Is it normal to wake in morning with a feeling of dread / impending doom?

[nianxiousguy]

Is this all part of general anxiety? Is just a really low feeling of dread, seems to appear as soon as I wake in the mornings.

[ankietyjoe]

Cortisol is highest first thing in the morning and it's common to feel more anxiety (and any of the accompanying symptoms) as soon as you wake up.

[WiseMonkey]

This is very common especially if you've had a lot of stress or worry lately. It can start your stomach churning too ( sometimes an accompanying symptom).

It can continue even after the stressful situation has passed as it takes a while for your system to settle down again.

[CaliGuy]

Absolutely.

In my journey through stress disorder, morning anxiety/panic/doom has been the #1 issue. Go to bed feeling fine, wake up a mess. Right out of sleep, and usually coming out of some vivid or bad dreams.

It does usually improve as the day goes on, and most days I don't have this anymore. But when setbacks return, it's always right out of sleep for me. This has been 80% of the entire condition in my case.

[lebonvin]

Claire Weekes talk about this on her free downloads.

Mornings always worst

[Lencoboy]

Cortisol is highest first thing in the morning and it's common to feel more anxiety (and any of the accompanying symptoms) as soon as you wake up.

This might explain why I often have such feelings and thoughts first thing in the morning, and the feeling of often not wanting to get out of bed.

I reckon it might in part be a hangover from the recent Covid pandemic and the seemingly endless walking on eggshells in order to try to 'stay safe' coupled with when my mom was still living at home with us and having to constantly tend to all her dementia-related issues.

Now it tends to be other things (some relatively trivial and/or already there pre-pandemic), such as my dad watching either the BBC or Sky News channels in the kitchen downstairs whenever I get up last, which it sounds like he's doing right now as I type.

Conversely in the evenings, I usually feel more relaxed and generally less sensitive to stuff, unless it's something very bad or distressing.

[ErinKC]

Yes as others have said regarding cortisol. I’ve read (and know from experience) that while it makes you feel like you don’t want to get up, the worst thing you can do is linger in bed. The cortisol is designed to help you wake, so when you feel this way you should get right up and use up the energy rather than laying in bed letting your mind use it for anxiety.

[Lencoboy]

Yes as others have said regarding cortisol. I’ve read (and know from experience) that while it makes you feel like you don’t want to get up, the worst thing you can do is linger in bed. The cortisol is designed to help you wake, so when you feel this way you should get right up and use up the energy rather than laying in bed letting your mind use it for anxiety.

Yes, I'm totally aware of the fact that laying about in bed in the morning can often do more harm than good to many people.

But like I said earlier this morning, I think I'm still suffering from post-pandemic blues, even though those big worries of 2020-22 (which also involved my mom and her dementia issues) are now mostly 'water under the bridge' and Covid hardly ever seems to get mentioned in the UK's national news headlines of late, so I should ultimately have more cause for greater happiness and cheerfulness as we've now got the freedom more akin to 2019 and before once again, which has mostly been the case since mid 2022.

But unfortunately, 'old habits die hard', so the saying goes.

However, it's rather funny how this particular thread was first created in November 2019, which was just before the original onset of the Covid pandemic, and we were still blissfully unaware of what was then on the horizon for us all over the months and next couple of years to come!

[SXB]

I too suffer with this terrible anxiety - I wake at about 5.00am every day and my mind flips to worry straight away and sometimes into a very dark space - I am desperate for a break from it so any advice given would be really appreciated.

[ErinKC]

However, it's rather funny how this particular thread was first created in November 2019, which was just before the original onset of the Covid pandemic, and we were still blissfully unaware of what was then on the horizon for us all over the months and next couple of years to come!

Recently, I’ve been more nostalgic for preCovid times and feel sad thinking about what like used to be like. I was reminiscing with an old friend the other day because I put him as a personal reference and we were trying to figure out how many years we’d been friends. And then we were trying to figure out when/how we actually became friends. All our memories were one event or another - taking a bus trip to see a show, going to a lecture. And it was all while we were in college 20+ years ago. It got me thinking about the low level buzz or fear that I think Covid will keep imposing on everything we do and it made me so sad. I know it’s not useful to dwell on these things, but sometimes it’s hard to keep them from bubbling up!