Subconsiously bringing on anxious thoughts/feelings?

[Bellavue1]

I'm in my late 40s and have been on HRT for a few years. Recently my estrogen dropped (spoke to menopause GP about this) significantly and started getting high anxiety, morning heart palpitations etc which I thought was mainly down to peri/low HRT. I also work in a toxic and very stressful job and my partner went through redundancy. Basically there's quite a lot of uncertainty about the future but I've generally been able to navigate these things without feeling full on anxiety pre-perimenopause.

I'm on a 15mg dose of sertraline for now while my new HRT regime kicks in. It helped almost instantly and most of my anxiety went away. I felt more able to deal with my job too.

I went on holiday this week and I felt more like myself than I have in a long time. I did think about work and the future but didn't feel stressed out.

Got back last night and when I woke ulpthis morning the thumping heart was back and my mind started racing, not just about work and finances but also silly things I said or did on holiday (really trivial things I didn't think about on holiday)!

Perhaps this sounds strange but is it possible that my mind subconsciously now associates my bed with stress and future worries?? And if so what do I do about it?

I've NC'd for this.

is it possible that my mind subconsciously now associates my bed with stress and future worries??

I think youre overthinking. It's more likely the simple fact of being home from your holiday and having to face the real world again.

It’s possible. Make sure you don’t spend any time in bed awake ideally. So you can lose the association. Only get into bed when you’re absolutely dog tired. Set a regular wake up time.
If you find yourself lying there worrying then get up and go somewhere else and find something else to take your attention.
You could try writing down your worries at the end of the day to park them and then say to yourself you’ll worry about these tomorrow.
Also, don’t worry about the worry - if you see what I mean. It’s just stupid perimenopause and your body trying to play tricks on you so don’t try to over analyse it. What dose of HRT are you on?

Similar life stage and peri stage here. I always feel a lot better when I'm away on holiday. As soon as I'm back the anxiety ramps up again. I think it's all the responsibilities and commitments and needing to speed up again to get everything done. Hrt, and sertraline a couple of years ago, have helped but I have also made some big decisions to simplify my life over the next year. I doubt it's the bed itself tbh.

Thank you. I'm on 3 pumps oestrogel and just moved to continuous utrogestan. The GP thinks I've stopped absorbing the gel due to my symptoms (plus blood test). I was better on 3 pumps for a while.

Now switching to patches.

That said even with really low estrogen my hot flushes didn't come back so now I'm thinking that at least some of my anxiety isn't related to estrogen. My testosterone was extremely low too so once estrogen is OK I'll look into that potentially.

Thank you yes that makes sense actually. It's being home and back to every day life here more than my bed in particular!

I think I might have to make some changes too but have been trying to resist so far.