# Anxiety Disorders > Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) >  >  Waking up with a panic attack.

## Total Eclipse

Has anyone had a panic attack whilst they where sleeping? Where you wake up, heart beating fast, and can't really move. It's very odd and scary to wake up to panicking for no reason and not sure why your having a panic attack.

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## Chloe

ive been woken up from a mini-panic attack while i was sleeping, apparently i was curling up in a ball shaking and breathing really quickly. i woke up not knowing that anything was wrong just felt a bit light headed and really tired. i normally have these after having a big panic attack that day though. think theres another similar thread to this one though so your defiantly not on your own on that one

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## Keddy

This happens to me fairly often, especially when I've had a nightmare. Usually I have to take Melatonin to get back to sleep after and sometimes I don't get back to sleep at all. It's a really scary, unsettling feeling.

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## IllusionOfHappiness

I'll often wake up in the morning to heart palpitations, but thankfully I have yet to experience any full-on panic attacks at that time of the day.

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## Total Eclipse

> I'll often wake up in the morning to heart palpitations, but thankfully I have yet to experience any full-on panic attacks at that time of the day.



I often wake up with the heart palpitations, too. Sometimes with no feeling of anxiety other times with higher feelings and feeling like I want to lay in fetal position until it just goes away. I have found if I don't take ant anxiety medication (antivan or klonopin) and sleep it off for another hour or two, that it will make my whole day more on edge and anxiety riddled.

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## IllusionOfHappiness

> I often wake up with the heart palpitations, too. Sometimes with no feeling of anxiety other times with higher feelings and feeling like I want to lay in fetal position until it just goes away. I have found if I don't take ant anxiety medication (antivan or klonopin) and sleep it off for another hour or two, that it will make my whole day more on edge and anxiety riddled.



If I go back to sleep, then I'm definitely not getting back out of bed that day lol. Otherwise I'd be all for that. I'm just instantly overwhelmed by the fact that I have to get up and do things. It's much less frequent since I've been unemployed though. When I was working I'd start every Mon-Fri with heart palpitations upon waking.  ::\: 

How often does it happen to you?

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## Koalafan

When my panic attack disorder was really bad I would wake up every night in the middle of a panic attack that would heavily distort me and I would wake up sweating, heart beating, and feeling incredibly de-personalized. It was a horrific feeling

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## Total Eclipse

> If I go back to sleep, then I'm definitely not getting back out of bed that day lol. Otherwise I'd be all for that. I'm just instantly overwhelmed by the fact that I have to get up and do things. It's much less frequent since I've been unemployed though. When I was working I'd start every Mon-Fri with heart palpitations upon waking. 
> 
> How often does it happen to you?



The heart palpitations almost every few days, but those aren't to sever.. feeling the palps, sometimes I don't feel anxious... othertimes with it I do. Feeling the palp with anxiousness happens about once or so a week. I also feel another level, that is less so often... feeling it badly enough where I wake up in a full blown panic attack, sweats, breathing issues, almost in tears, feeling dreaded... about once or twice a month, depending on the stresser of the month, could be more. 

There are ones I know that will pass in 20-30 minutes, and others I know that are deep routed in that I need to try to sleep away (because I'll start to get a stomach ache and vomit from the anxiety) but if I catch it in time, sometimes.. it helps for a few hours back of sleep, if I push through, I'll have a horrible anxious, paranoid day.. Those are the days that I most get annoyed with. The random anxiety I'm not sure what the anxiety is from... at least if I'm going to have anxiety... I'd like to know *-why- .*

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## Total Eclipse

> When my panic attack disorder was really bad I would wake up every night in the middle of a panic attack that would heavily distort me and I would wake up sweating, heart beating, and feeling incredibly de-personalized. It was a horrific feeling



 :Hug:

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## IllusionOfHappiness

> The heart palpitations almost every few days, but those aren't to sever.. feeling the palps, sometimes I don't feel anxious... othertimes with it I do. Feeling the palp with anxiousness happens about once or so a week. I also feel another level, that is less so often... feeling it badly enough where I wake up in a full blown panic attack, sweats, breathing issues, almost in tears, feeling dreaded... about once or twice a month, depending on the stresser of the month, could be more. 
> 
> There are ones I know that will pass in 20-30 minutes, and others I know that are deep routed in that I need to try to sleep away (because I'll start to get a stomach ache and vomit from the anxiety) but if I catch it in time, sometimes.. it helps for a few hours back of sleep, if I push through, I'll have a horrible anxious, paranoid day.. Those are the days that I most get annoyed with. The random anxiety I'm not sure what the anxiety is from... at least if I'm going to have anxiety... I'd like to know *-why- .*



I wonder why it helps to sleep longer? Maybe it just ensures the next time you wake up you'll be in a lighter mood, I don't know. At least you have *some* way to deal with it when it gets that bad, because it sounds like you have some pretty extreme symptoms.  :Hug: 
Usually I know where my anxiety is coming from, but there are days where I'm not quite sure and have to rack my brain trying to figure out why it's happening. Sometimes I honestly think that's the only way my body knows how to react in certain situations. So while I'm not thinking anxious thoughts, by body is reacting as though I were thinking them. If that makes sense. It's like being anxious is more familiar to me than being calm is. It's the norm.

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## Total Eclipse

> I wonder why it helps to sleep longer? Maybe it just ensures the next time you wake up you'll be in a lighter mood, I don't know. At least you have *some* way to deal with it when it gets that bad, because it sounds like you have some pretty extreme symptoms. 
> Usually I know where my anxiety is coming from, but there are days where I'm not quite sure and have to rack my brain trying to figure out why it's happening. Sometimes I honestly think that's the only way my body knows how to react in certain situations. So while I'm not thinking anxious thoughts, by body is reacting as though I were thinking them. If that makes sense. It's like being anxious is more familiar to me than being calm is. It's the norm.



Anxiety in the morning is a bit normal, tho. That is when the coritsol levels in your body are the highest. Coritsol is the stress hormone.. (I have had issues for several years now controlling the levels of corstiol in my body). I notice that it will lower around 11am, and I feel somewhat normal, if I stay in bed, getting up and moving around just makes the heart beat faster and doesn't give me the chance to adjust, sometimes laying in bed for those 2 hours, but not really sleeping, even helps.. I feel it even out a bit. 

I don' know if I am even making sense  ::  I took 2 ativans and a Klonopin today.. and can now say.. I am not feeling anxious and a bit at peace :-)

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## Kesky

I've only ever had panic attacks in the middle of the night. never any other time. during the day I just have intense anxiety reactions but not full-fledged panic attacks.

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## IllusionOfHappiness

> Anxiety in the morning is a bit normal, tho. That is when the coritsol levels in your body are the highest. Coritsol is the stress hormone.. (I have had issues for several years now controlling the levels of corstiol in my body). I notice that it will lower around 11am, and I feel somewhat normal, if I stay in bed, getting up and moving around just makes the heart beat faster and doesn't give me the chance to adjust, sometimes laying in bed for those 2 hours, but not really sleeping, even helps.. I feel it even out a bit. 
> 
> I don' know if I am even making sense  I took 2 ativans and a Klonopin today.. and can now say.. I am not feeling anxious and a bit at peace :-)



No worries Kay you're making sense to me xD. If anything's going to make you feel at peace, it's benzos!

Thanks for sharing this. I've heard a little bit about cortisol before, but this is the first I'm hearing of the levels being higher in the morning. My morning anxiety makes a bit more sense now.

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## Total Eclipse

> No worries Kay you're making sense to me xD. If anything's going to make you feel at peace, it's benzos!
> 
> Thanks for sharing this. I've heard a little bit about cortisol before, but this is the first I'm hearing of the levels being higher in the morning. My morning anxiety makes a bit more sense now.



I get tested every month for my coritsol levels via blood test, and every 3 months, they make me piss in a jug for 24 hours (keeping it in the fridge) to test. Normally people with anxiety disorders have slightly elevated coritsol levels in general. Meaning, when they get anxious the flight response mode goes up fast, and lingers for awhile, and as the cortisol lowers, it goes down. If you have the levels a bit higher then that it's more so an issue with immune system (the issue I have.. well maybe mixed). I take some stupid steroid each day to help with hormones, and suppose to take ativan twice a day and if needed klonopine.. I never take them twice a day as I fear of getting addicted  -____- today was the first time i actually took all 3 together.. slept for awhile with it  ::D: `

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## Chantellabella

Yep, my friend. I get them often. It's scary and plays hell with your sleep patterns. 

I wish I had some advice, but I struggle with that myself. I wake up in a total panic, all my muscles are clenched so hard that my whole body is locked. I had to get a mouthpiece because of grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw while sleeping and I bit right through it. The dentist was so concerned that he gave me muscle relaxers.

But if you guys recall the muscle relaxer posts I did, needless to say, I quit taking them. I fell asleep on the keyboard one night and sent my therapist a plethora of "n's." She answered back, "Can you explain this?" I said, "Sure. This is what happens when you take a muscle relaxer and fall asleep on the keyboard."

I'm sorry you're going through this, Munchkin. It's not fun.

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## Total Eclipse

i woke up in a rather sever panic attack .. ughhh

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## Chantellabella

> i woke up in a rather sever panic attack .. ughhh




I'm sorry you had to go through that.  ::(: 

 :Hug:

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## Kesky

> i woke up in a rather sever panic attack .. ughhh



sending in my panic-squeezers.... :Hug:   :Hug:   :Hug:   :Hug:

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## jsgt

The bed collapsed and caused an attack when I woke up. Telling myself to stop didn't work a bit, so I just let it play out. 30 seconds or so later, I was fine. Another strange thing that I think may be related to panic attacks...sometimes I wake up drawing in a HUGE breath of air when the alarm goes off. Not sure what causes this as it doesn't happen every time.

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## Ironman

Remember, it's the panic attack that wakes us up out of sleep mode.  Something in the mind is triggering this during the night - usually from stuff during the day.  
In my experience, learning to handle the daytime stuff leads to better night's sleep!

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## Chloe

> The bed collapsed and caused an attack when I woke up. Telling myself to stop didn't work a bit, so I just let it play out. 30 seconds or so later, I was fine. Another strange thing that I think may be related to panic attacks...*sometimes I wake up drawing in a HUGE breath of air* when the alarm goes off. Not sure what causes this as it doesn't happen every time.



I can relate to the huge breath of air, if my mum and dad come in of a morning to wake me up they have to do it extremely quietly and gently. Before when they'd just say my name from the door and it's time to get up/aren't you going to be late I would end up shooting straight into a sitting position with a huge gasp really scared my dad and Matty if he tried waking me up after a long night sleep because for a few minutes if need to catch my breath. Scared the crap out of me. Thankfully I think that's gone away now so fingers crossed it stays away (not a nice way to wake up)

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## Keddy

I woke up in a panic attack in my friends' dorm room the other day. Scary as hell. Luckily they slept through it.

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## Chloe

that's lucky I hate anyone seeing me panic, mattys the one exception but i've panicked in front of people and been teased for it and panicked when people were near and I thought they'd see me if I did panic...no matter what the reason it always sucks  ::(:

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## jsgt

> I can relate to the huge breath of air, if my mum and dad come in of a morning to wake me up they have to do it extremely quietly and gently. Before when they'd just say my name from the door and it's time to get up/aren't you going to be late I would end up shooting straight into a sitting position with a huge gasp really scared my dad and Matty if he tried waking me up after a long night sleep because for a few minutes if need to catch my breath. Scared the crap out of me. Thankfully I think that's gone away now so fingers crossed it stays away (not a nice way to wake up)



Glad to hear...err not _glad_ to hear, but good to know it's not just me. You're right...not a pleasant way to wake up.  :dazed:

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