Crippling anxiety upon waking up in the middle of the night?

[jcstan]

Hey all, I've got some questions I hope someone can help with. First being I keep waking up around 12-1AM and having panic attacks, I'll go to bed fine around 1030-11 and boom wake up and panic badly. It's happened 3 out of the last 5 days in that time period. Why is that? It feels like my anxiety is 100x worse upon waking up, but only when i wake up in the middle of the night. Also, the last few days I've felt like I've been disconnected from the world and myself. I feel like I don't know who I am and things seem so incredibly fake. Its such a hard feeling to describe but its very unsettling. It's weird because I haven't felt that stressed and this seems to have come from no where, but now with things feeling fake and me not feeling like I know who I am it's making me very anxious. Also sometimes upon waking up i feel like i forget who i am, where i am, my friends names, but then about a minute later it all comes back to me. I feel like im going nuts and losing my memory. Hope someone can help.

[titch]

It all sounds very familiar to me I get extra anxious at night sometimes and it's usually when I'm stressed about something or sometimes when I'm just worrying about anxiety itself. I jump up sometimes and can't catch my breath it can take me a minute or so to go right breathe. Feeling a bubble is also a very common anxiety symptom. Try to remember it is just anxiety. Hope this helps a little x

[GadGirl]

I too suffer from nocturnal panic attacks and can take me a long time to fall back asleep I believe it's subconscious anxiety causing it cause our brains are to hig wired the fake feeling you describe sounds like depersonalisation and derelization it's a sympto of anxiety but also a form of dissociation when your under to much stress and fear etc I suffer from that 24/7 nothing feels real to me I don't feel real my body feels very light weight and numb etc

[NoraB]

Hey all, I've got some questions I hope someone can help with. First being I keep waking up around 12-1AM and having panic attacks, I'll go to bed fine around 1030-11 and boom wake up and panic badly. It's happened 3 out of the last 5 days in that time period. Why is that? It feels like my anxiety is 100x worse upon waking up, but only when i wake up in the middle of the night.

Try having a light snack an hour or so before you go to bed. Something with tryptophan in if possible but nothing sugary. It could be that you are having a blood sugar spike. Try and work out how long it is between your last meal and when you wake up. So if you last ate at 5pm and you are waking up at 1am with anxiety, I'd say it's down to blood sugar because anxiety plays havoc with it which is why it's a good idea to eat little and often.