Nighttime Panic Attacks?

[harris5998]

Does anyone suffer from nightime panic attacks? Like, having nightmares and waking up feeling panicky every so often? Or just waking up nervous with your heart racing and body trembling? Some nights this happens multiple times per night, other nights (usually when I take Xanax before bed) it doesn't happen at all. It's very upsetting. I just did not know a person could wake up in the middle of a panic attack, I have enough of them during the day!

[hmf099]

I used to have these problems. I'm no dr but here's some sleep health techniques that got rid of my problems with night/early morning panic.No caffeine! It's horrible for anxiety but wean off it, if you stop cold turkey it can cause headaches.if you must have caffeine, try not to have any 4 hours before bed. This gives your body time to metabolize it before sleep.no sugar 3 hours before bed, if you're craving it have a piece of fresh fruit. Don't sleep with the tv on. Tune your radio to static or turn on a fan if you need noise to sleep. Your room should be cool, turn the heat down a couple degrees in the evening. When you get in bed do a simple breathing excersize to fall asleep peacefully. Inhale through your nose to the count of 4 (one mississippi, two mississippi, ect) then exhale out the mouth the same way. Repeat unil you drift off. If you still wake up in a panic, calmly tell yourself it is just anxiety and it will pass then repeat the breathing technique. Make sure you take a daily multi vitamin and talk to your dr about other supplements like a B complex. This is a mix of things that helped me that I learned from my psychiatrist, my therapist, the attacking anxiety and depression program, books on anxiety, and other people with anxiety. This all worked for me, especially eliminating all caffeine. I hope this will help you.

[Yve232]

I get rushes of adrenalin all day off and on everyday  that causes my heart to race and then stop and then race and then stop and it can at times be worse at night. I have problems sleeping too and especially trying to get to sleep. I am on wellbutrin because I suffer from panic dissorder, and I am going to the doctors today to see if i can get on something new.

[baylynn]

is it something about 4:30 and panic attacks? almost every post ive read mentioned that time. I wake up every morning almost at 4:30 and am either able to fall back asleep or sit there and stress and freak out about something so random and out of the blue. I thought I was going crazy!

[MT70y]

I just retired and was hoping for a decrease of panic attacks - my pattern is to feel like I am having heart attack around 4am. I have attributed this to work stress, but now I still have the attacks. It is especially scary since I have had multiple heart attacks. I do know the difference when I am awake, but half asleep I panic over the panic! I take my pulse rate - it is normal not racing. And I don't feel that squeezing chest feeling. But I sure lose sleep.
I wonder if I just have the bad habit of panic and anxiety from the work environment. My new reasons for anxiety: money, health, wife's health, and money.
I found this website very helpful - I want to thank everyone for their candor.

[mapster]

Thank you all for reassuring me that I'm not a total freak!  I was diagnosed with panic disorder about 5 years ago, but every time I wake up with my heart racing and a panic attack, I tend to forget that and am sure that something is horribly wrong and I am going to die.

I had a few attacks before telling my doctor. When they happened, I thought they were allergic reactions since I've had a few serious reactions with some of the same symptoms, so I took a hot shower to help the shaking and took a benadryl. The next time I saw the dr., I told her about them and she said I had classic symptoms of a panic attack. She said that they normally go away in about a half hour and the benadryl probably helped calm me down since most allergy medications have a sedative quality to them. She gave me a perscription for Ativan, but I never tried it thinking I would rather take benadryl since I know how it affects me, and that's still my remedy. I take a hot shower which helps the shaking and starts to calm me down, then take a benadryl with some camomille tea. After that, I can usually go back to sleep without anymore attacks.

Since then I've learned that caffeine is a real trigger for me. When things are going okay, I can have maybe one cup of coffee in the morning and that's it. I've gone months at a time without any attacks by just watching my caffeine. When I'm really stressed though, it doesn't matter. I can be completely off of caffeine (as I've been for about the last month) and still have attacks, like I did last night. The only good thing I can say about the one last night is that it brought me to this forum!

Whomever said that nightime panic attacks are such a lonely thing, is surely right!  It helps immensely to know that there are others out there who are experiencing the same thing. Thank you all again for your sharing!

[imkatidoo]

My attacks come and go, but mostly start this time of year (October),
I dread sundown and night time.  I am 52, and know that nothing is going to happen, but this time of ay makes me nuts.  
All I want is for the sun to come back!  I count the hours until sunrise.
Once the sun is up, I can pull myself together and sleep again.
I can be asleep and bound straight out of bed, with shallow breathing and this feeling of dread, and immediately look at the clock to see how soon the sun will be rising.
Is this nuts or what?
I try to calm myself, talk to myself, will swallow a benadryl to make myself sleepy, all the while freaked out over it being dark outside.
I'm not "scared of the dark" by any means, this is more of a claustrophobia thing, I think.
Once it is no longer dark, I'm much better.
I grieve for a month knowing the time change will bring the darkness sooner...help, I can't live like this anymore, and my doc just poo poos me off, and I can't switch cause i have no med insurance.

HELP