Why Your Anxiety Can Feel So Intense At Night
Are you afraid of the dark? Why is anxiety more intense at night? If you fear nights because of severe anxiety, you are not alone.
You may wonder why you feel like you’re on an unending loop of worry, tension, discomfort, and stress every night. These symptoms are signs of anxiety, and they follow a rhythm that attunes to biological shifts, your emotional load, and even changes in your daily routine.
If you feel flooded and paralyzed by worries that you can’t seem to get under control, this blog is for you.
Increased Cortisol
To start off, you may not be in complete control of the way you’re feeling. Cortisol, a naturally occurring hormone, may be released at the wrong time or in the wrong amount, leading to those anxious feelings. Try limiting your intake of new information after 5 PM. This means turning off the news, canceling grocery runs, saving action-packed or triggering movies for another day, and closing devices after dinner.
Sleep Environment
After taking steps to decrease cortisol levels, focus on your sleeping habits. Sleep and anxiety go hand in hand. If you’re sleeping poorly, you’re at an increased risk of experiencing anxiety. Start by looking at your sleep environment. Is this a place you can relax and recover? If not, try picking up or pushing your piles into the closet to free up some space. For those trying to sleep in, blackout curtains make longer sleep possible. And finally, lower the temperature in your bedroom. A lower sleeping temperature will keep you in a deeper sleep longer.
Bedtime Routines
So you’ve created the perfect sleeping environment, but the worry still creeps in and ruins the mood? It’s time to look at your routine for signs of over-extending, re-traumatizing events, or even routinely anxiety-producing actions. Then, recreate your bedtime routine. Start by listing out your evening activities 2-3 hours before you want to be asleep.
Coping Skills
Once your environment is in check (and maybe you’ve even purchased a sound machine and given yourself 15 minutes of journaling before turning off the lights), check-in. Are you still feeling the anxiety pestering you with reruns of the day and cycles of dread? It’s time for coping skills:
1. Roller Coaster Breathing
Hold your hand out in front of you and trace around your fingers like you’re outlining a roller coaster. Trace up your fingers on the inhale, pause at the top for a second or two, and breathe out slowly as your trace down the finger. Repeat on each hand ten times.
2. Reframe your anxiety
Build on your own character of anxiety. Give them a purpose, a story, a family they need to get home to. By externalizing anxiety, you may see it’s trying to serve a purpose.
3. Cold Compresses
Allow a cold compress to lay across your eyes. Move it around your face and onto your neck. Notice where this temperature change also shifts your physical tension.
4. Yoga or QiGong
Slow movement at night may help relieve excess stress in the body. Try a Qi Gong or restorative yoga class to regain your sense of calm.
Next Steps
It is normal to feel more symptoms of anxiety at night. With the demands of life becoming ever more complex, the precious hours before bed are becoming highly sought-out time slots. Guard your time. Dive into your space, your routines, and your coping skills.
As a rule of thumb, schedule a session with a mental health provider if you’re finding your symptoms increasing or unchanging. Therapists will help you find a combination of tools and lifestyle modifications to lower your worry and increase your ease at night.
Reach out to learn more about anxiety therapy and how it can help quiet your anxious thoughts for a more restful night of sleep.
