Morning anxiety: why does it arise and how do you deal with it?

Excessive morning anxiety can be a sign of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). To cope with it and live a better life, you need to find ways to overcome it.

Do you also wake up feeling restless in the morning, even after sleeping for hours at night, before you even get out of bed? Experiencing mild stress or anxiety is a normal part of everyday life. Everyone can experience it at some point. However, if you find yourself thinking too much about situations that other people might see as non-threatening, it could be a sign of anxiety. And what you are feeling early in the day could be morning anxiety, which needs attention and care.

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What is morning anxiety?

Although not a medical term, morning anxiety refers to waking up with feelings of stress and worry. It is common to experience this when going through stressful phases, dealing with drastic changes in your life, or going through stress.

It is best to contact a healthcare professional if morning anxiety, stress or worry has become a daily occurrence. If you are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, you may benefit from the treatments available.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a feeling of excessive and uncontrolled worry that becomes a part of daily life and often lasts for at least 6 months. People living with an anxiety disorder may worry about even the simplest daily activities, such as worries about work, education, money, relationships, family, and health.

Common Symptoms of Morning Anxiety

Anxiety not only messes with your mind, it can also affect your overall health. If you suffer from morning anxiety, some of the most common symptoms include:

Why do you suffer from morning anxiety?

The reasons for morning anxiety can be the same ones that lead to an anxiety disorder. Morning anxiety is usually a result of being under stress for a long time. Some common causes of morning anxiety symptoms include:

• Looking ahead to and worrying about the day ahead or a future event
• Stressing about something that happened in the past
• A spike in the stress hormone cortisol, which naturally increases in the first hour of the morning, according to the International Journal of Molecular Sciences
• Caffeine or sugar intake (according to the Nutrients magazine) in the morning, both of which worsen anxiety

If you spend the whole night worrying about something, chances are you will wake up feeling anxious the next morning.

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How to prevent morning anxiety?

If morning anxiety is a daily occurrence for you, here are some self-care strategies you can implement to help you cope. Some of these include:

1. Keep your body active

Keeping yourself physically active can go a long way toward curbing anxiety symptoms, advises the American Association of Anxiety and Depression. In addition to improving your mental and physical health, physical activity can:

• Be a mood enhancer
• Reduce anxiety symptoms
• Improve your body’s resilience to deal with stress
• Helps you relax
• Reduce tension
• Improve sleep

Try to exercise at least 5 days a week for 30-35 minutes per session. For example, you can walk briskly, do yoga, swim, dance, jog, cycle or go to the gym to work it out.

2. Mindfulness and meditation

The goal of meditation is self-realization, which helps you become aware of the objective nature of your thoughts, and learn to observe them without identifying with them in the present moment. Whereas mindfulness involves refocusing all your thoughts on the moment at hand, and you can only hone this art with practice. Some of the health benefits of this include:

• Less stress
• Better sleep
• Lowered blood pressure
• Reduced fatigue

Also read: The Benefits of Morning Meditation for Your Mind, Body and Soul

3. Challenge your negative thoughts

Understand how your anxiety tries to trick you into believing in imaginary scenarios that aren’t real. Anxiety takes you far into the future and shows you situations that might not happen at all. So when you wake up and think about the worst-case scenarios of the day (often called catastrophizing), challenge that thought and regain control. It’s just a thought, and you can learn to ignore the bad thoughts that trigger your anxiety.

You can even start a morning journal and do a brain dump every day or maybe keep a gratitude journal. It will shift your perspective to things you are grateful for and can look forward to throughout the day.

4. Deep breathing exercises

Practicing deep breathing exercises first thing in the morning helps calm your nervous system by shifting your focus to your breathing and your body’s energy. You can practice alternate nostril breathing and hold each breath for 6 seconds. Pranayama can help curb the body’s fear response.

5. Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy, often known as talk therapy, can help you understand how your mind works and regain control over it. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of therapy that can help people manage issues like anxiety and depression. A trained professional in this field can identify and reframe your harmful thought patterns. A professional can also help you learn new ways of thinking, acting, and responding to situations that trigger anxiety. Depending on the severity of your anxiety, multiple sessions may be necessary.

6. Change your lifestyle

There are some lifestyle changes you can make that can help reduce morning anxiety and the rest of your day. Some of these changes include:

• Get enough sleep
• Reducing alcohol and caffeine consumption
• Eat a diet that contains all essential nutrients, such as fresh fruits, and limit your consumption of processed foods and added sugars.
• Reduce overall personal and professional stress

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