Waking Up With A Panic Attack In The Night

[seh1980]

I think you're relating night time to panic time. I do this as well after having a bad panic attack one night in bed. It does get easier with time. Try to distract yourself in bed. I read, watch tv, have hot milk, etc..

"Life is too important to take seriously" Corky Siegal

[Meg]

Eloise

Do you have a calming bedtime routine that you follow that might help ?

Some exercise during the day may help your muscles feel stretched at night.


Meg
www.anxietymanagementltd.com

Your anxiety is the human representation of the pictures that you paint using your many vivid colours of revolving and reoccurring thoughts.
How big is your gallery ?

[in1peace]

I have not seen any good success stories on this, but I suspect that when you are working on your daytime thinking patterns, it will affect your sleeping for the better too.
I read an article that made me feel hopeful.. it had some great ideas you might wanna read....
http://www.angelfire.com/ab3/agoraph...ia/rising.html

"Honey, if ya ain't feelin' the bumps in the road, ya ain't goin' nowhere!" (A wise Georgia Granny's take on living life to the fullest! LOL!)

[weeble40]

hi all my doctor BLESS HIM told me that you know you are having a true panic when it wakes you up in the middle of the night, SCARY stuff I know, it happens to me most nights, have you tried reading a book, Harry Potter works for me I take myself to that magical world, of his were i can use my own magic to send MR PANIC away, I imagine myself with a wand and think of a spell( i havent quite found the right word YET) but he sure gonna get it when i do

sleep well tonight xxxxx

[banana]

Hi, I also woke up having a panic attack in the middle of the night, after this I was fine during the day but come evening time I could feel my heart beginning to race and then ended not being able to sleep, so yes I think it could probably be an association with the panic attack and you thinking that it is going to happen again, I haven't had one since, the first one I had was about six weeks ago, but I have got some good tablets from the docs, Mirtazapine and these relax you down before bedtime and help you sleep. I also had hypnotherapy a six week course and that has also helped, but I must admit I do still associate bed with having the panic attack, which over time I am sure I will stop doing.

Hope this helps and keep strong.
Banana

[Gunz]

Hi,

I'm also a sufferer of night time panic attacks. at least 75% of all my attacks happen between 2-4am. I'm up now 1 hour after suffering an attack.

reading the site has calmed me down , deep breaths, i am on medication but it's so hard to get back to sleep after an attack.

has anyone found good ways to fall back to sleep after the attack passes?
sometimes it feels like i have had attacks that go on till the morning or longer or others that last 15mins to an hour. even after the hour though my adrenaline still kicks in, i feel a bit energized and i cant sleep.

[Louisejane]

I know this a an old thread so apologies for dragging it back up but its so relevant to me!

I am a 29 year old female who has always been lucky enough to have good health. Since the new year, I started to experience very mild chest pains, not really painfull but I was aware of them. They come and go up to 20 times a day, not worse when I exercise, just annoying. An ECG and bloodworks came back fine.

However, things have started to get worse, my sypmtons now include

• cold feeling in both arms
• slight numbness in legs
• dizzyness
• feeling lightheaded
• achey limbs
• racing heart
• sharp pains in my head

My doctor basically told me to rest as my tests were fine. On Tuesday night, I went to bed calm and in a great mood. However, I woke quickly at about 2am with a racing heart, over 120 bpm. My palsm were sweaty, I was so dizzy and had a dry mouth. This went on for over an hour and a half. TV and tiredness calmed me down.

Does this sound like a panic attack and can you get them when your fast asleep?

[Shone]

Im not sure whether its the same one recurring or not, but all of my happen at night, generally when i am settling down in bed. I believe now that it is because during the day i am on the go all the time and then by the time i put the kids to bed and actually go to bed myself i no longer have anything else to distract me, which is when they kick in. sometimes they last for 4-6 hours or all night and they can carry on the next day still not feeling quite right. Im sorry this is not much help to you really, i just relate to what you said about the night time attacks, hang in there, you'll get lots of support here.

[Louisejane]

So glad you posted Shona as mine are always worse on a night. I thought the same as you. I work all day, come home, cook tea, bath our daughter, the usual routine, then as soon as I sit down, the chest pains come and the panic starts!

My chest pains are there all day. No extreme pain but I'm aware of them. They've been here for 3 months now. The doctor said based on my heart rate and cholesterol (sp) levels my risk of heart disease is less than 2%.

I'm waiting on more bllods coming back tomorrow, its just really getting me down now.

Hope you can get yours under control.

[enigmatique]

I'd not thought about this til I saw this thread but I think I can relate to this. Over the past few months as my anxiety has got worse I've found myself waking up suddenly absolutely gasping for breath, wheezing, heart pounding, sweaty etc. I assumed I'd been having nightmares (well, apart from my HA self which assumes I have sleep apnoea and one night I'm just going to stop breathing completely ), even though I don't ever remember anything about them, but hadn't made a connection with my anxiety/panic attacks. Interesting. Generally I manage to go back to sleep pretty well, I think mostly because I am so incredibly exhausted that my body doesn't let me stay awake too long! If I find any good strategies though I'll post them.