't mean the rest of the day will suck.

[Davit]

I did what she said, I got up, made a cup of Ginger Mint tea and took it back to bed, Most times I found it still full and cold in the morning. It is cycle breaking is all but works.

[Ditapage]

You can only ride it out and accept that the body is more unprepared at night for these attacks so we can expect feeling a little worse. Getting up is all that helps me as well. I have to laugh; I've had so many seemingly serious emergency situations in the 5 years I've had panic disorder, and they've all been fixed in the moment with a cuppa!

I've think that once you've had some panic attacks at night and keep thinking about them the body reacts to that thought the same way somebody who goes to bed knowing they must be up at a certain time, might wake up every hour. It's like we have an internal body clock set to wake up and panic. I KNOW that if I go to bed between 8 - 11pm, I will be awake in a hour panicking. If I go to bed after 12, I sleep through til 6, 7. That's not possible unless I've trained my brain that way. So we go to sleep anxious, basically expecting to wake up with an attack. I have no idea how to stop the cycle though, I'm still in it to the point I now dread nights.

[zen10]

It is funny that your therapist advised that Giraffe11, as that is pretty much exactly what I learned myself overtime.

If I lie there and try to fight it or ignore it, in the dark, on your own, in silence apart from your thoughts. That is when my body and mind tricks me with thoughts about losing control and needing to escape, but if i get up and walk to another room, meditate for a short while, then make a herby tea and play a mundane game like solitaire it tends to be engaging enough to direct my thoughts to stop me ruminating over the crazy anxious thoughts that the panic brings but boring enough that I will go back to sleep at some point.

This obviously doesn't stop anxious or panic related thoughts instantly it takes a while and it is annoying being up for several hours when I usually have stuff to do the next day, but hey! that's the way of it, better than laying in bed panicking

[GingerFish]

I get this every now and again. I always find panics that wake me up during the night to be the worst since its hit you out the blue plus you feel all weird from being woken up instantly. I usually sit up and go on my phone and play a game on it or read something and once it passes, I go up and go to the toilet or just have a walk about my flat for a min or two and then I try sleeping again. I usually can't sleep too well after waking up from a panic so I put on my fave tv show on my phone and listen to that and that calms me down and I manage to sleep ok then.

[Txxxrho]

Yeah, I go on and off with getting them. I seem to get mine at the oddest times, not even when I feel the most anxious but when I get then I keep getting them. It's like for me I always have them for multiple nights in a row. I usually call someone and they can kind of talk me down. This can become a safety method though because you'll start calling and texting people at like 3 in the morning. And they aren't always at there happiest to be woken up. Usually even then you have to wait it out. My problem is that I'll calm down then boom have one like seconds apart. It becomes a up and down panic cycle because the sensations get so bad for me. Getting up and distracting yourself could be good but usually if I do that it's hard to get back to sleep and my anxiety gets AWFUL on low sleep. I just think do low key things. Even things where you can stay in bed and try to get back to sleep when you calm down enough to.

---------- Post added at 08:11 ---------- Previous post was at 08:09 ----------

Then you kind of don't even make as big of a deal of it in your head because you stayed in bed and got back to sleep so it didn't make you have to DO anything so it's like a victory over it.