Nighttime Anxiety: Symptoms, Causes and Treatment

Anxiety symptoms occur because the body is activated by the perception of a threat. The threat can be real or imagined, therefore, anxiety episodes can occur at any time of the day. It is common to feel anxious at night, being very uncomfortable and preventing sleep and rest.

If you want more information on the subject, in this PsychologyFor article, you will find Symptoms, causes and treatment of nighttime anxiety.

ymptoms of night anxiety

Anxiety attack symptoms can appear at any time, both during the day and at night. Therefore, the symptoms of nocturnal anxiety attacks They will be the same:

• Rapid heart rate.
• Palpitations: rapid, irregular heartbeat.
• Tremors or shuddering.
• Sweating.
• Pain, pressure or discomfort in the chest.
• Difficulty breathing normally. It is common for a person with nocturnal anxiety to say: “when I’m about to sleep, I feel short of breath.”
• Numbness.
• Dizziness or vertigo.
• Nausea.
• Feeling very hot or cold.
• Muscle pain.
• Fatigue.
• Insomnia.
• Gastrointestinal symptoms.
• Hot flashes or chills.
• Feeling that something bad is going to happen.

The symptoms of an anxiety attack at night can be very different between various people. The most common ones are listed, but not all of them need to be present and less common symptoms may occur. Nocturnal anxiety includes both anxiety while sleeping and startles during the night and anxiety upon waking up.

Causes of anxiety when sleeping

Why do you get anxiety at night? Nighttime anxiety is very annoying and it is normal for people who suffer from it to say in consultation: “why can’t I sleep and do I feel desperate?”, “why do I get scared when I’m about to sleep?” or “why do I wake up scared and shaking?” The most common reasons for anxiety when sleeping are:

• Predisposition to anxiety. The first cause of anxiety at night or during the day is the predisposition to anxiety, what in psychology we call trait anxiety. Family history, genetic inheritance, parenting style and events experienced during childhood shape personality traits and vulnerability to anxiety.
• Stressful events. Another reason for feeling anxious when sleeping is experiencing a stressful event, such as a move, a change at work, or a family loss. If, in addition, your personality has a tendency towards anxiety, it is very likely that nighttime anxiety will appear when faced with a stressful event. Financial, personal, family problems, etc., may be behind these episodes of stress and anxiety at night.
• Concerns. Another cause of nighttime anxiety is excessive worries. There may not be any stressful events happening in your life, however, there are little things that trigger your anxiety levels. This occurs because the body does not differentiate between reality and imagination and reacts to mental events as if they were happening in reality. That is, if you are worried about your state of health, even if it is actually good, your body perceives the sensation of danger and responds with activation. Therefore, if these thoughts appear when you are falling asleep, you wake up with a start.
• Fear of anxiety. After experiencing an anxiety attack due to the previously mentioned causes, what we in psychology call “fear of fear” may arise. The person becomes hypersensitive to anxiety symptoms and their concern about having a panic attack is such that this ends up being the cause of their anxiety. Therefore, the fear of having a panic attack can be the cause of waking up startled, and an anxiety attack can even occur while sleeping.
• Substances. Another possible cause of nighttime anxiety is exposure to or consumption of toxins, which can be medications, drugs, or stimulant substances such as caffeine.
• Disease. Anxiety symptoms can also be secondary to a medical problem such as heart disease, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, or respiratory illness.

Treatment of anxiety at night

If you have trouble trying to sleep, it’s normal to wonder why you can’t sleep and feel desperate. He Vitae laboratory proposes CalmTu Night Retarda food supplement that will help you relax to fall asleep and sleep without interruptions. With its innovative two-layer formula (Retard), which acts throughout the night, it helps avoid nocturnal awakenings due to anxiety while its 100% natural ingredients (melatonin, valerian, passionflower, California poppy and lemon balm) contribute to having a quality restful sleep.

Next, we will see what to do when faced with an anxiety attack at night, how to relieve anxiety when sleeping and what to do to avoid waking up with anxiety.

1. Consult a specialist. Anxiety symptoms can be punctual and temporary and do not hinder the development of your normal life, or they can be frequent, intense and disabling. When anxiety prevents you from continuing your life normally, we are talking about an anxiety disorder that must be evaluated, diagnosed and treated by a specialist, that is, a clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist. The most common treatment for nocturnal panic attacks usually combines cognitive behavioral therapy and drug therapy.
2. Don’t fight anxiety. If you are wondering how to overcome insomnia due to nighttime anxiety, you should start by understanding anxiety. Anxiety is an activation mechanism of the body that serves to protect us from the feeling of danger. If you take your own anxiety as a danger, you feed fear and increase anxiety. Anxiety symptoms are actually just trying to help you escape, fight, hide, and survive.
3. Trust the body. Another tip to control anxiety at night is to trust the body’s own regulation. Anxiety, just as it rises, also falls. It is a temporary state that will go away.
4. Breathe calmly. To help anxiety go down, you can give your body the following message: “there is no real danger right now.” To do this, it is key to breathe deeply using diaphragmatic breathing.
5. Exercising in the morning. Once we have seen how to act when faced with an anxiety crisis at night, let’s see how to prevent nocturnal anxiety. It is very important to exercise regularly, but never close to bedtime.
6. Do not take stimulants. When faced with anxiety symptoms, it is best to avoid the consumption of stimulant substances, since they increase the activity of the Central Nervous System and that is precisely what we want to avoid. The most common stimulants are caffeine (coffee and soft drinks), theophylline (tea), theobromine (cocoa), nicotine (tobacco) and alcohol.
7. Practice relaxation techniques. Learning to relax is essential to calm anxiety. Just as the mind activates the body, muscular tension also feeds back to mental alertness. Therefore, one of the most useful relaxation techniques is Jacobson’s progressive muscle relaxation.
8. Practice mindfulness. He mindfulness or mindfulness is a type of vipassana meditation that consists of focusing attention on a present object while letting go of thoughts related to the past or future. It’s about being more aware of the present moment. Both relaxation and meditation require a learning process and must become habits. It is not useful to apply them only at the time of intense anxiety, they should be practiced regularly and as a preventive habit. In this article, we explain how to practice mindfulness.
9. Have good sleeping habits. To fall asleep when you have anxiety, it is very important to follow guidelines to improve sleep hygiene. Always follow the same schedule, sleep in the dark hours, have a relaxing routine beforehand, avoid doing activities in bed (such as watching television or studying), not sleeping during the day, not having large dinners, avoiding screens late. time and maintain a pleasant environment and temperature in the room.
10. Try relaxing strategies. There are no magic tricks to falling asleep or ways to control anxiety. There are no strategies that work well for everyone and at all times. Therefore, the ideal is to go to a professional. You can also try other strategies that help with relaxation and stick with those that work for you. Some ideas are relaxing music, guided relaxation videos, warm showers, applying ice to your hands, aromatherapy, melatonin, and relaxing infusions.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Nighttime anxiety: symptoms, causes and treatment we recommend that you enter our Clinical Psychology category.

References:

• Caballo, VE (2008). Manual for the cognitive-behavioral treatment of psychological disorders. Twenty-first century of Spain.
• Fernández, M.Á.R., García, MID, & Crespo, AV (2012). Manual of cognitive behavioral intervention techniques. Desclée de Brouwer.
• López, OIF, Hernández, BJ, Almirall, RBA, Molina, DS, & Navarro, JRC (2012). Manual for diagnosis and treatment of anxiety disorders. MediSur10(5), 466-479.
• Moreno, P., Martín, JC, & Sánchez, JG (2007). Psychological treatment of panic disorder and agoraphobia: manual for therapists. Desclée de Brouwer.