Severe anxiety waking me at 4am every night at 50

[MissMaman]

Does anyone get night time severe anxiety?
What is it, why does it happen?
It comes every night.
A sheer overwhelming horrible anxiety builds up in my chest until it reaches a crescendo and the physical feeling of pain and terror wakes me up from a deep sleep. It's a physical feeling in my chest. Then once I've been woken, within a split second my brain starts frantically panicking and I feel a deep sense of doom. I lay in bed frightened and scared and highly anxious.
Then my brain starts scanning for what's happening, searching for what it is that's happened to make me feel so desperately and severely anxious..... .and it can't find anything. Nothing. Nothing has happened. I went to work yesterday and it was a normal day. DC are safe and sound asleep in bed. DH is asleep, fine. Everyone is well. We have a nice normal weekend planned.
So why is this happening?
I just want to feel happy. Not like something terrifying has happened.
I'm 50. And all I want to be is asleep. I'm so tired every day from waking up in the night frightened.
I had a very unstable childhood full of emotional upset and felt nervous and worried al the time as a child. It's like that feeling all over again but massively, dramatically magnified. I was better through my 20s, 30s and 40s as I was so happy to be leading my own independent life away from what made me feel sad and frightened as a little girl. Why has it suddenly struck again now I'm 50? Why is it so severe? And why does it happen at 3am or 4am every night? I don't get back to sleep again as I have to get up at 6 anyway so I feel exhausted every day. I am so desperately tired I could cry😣

Menopause/perimenopause? It would be worth a visit to the GP. I think waking esrly and increased anxiety are symptoms.

It is pretty typical to wake up early with anxiety and depression. I’ve been through the mill with three major life challenges, which have resulted in me needing treatment. Go and see your GP @MissMaman , you can’t live like that.

Are you on HRT?

I started waking in the night with a pounding chest - feeling almost like I was having panic attacks - in my late forties. HRT completely stopped it - took about 6 weeks to kick in properly, though.

This sounds really hard OP. I’m pretty sure this is a common perimenopause symptom. Hopefully someone else who’s been through it can offer some practical advice

It's shit isn't it OP. I get it sporadically. I'm peri-menopausal and can't take HRT.

Hrt.

4am is when cortisol starts to rise in anticipation of waking up - it’s pretty common to wake then with anxiety. I get it too - I just woke up due to a bad dream (missile strike in uk). I may also be in peri but it started for me way before that.

I found that taking melatonin helped stop that issue! I can’t take it at the mo as am breastfeeding…

work on general day to day anxiety levels too as I think it reflects something going on

• yoga, gym, swimming, meditation, talking therapy, whatever works for you

I have similar in my thirties. I find taking magnesium bisglycinate helps.

This happened for me with perimenopause and hrt helped a lot. I also had to work on reducing my anxiety in other ways. I also stopped having caffeine and had reduce my hours work.

I had this still get it occasionally. Hrt fixed it mostly took a while to get the right dose, I had to cut out alcohol and reduce caffeine. I had some blood tests my folate was very low so treated that. During that past heatwave I was quite bad with hay-fever and hives so suspect my histamine load is quite high which can cause anxiety. I took some fexofenadine to calm the hives. It's like whack a mole I'm 53 and for the past 4 years it's been one thing after another but I am feeling much better. My advice would be get a full blood test and talk to GP about HRT.

I've never had anxiety that bad though I have had phases of waking up at 4, and have always got up for a wee in the night. I'm sleeping better generally with HRT (Femoston) and usually wake up at 6am. I can sleep through from 10pm - 6am if I'm in bed early enough.

You might want the GP to check your heart also though as cardiovascular issues can be a thing in menopause and be confused with anxiety. My mum was very stressed and had an MI aged 53. She recovered fully and lived to 85, but just to know.

This was the first sign of menopause for me. I still wake early but the HRT is helping the anxiety (not cured it).

HRT . It has the added bonus of protecting your bone, brain and heart health.

It revolutionised my life and that is not an exaggeration. I would thoroughly recommend trying it.

Hi OP urgh I’ve had that - especially when I was going through my divorce.

There is a few things that help as above from previous posters

Magnesium before bed.

If you’re going through peri menopause HRT can help.

Mixed mushrooms Combo

If your already stressed the cortisol in your body is already high and it will wake you up when your body is going through a sleep cycle - it naturally rises a bit when your about to wake up - but if it’s already heightened it’s going to feel like a train running through your body - somatic dance/hip release can help
get rid of the pent up energy/stress

Journalling before bed to release issues you have floating round in your brain before sleep.

Stay of alcohol for a bit because even one glass of wine would want me calling an ambulance in the middle of the night.

Proper wind down before bed - bath, soothing music, journalling, yoga, stretching no phone for an hour before sleep, sleep mediation or gentle story pod cast.

I had a brilliant therapist after my divorce and she said it’s very common especially if some one experienced child trauma - it stays locked away in your brain and can often resurface at points of stress or indeed perimenopause. The issues from the past can manifest as physical feelings - like a steam train running through your body - and be heightened by a drop in hormones or recent stress. Your body is being flooded by cortisol when it should only experience a little.

Imagine inside your body there is little worker men - when there is danger they set the alarm off but when the danger goes they turn the alarm off - but inside your body they forgot to turn the alarm off and it’s just on permanently.

This is also why your exhausted because your body is in constant flight or flight - especially when your asleep

There is some fantastic YouTube vids to release anxiety stored in your body and somatic exercises. And with exercise I don’t mean jumping around ones 😂

I found it helpful to say to myself - ‘I’m absolutely fine it’s just the cortisol’ that took away the panic and shakes quicker - but I know it’s a wretched feeling.

No one thing helped for me - I looked at it as way to try all the things and going on bit of a journey in to focusing on myself and really being gentle with my mind and body. My body was saying ‘I’m not ok!’

As women we look after everyone else and then realise that actually it’s time to pull back look at what’s happen in the past, accepting it, working through it, who I am as I person now, what do I like and how can I be loving and gentle towards myself. Gentleness, kindness and learning to love yourself is going to play a big part in helping.

Sorry this is a long message - but I just wanted to put everything down as walking up in the middle of the night with a panic attack is truly hideous. I’ve not had them for a couple of years now. I didn’t use HRT as the progesterone didn’t agree with me.

My partner (48) will have panic attacks in the night from time to time but he won’t spend the time as I did and I wish he would.

Hope your ok and good luck x

Where do you get melatonin please?

Honestly, HRT stopped this for me within days.

Try counselling. I have issues with sleep due to stress and family issues and am booked in soon for one to one counselling appointments. It gives me a chance to unpack all my feelings in a safe environment.

I’ve previously gone through long stretches of the 4am panic attacks. Including waking up already in the midst of full on attacks, it’s completely debilitating. I’m not menopausal or peri though. Things that helped me were CBD oil, reishi tincture and taking magnesium. I have found the best magnesium to be the soluble sachets. The most effective of all these, I think, is the reishi. I’ve also been trying to follow the 30 plants a week advice and I am quite convinced that has really helped with anxiety over all. I hope you can find an answer that works for you. I did just feel a bit better once I had a plan of action and knew I was working towards improving things. Good luck!

I heard a Radio programme on this. This is an inbuilt warning system. During the day all parts of our brain are working to make us understand and balance our risks. At night the only part that is working is our alarm system – so that if a sabertooth tiger entered our cave, we would react and flee the risk. The parts of our brain that mitigate the risk stay asleep.

It is perfectly natural and common. It is literally how humans are hardwired to protect themselves however, if you are having really extreme reactions, it may be worth investigating further. I found that once I knew what was going on and that my reactions in the middle of the night were perfectly normal, I was able to calm those fears more effectively.

Morning, I have been suffering from the same issue for a couple of years despite being on HRT. I don’t want to go on anxiety meds or anything yet as discussed by my doctor. I’m not a huge fan of supplements but I actually started taking Ashwaganda from Holland and Barrett a month ago and just the last few days - I have stopped waking up with the ‘fear’. I’m hoping this may be a gamechanger. It’s buy one get one free at the moment. You could give them a try.

HRT yes

Same here. Been awake since 5 today . Which actually felt a bit better then the normal 3/4 am. I have a busy day and already have no energy . In my 40s but feels to soon for hrt . May just be me being daft not wanting to go the gp .

my first perimenopausal symptom was a panic attack that actually woke me up in the middle of night. It was horrid. HRT never helped me so I gave up after a year. I have just learnt to live with it really and it has gone down over time. I sympathise.

Hey OP this is me too. It’s so horrible. I can actually feel the flood of cortisol - I was given an anti depression prescription from the GP but I’m not keen - but I did do some counselling through the NHS (not cbt) which I did find helpful, coming to terms with the person I am and reflecting for the first time on some difficult experiences as a child. I can see a bit more clearly now and I haven’t had one of these for a while although I doubt they have completely gone away - that would be a big ask - and I still have nights when I don’t fall asleep at all. Anyway just wanted to send you some solidarity and say good luck - I am 62 and long past the menopause.

Just a warning. Melatonin gave me nightmares so I stopped! It is a known side effect for some people.