sleep panic attacks

Psychological Help for Sleep Panic Attacks

by nicola

Sleep panic attacks aren’t damaging, but can be very frightening.  They’re a continuation of what haunts you throughout the day time – anxiety.

The signs of sleep attacks are exactly the same as daytime attacks; sweating, tight chest / throat,hyperventilation, palpitations, concern of impending doom, concern you are getting a heart assault,and so on. But waking suddenly having a racing heart, shortness of breath, spasms and feeling sheer terror. Nevertheless, just as with daytime attacks, sleep or nocturnal panic attacks signs can’t damage you.

Treatments are exactly the same as for daytime attacks; medication, therapies and self-help:- physical exercise, eating habits, breathing workouts, meditation, self-hypnosis, yoga, and so on.

Habits which encourage rest need to be introduced – no coffee or alcohol within the later component from the day time, no television within the bedroom, no vigorous physical exercise prior to bed.

In many ways, treatment follows the similar strategy as that for daytime panic attacks. If the attacks are repeated, a sedative might be prescribed on a temporary basis. Sedatives aren’t perfect as they can be addictive and also the rest they induce isn’t high quality rest. But some rest is much better than none. The results of the continual lack of rest on our bodily and mental wellness could be devastating.

Psychological Treatments for Sleep Panic Attacks

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or counselling are both psychological treatments that are utilised to help deal with panic attacks. Neither are “quick fixes”. Counselling can help deal with “emotional baggage” that may be feeding into your anxiety. For example you may have tried to bury your emotions relating to some trauma many years ago.

CBT helps tackle your thinking and behaviour. In particular it can help you understand how particular thinking styles perpetuate your negative views. For example you may automatically filter out any positive feedback and only dwell on criticism. Consequently you live to expect constant negative feedback and being “told off”. As well as affecting your mood, this heightens your anxiety, which in turn can lead to sleep panic attacks.

Treating Anxiety

by nicola

Sleep Panic Attacks

Behind sleep panic attacks is some form of anxiety disorder. As I’ve said in other posts, understanding anxiety is an important part of conquering panic attacks.

Anxiety disorders affect millions of people across the world and include disorders like social phobia, specific phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. The first step if you think that you are suffering from an anxiety disorder, is to see you doctor right away.

Its worth bearing in mind that there are a number of symptoms associated with anxiety disorders that can also be caused by other medical conditions. Its easy just to focus on the “mental health” aspects of panic attacks and anxiety. Ensure you get a full physical check up.

Talk Therapy – Counselling

There are then a number of treatment options that are utilised to overcome anxiety disorders. Talk therapy, normally called counselling but also known as psychotherapy, is quite common in the UK.

The term counselling is often tossed around with some contempt by the media, but can be very useful for some people. I will come back to it in future, but it involves the counsellor using a reflective style of talking to help you explore issues in your life (both current and past). They don’t tell you the answers, but help you find them yourself.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Cognitive behaviour therapy, or CBT, has become increasingly more available and favoured for treating both depression and anxiety.  Rather than help you explore issues, as in counselling, it tries to look at your unhelpful thinking patterns that trigger your behaviour. Again this warrants a more in depth exploration in future.

Medication

Medications can be a step in the right direction for treating anxiety disorders. Meditation can help to block certain over-active inhibitors in the brain that may be causing your anxiety disorder. They can also treat the symptoms that you find unbearable.

Unfortunately the minor tranquillizers that used to be commonly used to treat anxiety proved highly addictive. Coming off these medications caused awful symptoms themselves, and in any case the effectiveness wears off over time. But in extreme cases they may still be used on a short term basis.

More common today are the modern anti depressants.  Often there may be an overlap between symptoms of anxiety and depression. People suffering from depression may have associated anxiety or agitation (not always). Some anti depressants are better than others at treating anxiety symptoms.

Its worth stressing that, in my opinion, medication is seldom the answer for sleep panic attacks. And if, like me, you get prescribed sleep medication then your doctor is missing the point.  We don’t have problems getting to sleep!

Alternatives

Many also try non-traditional forms of treatment for you anxiety disorders. Some people can control their bodies simply by learning meditation and doing yoga. Others go for acupuncture or hypnosis. I cannot speak from experience on any of these, but I do recompensed looking at your lifestyle in general to see how much stress you are absorbing in your day to day activities.

Anxiety Causes Insomnia

Sleep Panic Attacks – Anxiety? What comes first – sleep panic attacks or sleep problems with stress or  anxiety at their root.  Whilst this blog focusses on panic attacks, it is worth considering how frequently stress triggers sleep problems in general. For example, you wake up in the middle of the night to go to [...]

Read the full article →

Getting to Sleep and Panic Attacks at Night

Below is another article by Barry Joe McDonagh, the creator of the PanicAway method for dealing with panic attacks.  I’m delighted to say that he focusses on sleep panic attacks in this article:- Getting to Sleep and Panic Attacks at Night As most doctors will tell you, there are two things that disturb sleep: physical [...]

Read the full article →

Sleep Panic Attacks – Cure Panic Attacks in the Night

Below is another guest article.  I will seek out any I find that have something original to say.  This, has an interesting take on when sleep panic attacks occur:- …  occur during the early stage of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and hence it is not triggered by dream as dreams occur in much later stage [...]

Read the full article →

Sleep Panic Attacks Why?

Panicky feelings when you are half asleep are particularly unpleasant – everything seems magnified in the night. However like all anxiety symptoms they run their course and move on. Just make bedtime as relaxed as you can. We have a very limited understanding as to what causes a panic attack at night. It could well [...]

Read the full article →

Sleep Panic Attacks and Anxiety

Sleep Panic Attacks The article below is by Barry Joe McDonagh, creator of the Panic Away system. It gives a lot more depth into why we get sleep panic attacks, and anxiety attacks in general. I hope you find it useful:- Causes of Panic Attacks The short and obvious answer: panic attacks are caused by [...]

Read the full article →

Panic Attacks in Sleep

There is no worse way to wake up than with your heart racing, sweating, being unable to breath and feeling like you’re going to die. A sleep panic attack is  a physiological response – the fight or flight – your body is having. As I have  said in other posts, this is quite “natural”.  But death [...]

Read the full article →

Review of Panic Away

As I have an advert for Panic Away on my site I thought I’d better explain why I’m endorsing it as effective  help for sleep panic attacks. What is it? Its a concise, 60 page ebook (a book you download electronically and either print off or read on your computer). You also get the information presented [...]

Read the full article →

Panic Attacks that become Phobias

A phobia is a state of high anxiety (not just a panic attack) that is linked to some trigger. Its usually defined as an “intense, irrational fear of an object, situation or person.” The fear leads to avoidance, or minimal contact, with whatever causes the fear. It’s not uncommon to have fears, such as of [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries