Get A Bed That Fits You
When you sleep on an uncomfortable mattress, pressure points build up on your body, causing you to toss and turn. A supportive mattress and pillow provide support to the contours of your body and neck, and keep you cool and comfortable for sleep.
For drool-worthy sleep at a price point that wont break the bank, you may want to check out the Casper Original Mattress. Engineered for cool, comfortable sleep, the Casper Original provides targeted layers of support and unique cooling perforations so you can spend less time counting sheep and more time catching Zs.
If youre looking for that sleeping-on-a-cloud experience, the Casper Nova Hybrid may be the right option for you. As our most top rated mattress, the Casper Nova provides sturdy support with a velvety soft top layer so you can sleep worry-free.
What Time Of Day Is Anxiety Worse
The stress hormone, cortisol, is released by the adrenal glands in response to fear or stress. Researchers have found that cortisol is highest in the first hour of waking for people with an increased level of anxiety. This helps explain why you may experience an increase in anxiety in the morning.
Sleep Anxiety Tips: How To Calm Anxiety At Night
*This article is for general information purposes only and is not intended as medical or other professional advice. Visit the links within the text for sources. Casper has not independently verified the sources. While some of us may toss and turn some nights, every night can be a restless night for others. If youve ever struggled with sleep anxiety, you know the feeling of anxiously watching the clock as you worry about not being able to fall asleep and waking up sleep-deprived the next day. There are many statistics that reveal Americans struggle to sleep on a regular basis. As it turns out, anxiety and sleep are connected in a number of ways. Fifty percent of those who are sleep-deprived say that their anxiety impacts their ability to sleep at night. Its important to understand how anxiety can affect your ability to get a good nights rest. This guide covers what sleep anxiety is, the effects of anxiety-induced sleep deprivation, and science-backed tips for decreasing anxious thoughts, as well as how to set yourself up for better sleep.
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The Symptoms Of Anxiety At Night
No matter the time of day you experience anxiety, the symptoms are usually pretty similar. These can include:
- A sense of impending doom, danger, or panic
- Nervousness or irritability
In addition, you may experience:
- Derealization or depersonalization
- Fear of losing control or dying
If you deal with panic attacks, you may have them at night as well as during the day.
Although a nighttime panic attack typically lasts only a few minutes, it may take more time for you to settle down and get back to sleep.
Tell your doctor if you experience nighttime panic attacks. They may have suggestions to help you deal with panic attacks at night or strategies for getting back to sleep.
What Is The Relationship Between Anxiety And Sleep
Serious sleep disturbances, including insomnia, have long been recognized as a common symptom of anxiety disorders. People who are plagued with worry often ruminate about their concerns in bed, and this anxiety at night can keep them from falling asleep.
In fact, a state of mental hyperarousal, frequently marked by worry, has been identified as a key factor behind insomnia. People with anxiety disorders are inclined to have higher sleep reactivity, which means they are much more likely to have sleeping problems when facing stress.
Sleeping difficulties have been found for people with various types of anxiety including generalized anxiety disorder, OCD, and PTSD. In several studies, over 90% of people with PTSD associated with military combat have reported symptoms of insomnia.
Distress about falling asleep can itself complicate matters, creating a sleep anxiety that reinforces a persons sense of dread and preoccupation. These negative thoughts about going to bed, a type of anticipatory anxiety, can create challenges to healthy sleep schedules and routines.
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At the same time, strong evidence indicates that sleeping problems are not only a symptom of anxiety. Instead, sleep deprivation can instigate or worsen anxiety disorders. Researchers have found that people who are prone to anxiety are especially sensitive to the effects of insufficient sleep, which can provoke symptoms of anxiety.
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Put Your Phone To Bed
Just say no to doomscrolling before bed the practice of taking in a barrage of bad news online. Give your phone a bedtime before your own, Dr. Albers advises.
And if anxiety keeps you awake or wakes you up, resist the temptation to break this rule and start using your phone. Your phones blue light signals your brain to turn back on, ultimately making it even harder to get to sleep.
This is a No. 1 no-no for helping you fall back to sleep, Dr. Albers warns.
How Does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Treat Sleep Anxiety
CBT is a form of psychotherapy, or talk therapy. It teaches you how to change your behavior by changing the way you think. Its a common treatment for people with anxiety. A special form of CBT called cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia focuses on helping people who have insomnia. This therapy can take anywhere from six to 12 weeks to produce results.
During CBT or CBTI, you may learn to:
- Avoid behaviors or environmental factors that trigger your anxiety or make sleeping difficult.
- Better understand how sleep and anxiety affect your brain and the rest of your body.
- Change negative or inaccurate thinking about bedtime or sleep.
Your therapist may teach you how to sleep with anxiety by using biofeedback. Biofeedback trains you to control your bodys functions. You learn to relax your muscles, regulate your breathing, lower your heart rate and focus your attention. Your therapist might use special sensors to measure these bodily functions, or they may give you exercises, such as deep breathing and meditation, to do at home.
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Substance Or Alcohol Use
People already dealing with anxiety should avoid alcohol and recreational drug use.
Although substance use and alcohol use do not have direct links to anxiety, they can make symptoms of anxiety worse.
As a result, alcohol or other substances can affect how a person sleeps or how they feel when they wake up.
There is evidence that how happy a person is in their relationship can directly affect aspects of their health. These include illness recovery and sleep patterns.
In a small-scale study , researchers asked 29 couples to record their relationship experiences during the day and how they slept at night. The results indicated that when females reported having positive interactions with their partner during the day, both they and their partner slept better than when the interactions were negative.
In a similar way, relationship status may cause a person to wake up feeling anxious.
GAD and other anxiety disorders may develop due to ongoing or acute stressful life events. Some life events that might trigger anxiety on waking include:
- changes in living arrangements, for example, moving to a new area or someone else moving out
- changes in employment, such as switching jobs or losing a job
- experiencing physical, mental, or sexual abuse
- the separation from or death of a loved one
- emotional shock after a traumatic event
However, for some, thinking and worrying about finances can become an overwhelming problem.
Avoid Caffeine And Alcohol
It may feel tempting to have a glass of wine to help you get to sleep at night but, according to research, alcohol actually hurts, rather than helps, your sleeping habits in the long run.
Alcohol is a sedative and can help you fall asleep more quickly. But that sedative effect wears off during the night, which interrupts your sleep quality. Alcohol can also cause other sleep problems, including breathing issues, nightmares, and sleep-walking. And research has found that sleeping problems are more common in people who have an alcohol addiction than those who dont.
Another substance you should avoid before bed, for more obvious reasons, is caffeine. Some studies had found that caffeine taken six hours before bed reduced the amount of restful sleep by a whole hour. Not to mention, caffeine is well-known to make anxiety symptoms worse.
Its a hard pill to swallow for coffee-lovers, but limit your caffeine intake to your morning cup if your anxiety is keeping you up at night.
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Reason #: Too Much Focus On The Day
Nighttime anxiety can be caused by over-focusing on stress before sleep. Knott says that this is because our body can perceive work stress, relationship issues, and social contact as dangerous, and prepare us to fight or flee. Being fixated on your worries during the day and anticipating stressful activities for the next day will make it more difficult for your mind to relax.
Write Down Your Worries On Paper
According to Juanita Wells, director of clinical development at New Method Wellness, putting your thoughts down on paper can help us remain accountable to ourselves, our feelings, our purpose, and plan.
Instead of letting thoughts and to-dos swirl around in your brain, write them down so that your brain has a game plan for the following day. Wells says that writing down your anxious feelings, especially through stream-of-consciousness journaling , can help ease anxiety before bed.
In addition to calming pre-bedtime anxiety, research shows that journaling can also help you fall asleep more quickly. To get started journaling, just snuggle up with your notebook and some cozy pillows and let your thoughts take it away.
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Avoid Lying In Bed Awake
If youre lying in bed for more than 20 minutes and still cant fall asleep, it might be time to give yourself a do-over. While it may feel counterintuitive, Lawson suggests leaving your bedroom to do a sleep-inducing activity, like having a cup of tea or reading a book. This conditioning, known as stimulus control, can reduce the time it takes to fall asleep.
If youre going to try stimulus control, its important to remove yourself from your bedroom environment. This helps give you a mental reset when you try to fall asleep again.
How To Sleep When Youre Stressed And Anxious
Most of us have been there before.
A stressful day at work, an argument with a partner, or an event during the day can leave your head spinning. Learning how to sleep when stressed and anxious is important for a variety of reasons.
It doesnt take long before sleep quality drops and you start to develop a sleep problem. This stops you from getting a good nights rest because youre too stressed to sleep.
With anxiety driving your mind into overdrive, it can be hard to stop ruminating and relax at the end of the day. Your mind loops around the same track, keeps going over the same conversation, or worries the same unanswerable questions. Often, sleep becomes unattainable.
So what comes first, lack of sleep or anxiety?
Its not so clear cut, one might bring about the other.
Lets break down both to gain some more insight into how these two issues are related.
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What Is Sleep Anxiety Disorder: The Symptoms
We all have bad nights of sleep from time to time.
Struggling to get to sleep one night due to feelings of stress doesnt necessarily mean youre having a sleep anxiety attack.
Before you start looking at how to get to sleep when you have anxiety or talking to your doctor about treatments, its worth checking for the following symptoms:
Why Is My Anxiety Worse At Night
When the lights are out, the world is quiet, and there are no more distractions to be found.
It always happens at night.
The lights go out and my mind spins. It replays all the things I said that didnt come out the way I meant. All the interactions that didnt go the way I intended. It bombards me with intrusive thoughts horrific videos that I cant turn away from, playing over and over in my head.
It beats me up for mistakes Ive made and tortures me with worries I cant escape.
What if, what if, what if?
Ill sometimes be up for hours, the hamster wheel of my mind refusing to relent.
And when my anxiety is at its worst, it often follows me even into my dreams. Dark, twisted images that seem haunting and all too real, resulting in restless sleep and night sweats that serve as further proof of my panic.
None of its fun but its also not entirely unfamiliar. Ive been dealing with anxiety since my tween years and its always been the worst at night.
When the lights are out, the world is quiet, and there are no more distractions to be found.
Living in a cannabis-legal state helps. On the nights that are the worst, I reach for my high-CBD vape pen and thats usually enough to soothe my racing heart. But before legalization in Alaska, those nights were mine and mine alone to get through.
I would have paid anything given everything for a chance to escape them.
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More Sleep Less Anxiety
Diagnosing and treating crippling anxiety and anxiety disorders should be handled by a physician or other healthcare provider. But anyone can take steps to improve sleep hygiene and adopt relaxation techniques that make it easier to calm down and fall asleep.
And you donât have to go it alone! The RISE app will help you track your progress toward lowering your sleep debt, set up reminders for sleep hygiene habits, and guide you through relaxation techniques to help you ease into dreamland. Because when it comes to having the energy you need to win the day, there is no substitute for sleep!
What Does Anxiety Feel Like
The symptoms of anxiety disorders can affect people both emotionally and physically.
People with anxiety may feel extremely nervous and on-edge. This can affect their concentration and mood, leading to irritability and restlessness. Their fear or sense of impending doom can feel overwhelming and out-of-control.
Physically, anxiety disorders can provoke tense muscles, rapid breathing and heartbeat, sweating, trembling, gastrointestinal distress, and fatigue.
Many people with anxiety disorders attempt to avoid situations that could trigger heightened worry however, this does not resolve their underlying fear and can interrupt both professional and personal activities. Over time, a person with anxiety disorder may get used to being worried such that a state of distress or fear seems normal.
Anxiety disorders can occur alongside other mental health problems like depression. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America , nearly 50% of people with depression are also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.
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Why Does It Happen At Night
Anxiety is a normal human emotion characterized by feelings of nervousness and worry. You may find yourself experiencing anxiety during stressful situations, such as a first date or job interview.
Sometimes, though, anxiety may linger around for longer than usual. When this happens, it can interfere with your daily and nightly life.
One of the most common times when people experience anxiety is at night. Many clinical trials have found that sleep deprivation can be a trigger for anxiety. Historically, research also suggests anxiety disorders are associated with reduced sleep quality.
Treating your nighttime anxiety and addressing your sleep issues are important steps in improving your quality of life.
There are many symptoms of anxiety. Everyone experiences anxiety differently. Symptoms can happen anytime of the day, morning, or night. Common symptoms of anxiety include:
- feelings of nervousness, restlessness, or worry
- trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
- gastrointestinal problems
Another symptom a person with anxiety may also experience is a panic attack. A panic attack is an episode of extreme and intense fear, often accompanied by physical manifestations. The common symptoms of a panic attack include:
- a sense of impending doom
- increased heart rate and chest pains
- shortness of breath and throat tightness
- sweating, chills, and hot flashes
- dizziness or lightheadedness
- a feeling of detachment, or like nothing is real
What To Do If You Are Scared Of Sleeping Alone
Many people relieve this sleep anxiety by simply granting themselves permission to sleep away from their bed. You can sleep in another room of your home, or add a couch, futon or air mattress to your bedroom. You can also use deep breathing techniques and meditation to turn off anxiety and ease into sleep.
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How To Minimize Anxiety And Maximize Sleep
To get to sleep more easily, you can try changing some of your pre-sleep habits to decrease your mental and physical stress levels. Habit-changing takes time and persistence, but if you stick to these changes, you will find yourself adapting and feeling less anxious overall in no time.
Avoiding the anxiety that keeps you from getting the sleep you need can be difficult, but following the above all-natural and healthy techniques may be all that you require taking back control over your sleep schedule.
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