ANXIETY: Morning and Night (Episode 012)

SPEAKER_01 0:01

And then I would have this moment where, like, that's it, I'm up. Full consciousness would kick in and I'd be aware of it. And immediately I would become aware of like how I felt.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

You know, you got morning anxiety when as soon as you open your eyes, you compulsively check and scan how you feel, feeling hypersensitive to everything, to dread about the day, to dread about how I'm gonna cope.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I was looking for it the night before. Before I would go to sleep, I was worried about what was the next morning was gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Nighttime people are a bit different because you hear these common worries like, what if I'm sit with myself and have to experience the sensations and the scary thoughts? The sun's gone down. It's something to do with the darkness that makes me feel anxious because it's just become a thing. You've just attached unnecessary symbolism to it.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Welcome back to Disordered. This is episode 12 entitled Anxiety Morning and Night. I am Drew Linsolata, co-host of Disordered, a grad student in clinical mental health counseling and a therapist in training here in the United States. Today we're going to talk about the fact that people who get anxiety at night are definitely the coolest people. Nonetheless, the morning anxiety will be represented by my co-host Josh Fletcher. How are you doing, Josh?

SPEAKER_02 1:19

I'm all right. Yeah, I'm uh Josh Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh on social media. Uh um, and I'm a psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK. Uh, also previous sufferer as well. And I will be representing the morning anxiety crowd uh today, which you have scientifically been proven to be more attractive than people who get nighttime anxiety. Um, for legal purposes, that was a joke, it was a lie.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

For legal purposes, yes, disclaimers. So, yeah, today we're gonna talk about anxiety morning and night because so many people struggle with the whole like I get anxiety at night, or what do I do with morning anxiety? How do I handle it? Treat it as special. So this was kind of prompted by a question. Do you want to go do the question that we got asked?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Yeah, I mean, on on the disordered uh FM, disordered.fm website, uh, we get um questions submitted via email, comments, and even uh we get voice notes as well sometimes if you want to drop in and then do that. Um, yeah, this today's topic was inspired by a question. It was do you have any tips or can you talk about ways to stop ruminating at night, particularly um you know when I'm in bed and it's causing me stress and anxiety. So we thought, well, I hear a lot about nighttime anxiety. Um, I hear a lot about morning anxiety. So I just thought about Drew and I thought, well, why don't we discuss it both?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, yeah, we'll combine them in one episode. I think so. Rumination, you know, that's that'll be its own topic. We'll do a whole episode just on rumination, but that I the idea that it's more difficult at night, I kind of get. It's quiet, everybody's asleep, there's no distractions. Um we start the sunrise.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

We could morning anxiety. What is morning like you've just opened your eyes and you're the day in the life of an anxious person, maybe with disordered anxiety. Um did you ever have um anxious mornings? Because I certainly did.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

That was my jam. So I'm joking about you know, representing the night anxiety people, but I was a morning anxiety person in a huge way. I would have that moment where, and I never realized that moment. There is a moment where you wake up. I don't, and now I don't recognize it so much anymore, where you're sort of asleep, you could fall back asleep, and then I would have this moment where like that's it, I'm up. So like full consciousness would kick in and I'd be aware of it, and immediately I would become aware of like how I felt.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Welcome to the day. Yeah, I you know you got morning anxiety with disordered anxiety when as soon as you open your eyes, you compulsively check and scan how you feel, whether it's through the want of it of it to have gone. Yep. Uh uh do I feel okay today? Um, or just being irritated, annoyed with yourself, annoyed at the anxiety. Uh, and feelings-wise, for me, it was always just being hit with a feeling of dread. You know, now don't get me wrong, before disordered anxiety, I would, you know, I'd wake up feeling groggy, crawl into the kitchen, grab a coffee, and all that. And I do that now. I've gone back to feeling waking up. Actually, I'm not too bad at waking up nowadays. I'm okay. A bit like, oh, got a spring in my step. Uh, I think because I enjoy my job. Um, but in general, it's yeah, it's getting put I remember in the midst for years just being like, is it there? Is just obsessed, this internal focus, feeling hypersensitive to everything, to dread about the day, to dread about how I'm gonna cope. Yeah, yeah, and and you spend a lot of the day like kind of scanning.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, and I would start with a scan. And some of it was a buildup from the night before. And we, you know, we'll come full circle, we'll go to the nighttime also. But I tried everything. I have sleep mask and white noise and binaural beats, and I did all the things to try to sleep more and sleep better so that in the morning I wouldn't wake up that way. And so I'd open my eyes, I'd hit that moment of consciousness, and immediately notice there it is. Like I there it was, it was waiting for me, like literally, like you know, you have a dog. Like strew lover, sneak onto the bed, and literally his snout is right next to you on the pillow. Oh, all the time. Like you open your eyes and there's a dog snout, right? Like that was literally what it was. The anxiety was right there and right in my face. Yeah, and and and it was there because also you went looking for it. I was looking for it the night before. Before I would go to sleep, I was worried about what was the next morning was gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Yeah, you you you know you've not practiced, if you've not listened to any of our other stuff or know what we talk about. Uh, we're big proponents of uh, you know, kind of I call it like kind of willfully tolerating anxiety or surrendering during to the anxiety. It's basically just not engaging with it, allowing it to be there, not engaging. The opposite of that is that if you're someone who struggles with anxiety in the morning, the horrible sense of foreboding, the dread, the physical symptoms, the pit in your stomach, the the horrible stuff, and you're engaging with that immediately by scanning, wishing for it that it wasn't there, getting annoyed at it, then you are actually engaging with it, and and it becomes a thing. And and it was a weird process for for us both to to kind of overcome that because and again, you know, it's it's it's counterintuitive, but I kind of overcame morning anxiety when I just expected to feel rubbish. I was like, well, and what makes this worse is that I'm gonna feel rubbish, but if I start ruminating, scanning, trying to get rid of it, it's just gonna exacerbate it.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, never that never fixed it, and you know, and so I would I would wake up and I would feel that, and I would immediately go to here it is again, like it's right in I would be afraid, I would wake up afraid. It was just no fun. And then, you know, at this point it's four o'clock in the morning because I wasn't sleeping well, you know, in those days, and three o'clock, you know, 3 30, 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock in the morning. And it would be, how am I ever gonna get all the way through this day if this is how I'm starting at 4 45 a.m.? And it would just feel like a hopeless, another hopeless morning. Uh, that was those are not good days now that I think about that.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

You can feel very lonely as well. I certainly did, particularly when you get up before everyone else and Craig the critics comes in and he's like, Oh, everyone else is sleeping, you're alone here, you know, you still got this thing, you're broken, you can't fix yourself. And I um and that just kind of you know, really kind of piled misery onto that. Um yeah, what helped?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Well, interestingly, what help was coming to the conclusion like you did that, like, well, I could lay here and try to fix this up here. I'm pointing to my head because you can't see me do that, but you know, I would try to fix it with my thoughts and like words, and I kind of came to the conclusion I'm gonna have to just get out of bed and drag this around with me because what else I have no other choice, and that changed a lot of things for me.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah, yeah. So what you gotta realize, and what helped my morning anxiety and I'll apply to nighttime anxiety too, uh almost actually, is a slightly different approach. But um for me, psychoeducation actually, if you're anxious and you've been anxious for a while, you're stressed. And when you're anxious and stressed, your nervous system is more sensitized, and when your nervous system is more sensitized, you're more prone to the chemical release uh in association with a threat response. So anxious people have more cortisol in the mornings. We all need cortisol to wake up. I love cortisol, it's great. You wake up because you have a shot of cortisol, bang, have a bit of that on your way. But anxious people often misinterpret that shot of cortisol. This is why the the non-anxious you, your pre-anxious self, or your family or friends or or or partner, they get up and they're like, Oh, I feel a bit groggy, I don't feel great. But they're also experiencing the cortisol. You may be experiencing a little bit more, you know, because you're having a threat response on top of it. But I often find that you know, you never win when you open your eyes and expect to feel amazing when it's cortisol, the thing that you've been trying to resist and hate for so long, is literally needed to wake you up. So the last thing that you want to do if you have morning anxiety is to sit there and scan and and and try and get rid of it and whatnot, uh, and and lie and ruminate about it too. Uh, that's what I used to do, and it's just made me feel really lonely. Instead, I'd be like, I'm gonna feel anxious tomorrow. What can I do with my behavior? And let's play around with that and see how that affects my mood. Yeah, and it was remarkable what you can actually do.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

It's amazing, right? And I had to start learning that, and this is the thing I talked about a lot. I've written about it and everything. Like to me, it wasn't that I jumped out of bed and like put on my running shoes and did eight miles and nothing like that at all. These were little things, like literally deciding to not lay in bed ruminating or scanning. I would put my feet right on the floor, and then you know, I would just and I I used to use the phrase, all I have to do is, all I have to do is put on this shirt. All I have to do is take the cap off the toothpaste.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

All I have to do now is grab my toothbrush, breaking it down to manageable chunks, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Literally step by step, so unnatural, so ridiculous, like nobody lives their morning that way, but I did. And that's how I learned that I could get up and walk to the bathroom and do what I had to do and get myself dressed and go have a glass of juice. And while I was really anxious and nervous and uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

How much would you say then? It sounds like you were forcefully not forcefully, but you were really kind of meticulously trying to break a habit.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Oh, yeah. Yes, I was. It was I was intentionally trying to feel all of those things while I did every one of these little all I have to do now is put the tap back on the toothpaste. That's all I have to do in the whole world, and I would do that and then move on to the next thing while I was shaking and while I my stomach was churning and while I felt like I couldn't breathe. And so I mean that was not a pleasant, those are not pleasant mornings, but they helped.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Yeah, and you start to notice it over time go down, not compulsively checking and measuring, willing, and again, I mean, the last I think it was our last episode on attitudinal shift. I can't remember. I love doing that episode. Oh no, that was two two episodes ago. Sorry. Two episodes ago. I absolutely love doing that episode. Um, it applies to morning anxiety too, is that it requires an attitudinal shift. I will be anxious, but I am still in control here of what I can do, and this will affect my mood.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

You know, I don't think you drew it's not as if you put the lid back on the toothpaste, walk downstairs, and then compulsively check to see if the anxiety had gone. No.

unknown 12:06

No.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

What were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 12:08

I literally had to resign myself to the fact that it's gonna come with me. So I'm gonna do these things while I feel this way because the alternative would be to let it pin me in the bed for an hour and a half or two hours, which was not acceptable to me anymore. And so I'm like, well, I'm gonna do it this way. And it really did make a difference because it also allowed me to see that, well, I'm capable of handling this that I thought I wasn't. And then when I started to get a little bit of that feeling, it made enough space where I could start to see, like, oh, wait a minute. Yeah, by around 11 o'clock, I do start to feel a little better. Just naturally, I wasn't trying to make that happen. It would begin to dissipate a little bit, and my afternoons weren't as bad. And so I could start to hang on to that. Like, look, this is temporary. But when I just laid there and thought about the morning anxiety and just interacted with it as my default, I could never see that. It just felt like the whole day would be that way, and the whole day was not that way.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

No, no, and and I remember the same morning as I was really bit bad, particularly in the midst of kind of panic disorder and OCD.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Where it was the time uh my habit, and it was a habit, I was contributing to this. It wasn't my fault I was having these feelings, it's not your fault. Sure, but you it usually goes hand in hand with habit. And what I do is yeah, I'd open my eyes, I'd lie there. I'd I I either desperately grab my phone or a distraction, or I'd just sit there and be absorbed in it. Uh, meanwhile, my body is not moving, my focus is entirely internal, and I'm just signaling to the amygdala. Here we go, he's gonna press his amygdala. Yeah, there we go. He's sounds more terrifying every time I hear it. But I'm just signaling to my amygdala that hey, this current feeling is dangerous. Yeah, I'm treating it like it's dangerous. If I'm lying there or trying to shun it away and distract myself, or if I'm lying in there, kind of just dwell dwelling in it, then it's like both are showing the amygdala that this feeling is horrible and it mustn't be there. And that just adds to it, and then on top of that, you've got this habit, so you've got your neuropathways that are just solidified from weeks, days, years of habit. Um, and to break out of that habit, you've got to make a new neural pathway. And as we know, in psychology, to make a new neural pathway and a new habit, it requires commitment and repetition and a want. Yeah, and that's what Drew did and I did. Um, just doing the basic things because it's breaking a habit. For me, and and that's something I think I heard on The Anxious Truth a while ago. It was um, you know, I do things like I just put my shoes next to my bed because as soon as I woke up, I would get out of bed. I'm not gonna do that. Some people might say, Well, isn't that you just like running away from the anxiety? It's like, no, because it's me stopping compulsively ruminating.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

It's showing the anxious response that I will get up and get on with my day like non-anxious Josh. I'm not running away from the feeling. I just get up and do the basic things like Drew. And I'd even simulate it. I wasn't hungry, but I'd simulate, I'd pour myself a little coffee and some cornflakes, a slice of bread, whatever, and I'd and I go through the motions to show the brain that you know this isn't scary anymore.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

And it does work. It really did. And so that led to me like I would do a lot of my exposure work first thing in the morning. Actually, when I wrote The Anxious Truth, I actually called it the morning effect. I might have invented that. I don't know. I should maybe trademark it. But I I would do those things first thing in the morning, and it would be like, this is what the morning's gonna look like. I'm gonna be nervous and afraid and feel like shit when I wake up, and then I'm gonna go do things to intentionally make myself even more afraid. But then by the when I was done with those things, the day was much better. Not great. I still had anxiety, I would still panic through the rest of the day sometimes, but that's I had accomplished something, I had shown myself capable, and it really set the stage as opposed to laying there for two hours and dreading that I had to do exposures or dreading that I had to make a phone call, or oh my god, maybe even go to the office, which was like out of the question. I just got up and went right at it then. Here you go, I'm gonna go do the things now.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

So that shift in attitude because you knew, but but that that that shift in attitude is nice when you start to see the fruits of your labor.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yes. I would feel better. I sometimes I'd walk back in the door an hour later. I would literally drive, we'll do that another day, but I would spend an hour, an hour and a half driving around in a three-mile radius of my house, which is ridiculous to me now, but that's what I had to do. And I would be anxious and I'd walk back in the door just knackered. I was tired from doing it because it takes a lot out of you, but I felt great. I was anxious, afraid, tired, but felt great. Does that make any sense?

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Yeah, tired and unburdened.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Yes, yeah. It was like a it felt like a good tired.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

I don't know if that makes any sense, but yeah, no, yeah, like like you would after a good workout or something. It's pretty very similar, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah, like I had earned, like I earned this tired, man. I was working hard for myself.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

So anyway, yeah, and and that's that's um compassionate as well, isn't it? It's like I earn this tiredness, you know. I did I did a tricky thing, yeah. But if you're someone who's very self-critical, be like, oh, I've still got this, you know, everyone else. No, it's okay. You know, like you can it's good, it's good that you've done that. Um people wake up, people with kind of conventional anxiety wake up, by the way. You can't remember that they wake up with anxiety, uh, they'll worry maybe outwards about they're worried about work, they're worried about the day ahead, they're worried about failure, the worry that if their car might not start. Drew, what's the difference?

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Well, it's it's funny that you bring that up, Josh, because I think I I I don't know if I've told the story on this podcast before, but in one of those mornings, I was there's a little dairy store that's literally around the corner from you could drive there in 60 seconds. And I was sitting in the parking lot because that was my goal for today. I'm gonna sit in the parking lot of this shop for five minutes and then I'm gonna go. That was my exposure. And a woman pulled up next to me, and she got out of her car at 7:30 in the morning, and she looked like she had been dragged through the night. Apologies, ma'am, if you're listening by some crazy coincidence. But she clearly had a hard night. She looked like she was exhausted, she looked like she was done. She dragged herself out of her car, went into the dairy shop, came out with her bag of whatever and a cup of coffee. And I looked at her and thought, she probably feels just as crappy as I do right now. She's just not turning it into an emergency. What a moment that was for me. How do they treat it differently? You know, what's the difference? They don't treat it like an emergency. That woman taught me something that day, and she hasn't I don't know who she is. She has no idea either. No idea.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

If you're listening and you are the most the most unassuming, grim, stale morning, of course. Going to work was very inspirational for you.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

For me, it was a real moment where I looked and said, She probably feels every bit as crappy as I do. She's just not calling it an emergency like I am.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

It's it is the only difference is the content, isn't it? And how we interact with it.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

You know, if some people they like to remain and they will ruminate, even people with conventional anxiety will ruminate. So no, what if my boss doesn't like me? So they'll play out scenarios in their head or whatever, and this is the kind of thing, or or whatever. Uh, and so some people with a fear, a misinterpretation of fear, they'll be like, Well, I'm gonna worry about just the impact, my my relationship with the fear itself, but physiologically, the same thing's happening, yeah, and that's why I love that story with Drew and stuff. He probably sat there with you know loads of cortisol on on board and same stress chemicals and whatever, but just the the interpretation and the association was different.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah, she was dragging for sure, and it showed, but like I was thankful for that in that moment. Like, I hope she had a better day, but in the end, I did learn something from that. So, yeah, I think that is the difference. You know, you mentioned before we get on to maybe night anxiety, too. You mentioned the cortisol thing. I went down the rabbit hole, especially that pre-anxious me was a bit of a gym rat and then recovered me, became a gym rat again. And so I had a bit of a vested interest in some of that stuff, and I was like, Oh, I gotta control my cortisol levels. That's the problem here. I have too much cortisol. And that oh, that was that was impossible. I was trying to regulate a thing that was not designed for me to regulate at all. Now, I will always acknowledge that some people do have actual endocrine problems, and that does need to be managed, and there are physiological conditions that cause that, but I didn't have that. I didn't have that yet at the time, you know, some of the You weren't required to intervene. No, and and I couldn't if I wanted to. There was nothing wrong with my endocrine system, but yet somehow for a while I thought I would try to control it, and that was a folly that was that was really interesting as well.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

It works, and uh yeah, just kind of trying to get involved with with stuff, and also just be very careful as well. Just a side note, what if you're on social media and stuff a lot, just be just take the word nervous system regulators very um with a large pinch of salt, doesn't actually mean anything, and you're not actually in charge really of your nervous system. You can affect it with your behaviour, and if you've got a chronic illness and stuff like that, then yeah, yeah, you do need to step in, you know. If you're steroid dependent, you need to take steroids, sure, you know, uh and things like that. Um, but in general, I'm talking about the wellness sphere, the you know, regulate your nervous systems in order to banish anxiety forever. And it's interesting is that I see a lot of this, and yet it's the same people just signing up for the same thing over and over and over again. What we're saying is that you can do it. Um and hopefully you get to a stage where you don't have to listen to morons like us talk, and you can actually, you know, advocate for yourself, you know, and and do those things. Anyway, Drew. Should we move on to the let's move on to you know sunset's hit, the vampires have come out, Salem's lot is pumping. What do we do about nighttime anxiety?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Well, I will tie it into morning anxiety with my own personal. We're doing a lot of self-disclosure here, but I guess it's okay. Uh to me, my my evenings, I didn't have serious evening anxiety or night anxiety other than when it was time to go to bed and I knew like here we go, I'm not gonna sleep, and uh it's gonna be best. But anyway, when I would get to the night times, if I started my day with an hour and a half of laying in bed, ruminating, trying to fix myself internally, being totally focused and entirely engaged with how I felt, when I got to the end of the day, I would almost every day really beat up on myself a little bit for wasting another day. It was another day, another day lost, another day lost, and it would feel terrible. And I would like turn on the TV and numb out in front of whatever or you know, whatever was available to me at the time. And it would feel like I was running and hiding. When I would get up in the morning and sort of attack my morning anxiety or move through it, by the time I got to the end of the day, I was really tired, but it was a good tired, and I felt like I at least accomplished something, something. So that's my transition to the night. But in the end, when I would get anxious at night, I just had to learn to let it be there. And we always come back to the same things, but um, you know, that whole like feeling really anxious when you're falling asleep, there was nothing I could do about it.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Yeah, and and and with your threat responses going off in the morning or the evening, so sometimes it can just become a thing. It did for me. Uh, I had periods in my life where the morning anxiety was the thing, and then I've had periods where the evening anxiety was the thing, and obviously when both or all day anxiety becomes a thing. Um, nighttime anxiety is yeah, usually when you're not distracted, and you'll notice this when you're when you're absorbed in something or when you're busy, you're less anxious because your focus isn't focusing on threat. You know, you you're the brain's kind of gone, all right. Well, we'll use our resources to help you with this task, whatever it is you're doing in front of you.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Sometimes at night, when we if we have day jobs or this and that, or um, if you're a parent, you've got to put your kids to bed or whatever, um, you'll find that you often have some time for yourself. And for some anxious people, that's where they kind of dis Yeah, they're like, oh my god, uh, and then they go inwards. Yep. So for me, that's what happened to me. I used to do that. It was weird because I go to work and feel okay when I was distracted, but then in the evening it'd be like, Oh, that's when it comes. I can feel the simmering anxiety, and then nighttime people are a bit different because you always you hear these common worries like people with sleep anxiety, which we'll do an episode on, you know. Oh, what if I don't get enough sleep tonight? What if this happens? Um what if I'm sit with myself and have to experience the sensations and the scary thoughts? Um, you know, I I'm afraid of being bored because I'm afraid of how I'll feel. Um, or it's just become a thing. Oh, it's nighttime now. And I've heard this a lot in this practice. It's nighttime now, the sun's gone down. It's something to do with the darkness that makes me feel anxious because it's just become a thing. Yeah, the darkness isn't making you anxious. You you've just attached unnecessary symbolism to it.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah, because I did you ever do any of that?

SPEAKER_02 25:23

I used to a little bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's winter, so therefore I'm gonna be more anxious. It's like, well, no, I've just associated that probably because I've spent lots of nights up worrying about my anxiety, and so the nighttime reminds me of my anxiety. Well, here's a chance to turn winter into a yeah, something different. Yeah, something different, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah, I get no, I've I have definitely heard that. It's you know, it's the night. I've heard people invoke the sundowner syndrome, which is the thing that is talked about with people who have Alzheimer's and dementia. Like, yeah, that's a thing in that population, unfortunately, but that has nothing to do with, you know, oh, it's sundown syndrome. No, no, it's not that. But um Yeah, you just you know, you're anxious at night, so you decided to attach, you know, some fear to the sun going down. I remember for me, that quiet time, I would I would find ways to distract myself at night, you know, videos or whatever. I'd watch TV or watch a hockey game or something, and it kept my mind busy enough so that I didn't have a lot of, I would just have that like that simmering anxiety of like another day wasted, another day wasted, and bedtime is coming soon, and that sucked. When I would go to bed and it was quiet and dark, and that's it, there's nothing else to distract you, so I would feel my heart pounding against my spine, and I would feel the tingles, and I like why is my toe feeling numb now? And I would do all of that crazy stuff. But interestingly, I always tell the story about how my doctor would give me Xanax, benzotiazepine, 90 of them, and I would throw away 89 of them a year later because I was a stubborn ass. But one night I got so fed up with feeling the symptoms that I got so angry. I got out of bed, I stormed into the kitchen furious at this because all I wanted to do was have a normal go-to-bed. And I went for the Xanax and went to cut it in quarters, quarters, like it's gonna do anything for me. I'm not a little guy. I was so angry that in the couple of minutes it took me to do that, I discovered, oh, wait, I don't feel my heart. Because I was so too involved being angry than being afraid. What a weapon that was.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

It was around 11:30, midnight. I was in my kitchen by myself, and I was like, Well, you get a look at this. Like, I was so angry that I didn't feel my heart. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, I'm going to bed. And I did not take the that wasn't an achievement to not take the pill, by the way. It was just such a moment of realizing, oh, when I'm really quiet, I tend to go inward.

unknown 27:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

So yeah. When I'm really for me, that was why evening anxiety. That's why when when I was I was signed off work uh when I had morning anxiety, and when I went back to work, it actually really helped me. You know, no, don't get me wrong, there's no shame or a stigma attached to that. If you're off work because of how you feel, you know, you'll get there and you'll get to a good place. You you need that time, obviously, for you. Yeah. But when I felt ready to go back to work, I noticed that my morning started to feel a lot better because I'd wake up and have something I needed to do. Eat, put my clothes on, shade, brush my teeth, do all these things. Um it was a different approach for me for nighttime anxiety. It was more like well, this will hit here tonight, but that's okay. I'm gonna do what non-anxious Josh would do. Well, that would require me, I don't know, putting on a show. Now as I'm watching TV, am I gonna be fully engaged with that program? Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Is that okay? Yes. Previous me would have gone, oh my god, I can't even concentrate. Oh my god, what is this? I'm not, I don't feel like me. Am I going crazy? Is this you know, is this gonna be me forever? I can't even enjoy a show that I used to like. No, I'm not gonna do that, and Craig the Craig can get lost. Instead, it was like, well, yeah, my threat response is going off. Evening anxiety is has become a thing. And now I'm gonna show the amygdala my threat response that actually it's not a thing. So I wouldn't go through the motions, I'd watch a show and and and it would be difficult to engage, but by the end of the show, I I would engage with a lot of it, yeah, you know, um, and stuff like that. And it I wasn't doing it to uh compulsively distract, but I was kind of distracting, it's just forming a new habit in the evening, you know, just what is what just form a new habit that isn't inwards focus attention, yeah, you know, because uh Drew and I talk a lot on the message the other day, isn't it? It's like how much of disorder anxiety, whether it's OCD, panic, health anxiety, social anxiety, whatever, how much of it is just like like an internal focus syndrome, isn't it? It's just like anything that it's okay to leave it alone. And for me, that's what helped me both in morning and night anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Yeah, that oh yeah, that internal focus drives everything. It's so funny because in my coursework that I'm doing in my master's program, it's like, oh well, anxiety disorders are linked really with high degrees of neuroticism. Like you think like that internal focus, is that news? Like, did you need to publish a study to tell me that? But like I could have told you that. I would have saved you a lot of money. Warning anxiety can be an exercise in learning to engage where you think you can't or you shouldn't, because you should be inward. And and I think in the end, night anxiety in a lot of ways is an exercise in almost the opposite, just allowing things to be there when you don't have things to engage with, or minimal things, like watching a show or reading a book. The it's a slower, you know, for most of us, let's work the night shift. The nights are slower, there's less activity, there just is. So now you practice being slower and quieter with your anxiety. That's okay, you gotta learn all of the ways. So that matters, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

I think it's important to a question I get a lot is like, how do I deal with nocturnal panic attacks? They seem they happen out of the blue, you know, they wake me up from my sleep. I'm not even consciously doing it. It's not a result of my compulsive scanning stuff like that. We'll include that because that is kind of nighttime anxiety, isn't it? And um I still get nocturnal adrenaline rushes in the middle of the night. I don't even call them panic attacks. And yeah, for a few seconds there is fright. And then I sudden I managed to kind of address that secondary fear pretty quickly because it's happened so much. It's like, oh, it's one of those things. Um, I don't know what it was. Maybe it was a bad dream, maybe I've eaten too late. That's usually when it happens, uh, or whatever. Does it stop me from snacking late at night, though? Nope. You know, I like late-night snacking, and if if if if the if the the price of that is, you know, a nocturnal panic attack now, and then they'll take that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will, you know, like rather than you must cut out gluten and cheese and wine and all this stuff before bed because that may lead to panic attacks. Well, that's not what we subscribe to. We're like, well, if we panic, we panic. Yeah, you know. Um, yeah, I've got it down to like I think I've got it down to like a minute and a half. Like of a nocturnal adrenaline rush. I literally bolt up in bed, sweating. I I feel like I can't breathe. My heart's not only pounding, but skipping. So I'm like, oh my god, this is my heart's going. And then I there's a part of me that just goes, Oh, it's one of those things again. And I've got it down to about 90 seconds where I lie back down and almost fall back sleeping. And I was like, Yeah, sometimes I'll just go back to sleep. I'm like, wow. Whereas I used to be, oh, if I had one of them, I'd be up all night all night. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

No, I get that. I totally get that. And you know, it's funny because when you say that, and that's not an I mean, listen, I'm not, I'm not sleeping with Josh, contrary to what some people think. So I can't I can't verify his minute and a half. But I would I would say that I have had the same same exact experiences.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

A lot of people can verify my minute and a half.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

But uh in the end, that is true. Now, maybe the physiological effects are still there. You know, that adrenaline is not gonna dissipate in a minute and a half, but the fear of it can go away in a minute and a half. And I always lately have been defining a recovered state more on like the shortening of the time between oh my god and oh well. So like you bolt up right with oh my god, like everybody's gonna always have the oh my god, even at three o'clock in the morning in a nocturnal panic attack.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

The oh my god, oh well, yeah, that's that's kind of what happens, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Everybody at three o'clock in the morning that has a panic attack will have oh my god, like there's it's it's really scary and it'll bolt you out of bed, and like what the hell was going on here, tricky.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

And it's important to say that we still get those now and then feel fairly, but they're but they will happen. Sure. But like and again, we if you've not heard the attitudinal shift episode, so important. It it you having the panic attack is not a sign of something going wrong, right? You know, it's probably a sign that you've been a bit stressed recently and stuff like that, and go easy on yourself and whatnot. Sometimes you can just have a bad dream that you don't know, right? It just happens, you really don't know. Like I could have had a nightmare about being taken to a hockey game by Drew, and that I would wake up with sweats and uh confusion uh and on whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Yeah, never want to see ice ever again.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

I get why are they hitting each other? What are they doing?

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Yeah, I get it. I think a lot of people though, uh the nocturnal panic attack thing, they treat it as special as if it needs a special method or special technique. And really the only difference between the knock the panic attack at 3 a.m. and the panic attack at 3 a.m. is it's dark at 3 a.m. Like I know that's facetious and a little bit slippant, but but it's true if you treat it that way.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

It's really important to realize as well as don't make it a thing as well. Like it it an adrenaline rush and a threat response at midday is the same adrenaline rush and threat response at 3 a.m. Yeah. None one is not more special than the other. But remember your threat response is always monitoring and watching your what you're doing. So a lot of people do well with their macro avoidances. You know, if I avoid stuff, it makes my anxiety worse. But look at your little micro avoidances, look at your little safety behaviors before you go to bed. So, like Drew mentioned before, if you're there with you know the binaural beats and the and the lavender oil, don't get me wrong, I I I like that stuff, but I don't do it to get rid of anxiety. I just do it because it's nice, uh or just relaxing, it's anti-stress.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

But if you're doing it like, oh no, I must have this ritual so I don't have nocturnal panic attacks or adrenaline rushes, then you're actually signaling to the brain that this is something that we need to protect ourselves from. Yep. You don't need to protect yourself from nocturnal um adrenaline rushes. You don't. They're not dangerous, they're just uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Yeah, that you're right. I think that message down to Mr. Lizard brain is here come six hours from you know midnight to six a.m. We better be on guard. I'm gonna fall asleep here, but you better be you're gonna sit guard duty, right? You're gonna you're gonna stay.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Yeah, yeah, you are. You're literally saying that. Yeah, like like like like rather than just face planting the bed and just like whatever, if I sleep, I sleep, I don't, I don't, whatever. You're like, no, like this rigid routine is here now. I've not eaten past 6 p.m. I've had my CBD oil and my and my uh calming music and meditation, whatnot. Again, don't I do that for bed? I love it. I I love my Shakti Mat. You use one of them. Absolutely. Right now, I'm gonna have to Google that now. Oh, it's the acupuncture mat thing. It's proper nice. I just die, I like it because it just relaxes my back. I don't do it to stop panic attacks and whatnot. Uh, I just do it because it's relaxing. Anyway, I digress. Um, if you're a promoter of Shakti Mats and you would like to pay for the next episode, just throw it, throw it out there. I just throw it out there.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Don't worry that one co so co-host has to Google you. It's don't let that sway you. That's right, it's a check.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

Yeah, absolutely. Um, but in general, that's um that's what I do before. It's okay to relax the stress. This is what I say. It's okay to relax the stress and address a stressful day, but if you're doing preemptive measures to stop anxiety and panic in the night because you fear it, that's where you're stepping away from this willful tolerance that we always say is the way through.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Yeah, and if you if the panic attack at three in the morning, I understand it's jarring and jolting and scary, but if you if you take that panic attack and decide, I have to figure this out, I have to know, I have to figure out why and solve it. You it it's gonna be hard to get past those. Just treat it like it's yeah, it sucks, don't like it. But the more I can just kind of learn to go through it, the better that's gonna get. So that's great.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

That's what it is. Good, good chat about morning and night anxiety. Any questions or did it anyways, Drew? I think we got a good one, didn't we? Um we have a good did it anyway. We got it sent through on the website. But we we see these by the way, if you message on disordered.fm. Um and the voicemail functions great. Yeah, it's so good. We actually we had a voicemail, um, we were pocket dialed voicemail the other day. Someone just arguing in the front room. We were like, let's potentially not play that.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Yeah, we might want to not want to do that. And by the way, if you decide to send us voicemail on the site, we're not gonna automatically play your, we don't just play them on the air. So if you can say play it on the air if you want, and then we can do that. But yeah, you know, if you give us permission, but we'll just listen to them and then try to answer the question. So it's safe to do that, even if you're nervous. We might be the only people that he, but we might answer your question. So this did it anyway, and I'm not gonna say the names until you unless you tell us to say your name, we're never gonna do it. Um, but this person says, this one is a little different. I actually took days off from the gym after many months of no days off. Obviously, working out is great for your physical and mental well-being, but I would start to get anxious when there was a chance that I wouldn't be able to go. So I started to plan my entire days around getting to the gym to the point of not traveling unless there was a gym at the hotel. I came to the conclusion that I would have to take days off or limit my visits for a period of time and just have the anxiety. As always, it was not as bad as anticipated. That's a huge did it anyway.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

I love that. That's absolutely where's the where's the studio audience? What do you think of that?

SPEAKER_01 39:24

I didn't label that one, but let's take a chance. Nope.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

That's our music.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

You guys, if you were paying for disorder, you would be justified in asking for your money back just on the production phase.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Yeah, well, it's that's that I love that. The theme music was made it sound more inspirational. I love that. Well done for doing that. You've identified that the gym was a safety compulsion for you. You've identified that actually gym's healthy for your wellness and stuff. Yeah, but when you it's become a crutch and a safety of behavior because you don't want to experience anxiety. Um, I think it's magnificent that you've identified that. And the exposure started when you chose not to go. Yeah, you know, um, go because for your wellness, don't go to because of your phobia. Oh, that's superb. Well done. Honestly, two fronts.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

I think developing that insight, huge win, and then actually following through and using that to inform a different action. I can't love this anymore. That was great.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

I said I said the question at the start of the episode, and just aware of time and uh the one about in a way stop ruminating at night. So I hope that we've answered that for you.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Well, should we talk about rumination for just a second to try and answer her question a little bit more before we do a rumination episode? I think yeah, I the way I would, I would, I meant to say it in the beginning too, and I forgot. But um the ways to stop ruminating, yes, we talked about night. If you if you disengage from that process, it will feel really wrong, like you are abandoning some sort of thing that keeps you safe or solves problems. So, as always, you're gonna have to try to find ways to disengage with that. And the win is in the in the repetitive practice of turning away from it. You'll get stuck back in. You're gonna start ruminating again in five minutes. That's okay. That you're gonna that's gonna happen. But then, oh, I'm doing it again. Let me let me adjust again. That's your win. If you have to do it a hundred times before you fall asleep, do that. Even though it feels like this is so irresponsible. I gotta solve this problem in my head.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

The win is in the repetitive practice of turning away from that.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

I love that. It sure is. That's a team. I'm gonna write that down. Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

It is the win is in the repetitive. Love that. Thanks for tuning in, guys. We'll be back soon with uh with another episode. Um uh I know Drew puts it in the end notes, but um, wherever you listen, if you give us a rating and review, preferably a nice one, but you know, be honest. And uh yeah, um we're happy to answer your questions and stuff, and uh come follow us on social media as well at The Anxious Truth or Anxiety Josh.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

Um, yeah. Stay safe, keep well, and we'll catch you next time. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Hey, it's Drew. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Disordered. Josh and I both hope that you're finding it helpful in some way. For more information about Josh or me or the Disordered Podcast, find us on the web at disordered.fm. That's disordered.fm. Hop on over and find links to our social media platforms, join our mailing list so we can let you know when new podcast episodes are available, and we'll send you easy ways to ask us questions and share your wins so we can answer questions on the air and share your successes with the community. And if you're listening to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any platform that lets you rate a review, do us a favor and leave us a five-star rating and maybe write a review if you're digging disordered. It really helps us out and we appreciate that. Thanks again for coming by, and we'll see you in the next episode.