Anxiety every morning. I don't understand. Any help appreciated.

[Butters11]

I have been waking up between 4am and 5am for the past month with bad anxiety. I go to bed fine but the mornings are so rough. Been suffering on and off with bad anxiety since I was a child. I'm 40, on 120mg of Cymbalta, 20mg of Busbar. I started taking them a month ago after being on Effexor for six years. I'm an English teacher and I'm having to miss school because it's so bad in the morning. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[av1988]

I have been waking up between 4am and 5am for the past month with bad anxiety. I go to bed fine but the mornings are so rough. Been suffering on and off with bad anxiety since I was a child. I'm 40, on 120mg of Cymbalta, 20mg of Busbar. I started taking them a month ago after being on Effexor for six years. I'm an English teacher and I'm having to miss school because it's so bad in the morning. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

How often are you exercising? Morning exercise could really help. Does for me. It releases endorphins and can help curve anxiety.

[Butters11]

Before this happened, again, I was exercising regularly. I had to teach today and it was the biggest obstacle to climb. I don't know how much more I can take of this. I feel like I'm the only one going through this even though I know I'm not.

[RoadToRecovery]

Hi Butters. So sorry to hear you are going through this. I used to be the exact same way. Mornings were very bad for me and I had a very hard time getting out of bed because I felt so terrible. I couldn't tell you how many times I called in sick to work with some bogus excuse because I felt so awful and I didn't understand what was happening to me. And what I didn't understand, I feared. And the fearing it just made things worse.

Please understand that people who struggle with anxiety often have higher than normal cortisol levels in their bloodstream. Cortisol is a stress hormone that produces all sorts of physical, psychological, and emotional symptoms in our bodies. Because we struggle with anxiety, our body, through homeostasis, gets used to our cortisol levels being higher than normal and can release them instinctually after awhile.

But to make matters even more challenging, or body releases EVEN MORE cortisol early in the morning. This is what gives us our "boost" to help us wake up in the morning. People who struggle with anxiety often have hard times in the morning because their cortisol levels are already higher than normal, and then they have the added cortisol boost in the morning, which can make us symptomatic. You can read more on morning cortisol being higher here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol_awakening_response

sorry I can't add more right now, but I'm exhausted and am getting ready to go to bed. But if you'd be interested in hearing more, I can certainly give you some tips to help with this. I understand what you're going through and it's no fun at all! Just understand that it is very common among people who struggle with higher than normal degrees of anxiety. There are plenty of ways to help correct this if you're willing to learn and do the right work. We all want to get better, and oftentimes it's just a matter of knowing how.

Jordan

[Butters11]

Thank you so much Jordan. Yeah, it's rough. Worse part is now it is progressively getting worse during the day. I'm having mid grade panic all of the time. If not for my wife and Xanax I would be in a hospital. They switched my meds to Cymbalta, 120mg and Busbar. Been on it about three weeks with no improvement. Starting to lose hope.

[Butters11]

Anyone else having anxiety all the time?