Suggestions for middle of the night anxiety

[Dembones292]

I've got lots going on in my life at the moment. I'm really struggling with anxiety. Can't take any meds for it but I'm going mediation, exercise, CBT (starting soon) etc which is helping me during the day. I go to sleep relaxed (ish) but keep waking around 2am in full fight or flight mode. That's me done for the rest of the night, my brain kicks in and I just lie there feeling horrendous.

Any suggestions for what I can do please? Like a mental exercise to calm me down? I dont want to start getting out of bed or listening to anything, i just need something I can do to calm my mind.

I would make sure I didn’t drink alcohol as that makes it worse. And plenty of physical exercise - as much as you can squeeze in.

As for night wakings, have a book by your bed and read? Or put on a boring podcast? Accept that you’re awake and the best you can do it relax as opposed to getting more upset that you can’t sleep.

I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with raging anxiety and heart palpitations. I get up, take two full droppers of the night rescue remedy, and then get back to bed and browse random stuff on my phone. After about 15-30 mins the anxiety dulls a little and I start feeling sleepy. It’s the only thing I’ve found that works.

Then obviously in the day you need to tackle your anxiety and work out solutions. Action plans, new things to try for whatever issue is plaguing you. If you leave it, it will keep happening.

I agree with boring podcast on sleep timer or I listen to books on my borrowbox library app which has a sleep timer to get to sleep. I think its the voice that helps .it's has to be a factual type book because otherwise you miss chunks of plot. It clears your brain because you're listening. I also go to be abd get up at roughly the same time even on holiday .