Anxiety during sleep: It wakes me every AM from sleep.

Does it get you to sleep and keep you asleep? I take ativan 3 x a day and am careful what I add to that in addition to the medrol for r/a. I am just about at the point of giving in to wakefulness and getting rest when I can. This morning I awoke at 3 AM in absolute terror of nothing in particular - just being alone except for dog Daisy. I tried that 3-3-3 thing where you identify 3 things you can see, 3 things you can touch, and 3 sounds you can hear. Did some diaphragmatic breathing and it halted. Finally got up and took Daisy for a short walk in the dark. The air was fresh and clear and the fear ceased. I hate to think about sleeping with a light on like a 2 year old because I know that is a bad policy for sleep hygiene but any port in a storm.

It is awful.Not a good way to start the day...every day. I have tried a Rescue Remedy spray for sleep which helps a bit, gets me a little more sleep. But then the waves start up again.

tyt : I wish I knew what causes the adrenaline rushes. I think that the pandemic mode really has many of us who are overly sensitive in a chronic case of some level of PTSD. Not that we can compare ourselves to those with truly terrible experiences but I think to some extent the covid news and death of my husband shortly after it started really topped me.

I’ve been getting these too. I also have digestive issues and between the two of these I don’t get a full nights sleep. Woke up at 5:30 am today. Going to be a not so good day.

I have Sibo and nausea 😵 that comes and goes and I agree that plays into it. The gut/brain connection. Hope your day is going better than anticipated. My big coup was finding gloves I lost last week at rheumatologist office. I stopped by and they were in the lost and found drawer. Bless St. Anthony once again! 😊

For over a year, I've had waves of creepy anxiety starting around 5 am. Starts with weird uncomfortable dreams, then progresses to awful adrenaline-like rushes. Now I'm starting to experience this during the night, every few hours. I can fight my anxiety fairly well during the day, but at night I feel helpless and scared.
Has anyone had similar symptoms? Did anything help?These feelings are not like worry; more like deep sickening fear...
Thanks for listening.

Is there any medication that might be causing this anxiety? For example, initially when taking large doses of melatonin experienced vivid, horrific nightmares that would repeat and feared going back to sleep.

Thanks for responding.I heard that melatonin can do that. so I stopped it months ago. No difference...

This has been happening to me for the past 2 years. I am now taking 25mg of Trazadone at night and it has helped for the 1st 2-3 hrs of sleep. Anxiety thoughts and dreams start around 3- 4 am and continue through until I get up. I accidentally took a whole 50mg tablet last night and this morning I woke up a little groggy and I noticed that I had slept most all night and when the pre-dawn anxiety started to arrive, I was lucid enough to realize that it was anxiety and was able to rationalize in the dream state what was happening and I was able to relax and stay easy in the moments.
I am highly sensitive to drugs. The littlest dose goes a long way with me. I manage anxiety and panic attacks during the day with very small doses of .5mg lorazepam as needed. I don't take the lorazepam every day. Some days I can manage panic and anxiety with breathing and other refocusing tools. It just depends on what triggers a panic anxiety episode.

I have been diagnosed with complex PTSD and had serious problems with nightmares. It has been resolved with Prazosin 1mg every night before going to bed. If I wake up in the night for any reason, I need to take another one before returning to sleep. It’s a high blood pressure medication widely prescribed off label for just this problem. I also take a high blood pressure medication for high blood pressure and the addition of Prazosin has not affected my blood pressure at all.