Morning anxiety/dread feelings and racing thoughts?

[lawandorder]

Hey,
Everyday when I wake up my mind is racing - about how i'm feeling, comparing it to other mornings, about the day (not necessarily anything stressful about the day, but about how the anxiety will BE that day) and just very fast chatting to myself.. The frustrating part is it's got an attached feeling of doom sometimes, like 'things are not going to be ok'
Some days it's tougher to deal with others, - I do the whole reassuring thing, 'Evrything will be fine, just wait for these feelings to subside and ignore the thoughts they do nothing' etc.. it usually goes away to a much less severity within 10-20 minutes and i'm fine for the most part.
Does anyone have any advice on how to slow these down? Or what it is that is making it happen? It's been happening for atleast 6 months.. even when my anxiety has been really good in the day, I still wake up thinking very fast.
appreciate it.
P.S.. I exercise regularly, basically get 7-8 hours sleep every day, take magnesium and amino acids, try to avoid high sugar foods, don't drink caffiene...(despite all this, anxiety persists to be my obsession)
thanks

[mamascrazy1985]

i wake up everymorning feeling the same way i keep thinking that today is the day that something bad will happen and then all day long i am a fruit cake... today i have been jittery feeling and my fav part of the day is bed time because then i know that i made it through that day

[mishka]

Same here I hate waking up in the morning. My anxiety and symptoms are at the worst in the morning, I can barely pull myself out of bed for fear of having a really bad day.

Everymorning I come on the anxiety sites now, just for reasurrance - which is helping alot :) I've bookmarked posts that are really helpful for me.

[Lily89]

I have the same problem quite often but I have these notorious "morning racing thoughts" when I'm going through stressful times (exams for example or relationship 'issues') or when I'm regularly experiencing "bad days" so having a bad day is an experience embedded in my subconscious mind & manifests itself in racing thoughts, palpitations, desire not to leave bed.. etc.

I suggest you try to manage your stress if stress is actually behind these morning racing thoughts. The less stress I feel, the less I have those mornings of painful thoughts.

But if every day you go out and something happens (a trigger) to your anxiety and the day gets messed up, it's totally normal for you to experience a bout of anxiety and racing thoughts every day in the morning. In that case, dealing with what triggers your anxiety in everyday situations would be it. At least that's for me.

If all that isn't helping, I guess medications would do.

[lawandorder]

I feel pretty resilient, and i've considered medication on and off and on and off. Always manage to pick myself up, but it's always in the hope that it won't come back so severe that i actually need to consider medication.
Lily to you take anything?
My biggest concerns with medication is that if i take it, and i'm not satisfied enough with 'how I feel', i'll feel incredibly hopeless. At the same time, i think these 'expectations' are part of the problem - with everything. Expect to feel a certain way in a certain situation, and if i dont - ANXIOUS, expect to get better and dont - ANXIOUS. Try to accept how I feel and expect to feel better because I accept it and then don't - ANXIOUS.
Hah, It's like a game that I always lose. I have gotten a lot better than the past, but I still crash once every while. I'm just craving some sort of consistency.
what can you do..

[Lily89]

I totally relate to your dilemma of "expectations" :D.
Well probably you're aiming too high, or expecting too much? That's how it goes with me. Every time I contemplate my anxiety, reach a resolution that I consider a "magic wand", implement it and it doesn't work I do feel desperate and feel like a failure. But I guess this happens when we expect too much. Anxiety doesn't vanish with a simple change in one's thinking pattern. It takes a lot of time and work "hard labor" really. So just try not to expect too much from yourself in the 1st place. I know it's not that easy and we always look for a "relief" by expecting things to get better but the consequences of such expectations are devastating.

About meds.. I did for some time but (ironically) it did not yield wonderful results. Contrary to what I hear from others, medications do not make my symptoms better. Also it's inadvisable to take meds without a doctor's recommendation. I took mine upon a doctor's recommendation but it wasn't it for me.

Did you seek professional help before?

[lawandorder]

I have only recently seeked someone out - seeing a psychologist. I don't know how much she is helping, I was always sceptical about psychologists because I always felt my insight was good enough to deal with things myself. Seeing how I wasn't working, I went to plan B -the psychologist. Plan C is medication.
I have invested so much thought into this 'anxiety' its crazy.. I originally thought I could 'think' my way out of anxiety and some spouts of depression. I assumed logic and rational would prevail.
YEAH RIGHT
Here I am, stuck on repeat.
There are worse things in life tho. Cheers

[palow]

L&O: Adapt your exercise routine. Don't exercise when you are calm. Exercise when you get an anxiety attack. Exercise EVERY SINGLE TIME you get an anxiety attack. If you're at the office, download a bunch of office yoga exercises and incorporate deep breathing with those exercises. Inhale, then stretch and exhale slowly.

If you're exercising regularly with team sports like tennis, switch to solo exercise so that you don't have to find partners when the anxiety hits. Jogging is a good one. You can be out the door in 5 mins if the anxiety hits.

My mornings were the worst. I fixed this easily by jumping out of bed, putting on my earbuds and dancing for 15 mins. Do not let yourself stew in anxiety for even a single minute during your waking hours. This is what I went through with Linden Method. And it is not a quick fix either. It took me 3 months. That's how long it took me to reprogram.

Patrick