Anxiety at night
Anxiety at night
Do you also know the situation when suddenly you are plagued with anxiety at night and start awake? Many people are plagued with thoughts, fears, suffering from stress and external pressure. All of this is usually processed at night and may cause you to be awakened with tachycardia.
Sometimes you can not go to sleep because of the anxiety. The following explains the causes and how to get rid of these states of anxiety.
How do you recognize anxiety at night?
Unfortunately, you can not prevent such an attack, but you can see from a few symptoms if you are affected by a panic attack shortly after waking up. These would include:
- Increased heartbeat
- Tightness in the chest area
- Breathlessness to hyperventilation
- sweat
- chills
Do you have o. G. Symptoms, it is assumed that you will experience typical anxiety at night. Unfortunately, breathing problems can be more severe at night than during the day. Often these become noticeable with heavy and fast breathing.
However, if you prepare and inform yourself sufficiently beforehand, it can help you in an emergency not to react as panicky. Because if you know what to expect, you can react accordingly.
If you are unprepared, the fear of anxiety alone can cause you great problems at night. Especially a sudden attack can cause panic fear.
Please do not confuse these with a night terrors, as this usually accompanies a nocturnal body activity or sleepwalking. A night terror is different to treat than panic attacks.
What can be the cause?
Do you occasionally or even frequently suffer from anxiety? Maybe you suffer from nightmares, are afraid in the dark or can fall asleep badly? If the latter applies to you, you need not be afraid to get anxiety at night. These can only haunt you if you generally suffer from anxiety disorders in everyday life.
The worst symptom are breathing problems. The triggers can be very different. For example, harmless heartburn until hyperventilation can help. People who have a problem with it can often become anxious at night.
Problems in everyday life can also be the cause, because these are known to be processed at night. Most people do not want to deal with their everyday problems even during the day. The result is that the panic attacks at night then hit even worse.
Many people can breathe comfortably while sleeping, but if they have respiratory problems, it can happen that the person is hyperventilating while they are sleeping. This can also lead to a panic attack.
Author: Jörne Kreuder, last updated 18.10.2023