What Causes Panic Attacks At Night

Why Does Anxiety Get Worse At Night

More than 40 million Americans have anxiety, according to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America . Its the most common mental health problem in the United States. Even if youve had a good day, you can start to feel restless and anxious right before bed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also affected Americas nighttime anxiety. A 2021 survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found 56% of adults reported an increase in sleep problems since the pandemic began.

What Causes Panic Disorder

Panic disorder sometimes runs in families, but no one knows for sure why some family members have it while others dont. Researchers have found that several parts of the brain and certain biological processes may play a crucial role in fear and anxiety. Some researchers think panic attacks are like false alarms where our bodys typical survival instincts are active either too often, too strongly, or some combination of the two. For example, someone with panic disorder might feel their heart pounding and assume theyre having a heart attack. This may lead to a vicious cycle, causing a person to experience panic attacks seemingly out of the blue, the central feature of panic disorder. Researchers are studying how the brain and body interact in people with panic disorder to create more specialized treatments. In addition, researchers are looking at the ways stress and environmental factors play a role in the disorder.

Panic Attacks At Night: What Causes Them And How To Cope

Drifting into quality sleep isnt always easy especially for those who experience nocturnal panic attacks. Rousing during the night to discover youre having a panic attack can be a frightening and overwhelming experience. Stirring from fragmented sleep can leave you lethargic and groggy, too, which can intensify the sensation and make you panic even more.But while nocturnal panic attacks can be stressful, they can be effectively managed with through a range of methods, from relaxation techniques to natural supplementation. Well take a closer look at how to manage panic attacks at night to help you achieve a peaceful nights sleep.

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When To Seek Help

You should talk with a mental health professional if your nighttime panic attacks are becoming debilitating or are affecting your quality of life.

“If you are waking up exhausted, unable to focus on your day, anxious about going to bed or are experiencing other mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, stress, burnout or substance dependence, you should seek help,” Chain says.

What Is Anxiety What Are Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety is a feeling of worry and unease. Its normal to experience anxiety occasionally in response to fearful or stressful situations.

In anxiety disorders Trusted SourceNational Institute of Mental Health The NIMH is the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders.nimh.nih.gov, this distress becomes excessive. Fears are not proportional to the situation, and worrying interferes with everyday life. These feelings become persistent, occurring most days for a period of six months or more.

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Succession Season 3 Kicks Off With A Tragically Gorgeous Kendall Roy Scene

People should always speak to a doctor before using this type of remedy. Every grandiose display of confidence Kendall puts on the rest of the episode is his performance. What Is an Anxiety Attack? I call this the The MP3 download recording that can help you master this technique is available in the Another effective way to put the brakes on an attack is to regulate your breathing. This is called derealization. Unexpected panic attacks An unexpected panic attack happens suddenly without an evident reason or trigger. Remember that it will pass During a panic attack, it can help to remember that these feelings will pass and cause no physical harm, however scary it feels at the time.

Take The Steps To Minimize Your Nocturnal Panic Attacks

Theres not one clearly defined, effective technique for totally alleviating or managing your nocturnal panic attacks. Not everything will work equally well for every person. However, there is some good news. The methods for treatment and coping weve discussed here can help you experience less intense, less frequent NPAs.

Some people completely cease having any nighttime panic attack after successful therapy and the continuation of self-management techniques. Others can decrease the number and intensity of the NPA episodes they experience.

If you believe youre experiencing recurring nocturnal panic attacks, then begin practicing some of the centering, relaxing techniques outlined above. Especially in the evenings when youre winding down and preparing for sleep, it can help to put your mind in a gentle state of relaxation, reducing the likelihood of having a nocturnal panic attack.

If self-management techniques dont seem to be working for you, or if your NPAs begin to occur more frequently and are more severe, seek professional help from a therapist or another mental health professional. Learning to manage nocturnal panic attacks can help reduce your stress, ease your mind, and restore your energy.

1. Craske M, Tsao J. Assessment and treatment of nocturnal panic attacks. Sleep Med Rev. 2005 9:173-184. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2004.11.003. . Accessed December 20, 2021.

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What Are The Types Of Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety is a core element of a number of specific disorders, although not all are categorized strictly as anxiety disorders.

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder : People with GAD have significant, looming worries about many different things that can cause an overarching sense of anxiety.
• Panic Disorder: Extremely intense episodes of fear, known as panic attacks, that usually last for a few minutes at a time are the defining feature of Panic Disorder.
• Social Anxiety Disorder: This disorder involves an extreme fear of social settings and potential embarrassment in front of other people.
• Specific Phobias: Specific phobias are intense fears caused by particular triggers. Some of the most common specific phobias include agoraphobia and separation anxiety.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder : In OCD, a person obsesses about an issue in a negative way such that it provokes anxiety, and this causes a compulsion, which is their attempt to control or eliminate that anxiety. Compulsions are repeated ritually and can directly impact everyday activities.
• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder : This condition can arise after a person is exposed to a painful or disturbing situation. People with PTSD may relive the stressful event, feel on-edge, and have potentially debilitating anxiety.

Get A Good Nights Sleep

To control both anxiety and sleep problems, focus on getting enough quality sleep each night. You may not realize that youre not getting enough quality sleep each night.

So, whats a good nights sleep to reduce your risk of anxiety and other physical and mental health issues? Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the AASM recommend adults get at least seven hours of solid sleep each night. Children and teens may need eight to 11 hours of sleep each night, depending on your childs age.

Because sleep deprivation can contribute to anxiety, protecting your sleep is important to reduce nighttime anxiety and anxiety in general. Heres what you can do to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

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What Causes Panic Attacks At Night

If you wake up with a panic attack, it’s not often clear why these nighttime panic attacks have occurred – often there is no explanation. Similar to daytime panic attacks, symptoms can include feeling faint or dizzy, a pounding heart, shortness of breath, nausea, and sweating. However, we do know that the brain doesnt switch off during sleep, so its possible for any pent-up worries or anxieties to manifest in our unconscious brains, causing a nocturnal panic attack. Also, struggling with daytime panic attacks makes it more likely that you will experience panic attacks at night.

While nocturnal panic attacks can be sudden and frightening, theyre actually a common mental health condition. So what causes them?

Research suggests there are a number of other factors that could increase the risk of someone suffering from both day and night time panic attacks. These include:

How To Get A Diagnosis

If you experience symptoms of a panic attack for the first time, you may want to seek emergency medical care. Many people who have a panic attack for the first time believe theyre having a heart attack. It can be hard to differentiate the symptoms without the help of a medical professional.

While at the emergency care facility, a healthcare professional will perform several tests to see if your symptoms are caused by a heart attack.

These include:

• an electrocardiogram to check heart function

If they determine you do not need emergency care, youll likely be referred back to your primary care physician if you have one.

Your primary care physician will likely:

• review any earlier lab results
• ask about your symptoms
• perform a mental health examination

Your primary care doctor or a mental health specialist can diagnose panic attacks and panic disorder.

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Prepare In Advance For The Following Day

When you are stressed about the following day, you may struggle to sleep. Therefore, in order to avoid the anxiety that comes along with it, you may want to consider having everything prepared in advance. Compiling a to-do list and completing it before bed will make you sleep better and be less anxious.

What Causes Nocturnal Panic Attacks

Part of what makes daytime or nighttime panic attacks so disturbing is the fact that they often occur out of the blue. Experts don’t fully understand why these episodes happen, but it’s thought that factors like genetics, stress and changes in brain function could all play a role, per the Mayo Clinic.

What’s more, certain people may be more prone to nighttime panic attacks than others.

“I often find that people who experience them have a hard time relaxing even while awake,” says Chain. “When their body is sleeping, their mind may interpret the relaxed state as dangerous and wake them up with a rush of stress hormones.”

Those challenges with relaxing might stem from traumatic experiences that caused you to feel threatened or out of control.

“They could be one-time experiences such as a car accident, natural disaster, sexual assault, war or physical violence,” Chain says. “But they can also be more chronic and subtle, such as growing up in a family that could not meet your emotional needs, being in a toxic work environment or living as a person of color in our racist society.”

In other cases, the panic attack could be the result of going through a particularly stressful period, Fedrick says. That could be navigating a job loss, for instance, or dealing with a serious illness, the end of a relationship or the loss of a loved one.

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Preventing Nocturnal Panic Attacks

Just because you had a nighttime panic attack doesn’t mean you’ll have another. But if you’re worried about a repeat attack, consider talking with a therapist.

Having just one panic attack doesn’t mean you have a panic disorder, but it could be a sign you’re dealing with excessive stress or anxiety, Fedrick says. “Engaging in therapy would be a great option to determine if there’s something more going on and how best to manage it,” she says.

If you’ve experienced repeat panic attacks or have been diagnosed with depression or anxiety, medication may be helpful. Antidepressants like SSRIs or SNRIs, beta blockers or anti-anxiety medications like benzodiazepines can be utilized to manage recurrent panic attacks, per the National Institute of Mental Health.

How Is A Nighttime Panic Attack Different Than Nightmares Or Night Terrors

If you wake up in a panic, youre likely asking yourself What just happened? And while it may have been a panic attack, there are other things that cause nighttime panic.

Night terrors are more common in children than adults, and they are characterized by intense fear, screaming, flailing and sleepwalking all of which occurs while youre still asleep.

Most people wont remember night terrors, because they occur at a time in your sleep when you arent building memories, Erickson says.

In contrast, nightmares occur during a period of sleep when you can build memories . You likely have some experience with nightmares where you wake in a panic and remember the dream that scared you, but then are able to calm yourself down.

Nightmares can lead to nocturnal panic attacks by triggering the physiological symptoms of panic. However, the two are different. A nocturnal panic attack involves a more heightened, extreme panicked state once youre awake, and it may take a longer period to calm down.

You can think of a nightmare as bit of a spark that you can kind of stomp out, Erickson says. When someone has a panic attack, however, its more of fire that is a little stronger. It will take some time to burn out.

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How Common Are Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders are the most common type of mental illness, affecting the lives of around 20% of American adults Trusted SourceNIH News in HealthThe NIH, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nations medical research agency making important discoveries that improve health and save lives.newsinhealth.nih.gov and 25% of teenagers each year.

Not all people with anxiety disorders have the same degree of symptoms or impact from anxiety on their everyday life. In one large survey, around 43% of adults Trusted SourceNational Institute of Mental Health The NIMH is the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders.nimh.nih.gov described having mild impairment of their life from anxiety. Around 33% said it was moderate, and nearly 23% said it was severe.

Why Do Nocturnal Panic Attacks Occur

It’s “multifactorial,” says Dr. Magavi, and it differs from person to person, based on underlying conditions, medical disorders, and psychiatric and family history. Nighttime rumination and stress, as well as anticipatory anxiety about what’s to come tomorrow, can all contribute to and may precipitate a nighttime attack, she notes. (

“If you leave stress and anxiety unaddressed or unmanaged because there is a physiological component to our flight or fight response, your body adjusts to living in hypervigilance and high alert mode,” explains clinical psychologist Alfiee Breland-Noble, Ph.D. Your fight-or-flight responses aka when your body’s flooded with hormones in response to a perceived threat aren’t limited to our waking hours, she adds. If you turn on this response before sleep it can end up impacting your heart rate, breathing, sweating, and, yes, sleep. You might think of it as your body getting “stuck in overdrive,” and that “the symptoms and triggers that you ignore or fail to respond to during the day can potentially begin to impact you at night,” says Breland-Noble.

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Always Seek Professional Advice

Always seek medical advice if you are not sure whether your symptoms, or another persons symptoms, indicate a panic attack. In an emergency, dial triple zero for an ambulance. Its important to see your doctor for a check-up to make sure that any recurring physical panic-like symptoms are not due to illnesses, including:

What Are Panic Attacks

Panic attacks can happen day or night. They are sudden, unexpected episodes of intense anxiety, which can cause a variety of frightening symptoms. These include:

• Feeling out of control and disconnected from your surroundings
• Feeling faint, dizzy or light-headed
• Chest pains and shortness of breath – tightness of the chest and feeling as though its a struggle to breathe
• A racing or pounding heart
• Hyperventilating
• Numbness and tingling, for example, tingling lips and numbness in your fingers and toes
• Fluctuating body temperature feeling very hot or very cold

These symptoms can be so severe they sometimes make first time sufferers believe theyre experiencing a heart attack or a nervous breakdown. Over time, panic attacks can become more frequent, and the fear of having a panic attack becomes embedded, resulting in a ‘vicious circle’. You might also experience what’s known as hypnic jerks. If you’re particuarly stressed or anxious, you might also experience what’s known as hypnic jerks. These involuntary muscle sensations, like jolts, occur when you are in your lightest stage of sleep.

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Allow Yourself To Have Enough Sleep

Although adults need roughly 8 hours of sleep each night, many do not get as much sleep. Therefore, it is extremely important to get at least 78 hours of sleep each night to feel completely rested and refreshed. When you do not get enough rest, it often results in constant clock checking and tiredness, which can heighten your anxiety levels and cause a panic attack.

What Are Anxiety Attacks

Anxiety attack is not an official diagnosis. Unlike anxiety disorders like panic disorder and PTSD, anxiety attacks are not listed in the The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by the American Psychiatric Association .

Anxiety attacks is more of a colloquial term used to describe a concentrated moment of anxiety, or a more sudden attack of anxiety symptoms.

Most people do not associate anxiety attacks with life threatening circumstances or specific phobias. Anxiety attacks may involve powerful feelings of fear and stress, but they are not usually linked to depression or other mental health disorders.

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