Health Anxiety and Tiredness

[sansa762]

Can anyone help?

I suffer with Health Anxiety, I’m a lot better than I used to be, sometimes I forget I have it.

I have noticed that sometimes I can go all
day being “normal” but as soon as I stop if I’ve had a busy day or if I’m tired the anxiety flares up? I’m not sure if it’s the feeling of wanting to drift off / sleep that triggers it if I’m tired as I don’t have any issues sleeping, or when I’m busy and finally stop to relax the anxiety sees it’s opportunity to attack.

Does anyone else have the same? How can I seperate the anxiety from tiredness if this makes sense?

In the same way your phone won't work if it's on 3% battery, your mind will go a bit skew-whiff when you are tired and run down. Anxiety is the emotion that is triggered when there's something that's too important to ignore and it may well be that your 'attack' is the anxiety telling you to rest. Next time try acknowledging the thought and say to yourself you are going to sleep it off.

I shouldn’t be tired unless it’s the anxiety making me tired. I slept a solid 8 hours last night, did housework this morning, went for a walk had a coffee & came back and I was worn out, maybe it’s the heat but that doesn’t seem a lot / over exhaustion

Tiredness isn't linear - we've all had amazing days after 4 hours sleep or that dragging feeling after sleeping well for 8 hours. Is it worth having a check up to make sure your thyroid/hormone levels are OK?

Yes, this actually hits so close to home. I used to wonder the exact same thing: why would anxiety show up only when I finally had a chance to relax? After a full day of feeling fine, it felt like my brain waited until I slowed down just to throw everything at me at once.

Turns out, what you're describing is more common than we think and once I understood why it was happening, it became so much easier to separate the anxiety from simple tiredness.

I’ve found a few simple strategies that really helped me stop that “anxiety ambush” before it kicks in.