Multiple Anxiety/Panic attacks during the night preventing falling asleep

[ForeverTrying2019]

Hi everyone,

Only recently have I really begin to understand and develop coping skills to help me really work on enjoying my life and not have my anxiety rule me. Interestingly after so many years, I have only recently experienced the physical sensations and symptoms of anxiety – previously all mental dysfunction.
This has been really hard to cope with and very debilitating trying to work while everyday experiencing so many different symptoms and ailments.

The most difficult symptom being a constantly increased heartrate which has caused me to also have panic attacks which I previously had not experienced. I am now on heart medication to slow my resting HR down and since then the panic attacks have stopped.

I have been seeing my psychologist and recently also doing kinesiology and significant amount of meditation and have for the past 4 weeks stopped using benzodiazepines which I had previously needed irregularly.

So then a few nights ago I noticed myself struggling to breathe and some of the initial panic attack symptoms before I went to sleep but I shrugged it off for the most part and thought I wont let it pull me in, I put my sleep meditation on and off to sleep I went. Then a few hours later I woke up in a jolt of anxiety/panic my heart racing and my chest feeling like I was being crushed, I then calmed myself down quickly put my sleep meditation back on and tried to go back to sleep - or so i thought. Some cycle then began which has me extremely worried.

Between being awake and then falling into sleep when the body starts to relax, it seems my body is for some reason becoming extremely anxious in that level of consciousness, just as I am about to actually drift into sleep I will jolt awake and then the whole cycle will continue every 15-20 minutes for up to a few hours. I had hoped that this would be a one off scenario but it happened again last night and I was awake with the same repeated cycle from approx. 11pm – 3:30 am.

I was in tears after waking one of the last few times, I just cant understand what the hell is going on.

It is terrifying - I am exhausted and all my body want to do is sleep, but it literally will not let itself. I am struggling today because my regular daily anxiety is far harder to manage after such bad sleep deprivation.

Does anyone have an experience in this – is anyone able to offer any suggestions? With the progress I have recently made I do not want to go backwards.

Thank you in advance.

[smallwolf]

Hi ForeverTrying2019,

welcome to beyond blue.

Similar to you I my heart rate would go up, chest tightness etc.I would wake up at various times during the night, thinking about work things and would have trouble getting back to sleep. And I would be tired and grumpy the next day.

And like you it worked. And at the moment it still does work. I would do a guided meditation before sleep. I think the biggest difference was not doing "work" before bed time, not drinking coffee after 4pm. (And I am on ADs that targets both depression and anxiety)

I guess you already know about sleep hygiene - there was a document my psychiatrist gave me on this topic. Writing down what was on my mind was also helpful and reading.

Are you able to identify what happened when this started?

Different topic, but my feeling of self-worth is also based on things people say to me. That is negative comments give me feelings of shame (vs guilt). Being able to identify what was the trigger allows me to move forward also... if slowly.

Not sure what the interval between your psychologist sessions, but perhaps this is something you could raise there.

I have never used the medication you mentioned, but was given a medication to help keep me in a relaxed state while sleeping.

Not sure if anything I have said will help you, and I hope you will find some sort of way forward from this.

Peace and comforting thoughts,

Tim

Tim