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Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#61

Post by agent008t »

quikacct wrote: post #59
em-bee wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is reasoning out of anxiety always avoidance and hoping that what makes you anxious won't happen? for me reasoning about something that made me anxious means to find the positive things that i can do if that thing does happen. if i miss the deadline, then the pressure is off. it's only money, i'll need to reduce spending but i'll survive. the customer might cancel their contract? well, at least i don't have to deal w…

(Disclaimer: I’m not a therapist, just someone who has dealt with a lot of anxiety and has been through treatment. Please do get professional advice if you’re struggling!) That’s a great question, and the answer is: it depends! In the abstract, what you’re describing sounds like the opposite of avoiding a feared consequence. With fears, you want to be able to look them right in the face and say: “Yeah. That might hap…

There is another way to approach this: just don't engage with the anxiety-causing thoughts. Thoughts are just thoughts and people get all kinds of weird thoughts all the time. Most times they just come and go, never to return. But when you have an emotional response to a thought (e.g. anxiety), the thought can appear important, and will keep coming back. Engaging with it just gives it more weight.

As an example, trying to come up with reasons why the thought does not apply or is stupid is engaging with it. Trying to reason with the thought is engaging with it. Asking "how likely is this really?" is also engaging with it. Your anxious mind will always tend to fire new arguments at you, new doubts, and you'll just be giving the pointless thought more weight by ruminating on it. Just let the thought come and go, and then sit with the feeling of anxiety until it goes.

The book "Overcoming unwanted intrusive thoughts" by Seif and Winston is a very nice book about this approach to dealing with anxiety.

Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#62

Post by schwartzworld »

It might be worth doing a sleep study to rule out biological reasons for waking up anxious.

I was having a lot of trouble waking up with my heart racing and feeling a lot of anxiety. Turned out I had sleep apnea, and what I was experiencing was a response to not breathing for 10 seconds at a time while asleep.

Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#63

Post by quikacct »

agent008t wrote: post #61
quikacct wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: I’m not a therapist, just someone who has dealt with a lot of anxiety and has been through treatment. Please do get professional advice if you’re struggling!) That’s a great question, and the answer is: it depends! In the abstract, what you’re describing sounds like the opposite of avoiding a feared consequence. With fears, you want to be able to look them right in the face and say: “Yeah. That might hap…

There is another way to approach this: just don't engage with the anxiety-causing thoughts. Thoughts are just thoughts and people get all kinds of weird thoughts all the time. Most times they just come and go, never to return. But when you have an emotional response to a thought (e.g. anxiety), the thought can appear important, and will keep coming back. Engaging with it just gives it more weight. As an example, tryi…

This is an EXCELLENT comment. Learning not to engage with the anxiety is a really important skill. To get there, you've got to get in the habit of labeling those thoughts as anxiety so that you can recognize them easily.

And you're right -- trying to evaluate how likely the feared event is can be a form of engaging with the anxiety. You can even start cultivating satellite fears about whether you've got the right read on the situation and so forth.

Nevertheless, I would caution against a blanket rule that says "never touch an anxious thought." Sometimes, you need to make a decision. Let's say you're feeling feverish, and you think: "maybe I have COVID-19!" It is appropriate to fetch the thermometer from the medicine cabinet and check your temperature -- once. If the reading is normal, and you have the impulse to check again 30 minutes later, that would a good time to simply label the anxious thought and refrain from responding to it.

Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#64

Post by kleer001 »

> I want to do a pulse check to see how common

You're not going to get that without a poll. Do a poll

The format of your post is going to mostly get affirmatives and thoughtful advice.

BTW, I do not wake with anxiety.

The root of all suffering is the mind. So, you got that right.

If this is something you want to change you'll need to work on it, obviously. There are many paths to the solution you seek as it is a perennial problem of intelligence.

Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#65

Post by freyir »

randomopining wrote: post #44
freyir wrote: post #13

I started a Silicon Valley FANG job about two years ago. I now wake up early most mornings with anxiety. I’m close to 40 years old, and this is the first time in my life I’ve experienced this. I’ve wondered if the pandemic and quarantining has exacerbated this. I don’t have much going on in my life right now besides work, and get little human contact beyond Zoom calls with my coworkers.

How much do you make though?

Not enough.

Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#66

Post by PEOPLEgetoff »

potta_coffee wrote: post #51

I'm suffering extreme work anxiety. I almost never sleep. I'm trying to get out but that takes time and I need the paycheck. I decided to start job hunting when I realized that I'd rather die than get up in the morning. Duty to my kids is the only thing keeping me going.

Same, I spend too much time working and if things aren't going my way, I feel overwhelmed at all times. I take a break and I talk to someone if I'm feeling anxious.

Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#67

Post by d33lio »

Only if I put something off that I should have finished or started the following day. Usually this is only the case if I've actually been procrastinating for at least 2-3 days and really needed to start the following day.

I have ways to recognize this kind of anxiety now and basic steps / thought exercises to turn anxious energy into more productive positive thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#68

Post by giardini »

Add a calcium & magnesium supplement to your diet first thing every morning.

Magnesium(Mg+) was especially good for me. I noticed a difference in only a half hour. This is easy to try: you needn't see a doctor, replace all the light bulbs in your house, wear a Holter monitor, be psychoanalyzed or spend 3 months in a therapy group, learn "box breathing" or join an exercise class (although long term those may help).

Stop at the next drugstore, buy a bottle of magnesium tablets, pop two and be on your way. In twenty minutes you'll know whether it's helping. FWIW "TUMS" is a mix of calcium and Mg+ (a bit low on the Mg+ to be a supplement but enough to tell if it's missing from your diet).

There are too many people out there who have a lousy diet and b/c they are missing one or two ingredients in that diet, are totally screwed up. Sad.

Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#69

Post by jborichevskiy »

Lots of good advice in this thread. For me:

Most mornings I wake up and feel reasonably ok. I've had much darker periods in my past and think I'm in a pretty good place these days.

I try not to check my phone right away and instead read or write a bit as the day gets started.

At least two walks outside in the sun with music or a podcast or silence.

Meditate every day. Work out or run daily. Try to eat reasonably clean, lots of veggies and fruit.

Journaling a few times a week. Therapy twice a month, mostly focused on relationship stuff.

Time every day to focus on myself, my hobbies, my friends, good music, drawing, writing, reading.

No notifications on my phone while I'm trying to focus. Clear communication with my team around deliverables, dates, and issues.

On the philosophical front, reading Alan Watts' Wisdom of Insecurity helped a lot.

Re: Ask HN: Do you wake up with anxiety?

#70

Post by poundofshrimp »

Got into hospital a few times with anxiety attacks in my 20s and have suffered from constant and recurring anxiety since. From years working through it and trying to improve my mental health, I noticed that anxiety is due to (perceived or real) lack of control over something I care about. In my experience, it always boils down to this and once I take back control of the issue in question (or stop caring about it), then I can see improvement almost instantly.

I don’t agree that the root cause is in your mind - it is as much an issue with your actions as it is with your attitude. A lot of great advice in this thread (about healthy eating, exercise, etc) but the key in my opinion is to test these suggestions thoroughly to find what works for you. And discipline is super important - otherwise you can’t trust your results are really due to the changes you make in your life or just a random coincidence.

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