Night sweats, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, and a feeling of hopelessness that makes you wake up. Crises anxiety They don’t have time for it to happen, and it gets worse when they start to interfere with sleep.
“Night anxiety is not unlike crises that occur throughout the day. Many people ruminate on issues they are worried about, and at night, it tends to become more evident at the moment when a person wants or is preparing for sleep and wants to go to sleep.” They don’t stop thinking. Therefore, they cannot fall asleep or wake up several times”, says psychologist Liliana Seger, IPq – FMUSP (Institute of Psychiatry of the Hospital das Clínicas of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo).
Psychologist Marina Vasconcelos explains that nocturnal anxiety attacks can occur in three ways:
• Initial anxiety: Makes it hard to start falling asleep. When going to bed, the brain starts thinking about the tasks and plans for the next day, and it takes a while for it to fall asleep;
• Moderate anxiety: It occurs during sleep, causing the person to wake up and not be able to go back to sleep, or just take a nap. When you try to do certain activities while you sleep, like using your cell phone or watching a series, you end up waking up more due to exposure to blue light, which damages melatonin production;
• Final concern: It makes a person wake up as the end of his sleep approaches, before his normal time, and he is unable to go back to sleep, which weakens his performance during the day.
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Triggers can be very diverse. Excessive worries, work, family or emotional problems, or even unresolved past situations.
“When night comes, you put your head on the pillow and start thinking about everything that didn’t go right. If 97 good things happened during the day and three bad things, we will always end up thinking only about those things that went wrong,” she claims. Marina.
Psychologists remind us that in this moment, it is important to focus on breathing. Among the options to try to reduce the crisis and get back to sleep, they included reading (from a cell phone), relaxing audio recordings, meditation, putting sleep hygiene into practice, trying not to sleep late, and avoiding screens for about one person. An hour before bedtime, sleep in a dark and quiet environment.
They also highlight the importance of practicing physical activities during the day, to get rid of this anxiety, seeking psychological treatment, and managing the factors that cause crises.
Here are seven tips that can help you overcome anxiety:
