Waking Up Anxious? Here's What Helps

If you wake up already anxious — your mind racing, your body on high alert, or feeling as though you simply can’t face the day — this talk is for you. Discover four practical ways to understand what morning anxiety is telling you, stop automatically believing its messages, and give your body a different experience. You don’t have to get rid of anxiety before you can begin your day — you can recover a sense of movement, choice and possibility, one simple step at a time.
You can also listen to. my tracks "A Steady Start", "Antidote For Morning Anxiety" and my talk "Help For Morning Anxiety".

Transcript

If you're someone who often wakes up anxious, As so many people do, Firstly, You're not alone. And secondly, In this talk, I'm going to offer you some things that really address this. Four different things. And you may have listened to my talk, Help for Morning Anxiety. That's a talk I recorded a long time ago, And it's helped a lot of people. I've had a lot of reaction to it. And I thought it was worth offering more on this topic because I hear from people all the time who really grapple with the problem of waking up with a real sense of dread in their body and a feeling that they just can't meet the day with the energy that they have. It's overwhelming. I'm also working on offering you a course on this with daily practices to explore. So if you do listen to this talk, Perhaps you could let me know if any of the things I've mentioned spark questions in you or resonate with you, Or you'd like a little bit more on them. And that will help me as I curate the content of the course. Morning anxiety is something very close to my heart, Not just as something I want to offer help with professionally, But because in the past it's something that I've really suffered with as well. And during the time I was experiencing it, I really believed it was going to be something I'd have to continue for the rest of my life living with. And I didn't know how I was going to cope with that. So I put a lot of time and effort into this. Discovering what was really going on, Understanding it and helping myself. And so much has changed as a result of that. And with my professional knowledge and my lived experience, I really do think there's something here that I want to share with you so that you can know too, This isn't something you have to live with forever. Sometimes it's just a season of our life and it's asking us for something, Not telling us something. So let's get into it. It. The first thing, Even using the expression fresh and morning anxiety, That I want to say is that that is such a sweeping term because there isn't one single experience of it. And I want to speak to you without knowing your particular experience as someone who might be having any one of a variety of experiences of it. Your morning anxiety might look nothing like somebody else's. For some of us, It creates a feeling of acceleration. So we wake up and we feel immediately behind, Like our mind is already racing through the day, Thinking of 10 things that need doing, 100 problems that need solving, Everything feels urgent and everything seems to demand our attention right now. That's overwhelming. And it can make us feel like we have to just leap out of bed, Rush into the day, Doing and checking and fixing. Before we're even really feeling in our own body or what's important to us or what we're really being guided to do. But for other people or at other times, It's almost the complete opposite. It's paralysis. Like you really just a frozen and you can't get out of bed because the day feels too big to enter and staying under the covers means you postpone getting up and therefore you postpone meeting the world. And of course we know that staying there isn't really helping, But moving can feel extraordinarily difficult, Like there's actually an invisible force pinning us down. And of course, We can move between all of these. There isn't a cookie-cutter version of morning anxiety or anything else, And so there can't be a cookie-cutter response to it. But I think a really useful distinction to make is that the aim isn't to do everything I suggest, It's to understand what your particular anxiety is asking you to do. And whether following the instruction it seems to be doing, Giving you, Is actually helping you. Because anxious instructions are not necessarily the wisest ones. Anxious instructions can sound like hurry up, Get up, Fix everything, Prove yourself, Do everything and do it perfectly and do it fast. It can feel like. . . Don't move. Stay here. You can't cope with this day ahead. And in both those cases, It's presenting its message as an urgent truth. When those things aren't true at all, We don't know what the day ahead is going to hold. We can make it a better day, An easier day, A day we want to be in and take part in. And over the years, As I say, Both through my own experience and through teaching and working with others and my training, The best help that I've found doesn't involve one perfect morning routine. It involves four things and I'm going to tell you about those four things now. Briefly. The four things are, One, Understand what anxiety is telling you, Decipher its message, Rather than just following blindly what it says. 2. Stop automatically believing its messages. Three, Give your body different experiences than the experiences your body has when it's anxious. And don't wait for anxiety to go away before you offer these experiences, Because these are the experiences that are going to shift your state from anxiety. And four, Recover movement, Recover choice, And recover possibility. So first of all, Number one, Understand what anxiety is really telling you. So we may think we know what it's telling us and create a story around that. That makes us more anxious, Right? What's really happening is you are having feelings, Sensations in your body of a raised alarm system, An activated or dysregulated system, Right? And we have to separate the sensations in our body from the meaning our mind might give those sensations. We are the meaning bestowers as people. We feel something and we make a meaning of it, Right? Not a truth. You can impose any meaning on anything, Doesn't make it true. Then you can deeply invest in that meaning and believe it and continue to feel that it's true. And continue to feel the sensations that accompany those beliefs. It's very automatic to believe a body's message, But we also have the chance to watch what's automatically happening and learn to take a step back. To feeling the physical sensations, Understanding them as uncomfortable. But knowing they're not a harmful response. You're not going to come to any harm because you're feeling anxious. You're not going to come to any harm just because your heart might be pounding or your muscles tensing or your gut is all churned up. Or because there's this horrible feeling of dread. These are feelings. And what the feelings are really telling you is that your body in this moment is having an anxiety response. Just one of many. Menu responses the human body can and does have. Every single one of us has a body that can and does have an anxiety response. And it can have that response without anything being wrong or any danger being present. So here are some of the reasons that you can have an anxiety response upon waking. Waking naturally involves increased physiological activation. It's not the restful, Peaceful state of sleep. And so one of the things is you have a cortisol spike. To help you wake up. Cortisol awakening response. You might have to add to this that you have a general susceptibility to anxiety. Some people just do. It's in their personality. Or some people, For some of us, That's because of the ways we've related to things that have happened to us as our nervous system is forming, Deciding what's safe and what's not safe to feel, To be, To do, To be in an environment with. Very commonly, There are things going on in our lives that cause stress to build up. And when stress isn't processed in the day, Or with enough rest and relaxation, It does build up. And it can build up to the point of overwhelm and then it naturally needs to find a way to show itself to you. And those times that it shows itself to you are often the quiet times. Quiet of the night, The start of the day, The kind of seemingly quiet empty spaces. If you're vulnerable to morning anxiety. Your body can wake up with a rush of activation. And your mind can interpret that as something's wrong, Something bad is coming, I can't cope. What your body is saying, I need to de-stress. I have a buildup of stress. I have a cortisol peak. I'm activated. That's all. So again, The first message is to understand what anxiety is really telling you. The cortisol awakening response is a normal rise in cortisol around waking, And for someone prone to morning anxiety, That natural activated state can feel like an alarm. So rather than telling you I am anxious because something is wrong, What could your anxiety's message be? Could it be my body is activated? That's different from being in danger. There is energy here. And we don't know what this day is going to be yet. So there's this separation we make between the sensations. The activated state and the reality. Of how the day might be. These feelings you're having don't know what kind of a day you're going to have. No one knows. They have no idea. So we need practices to decatastrophize that cortisol response. And separating the cortisol response from stories you might develop in your mind is really important. So before analyzing anything, You want to really feel your body having its experience. And that means it can stay anxious. You're letting the sensations be sensations before they become conclusions. Perhaps nothing's gone wrong. Or will go wrong. Perhaps your body has simply woken up with a lot of energy moving through it. And we want to be compassionate because this is valid. This is human. There are reasons for this. And compassion brings a presence. It brings a bit of warmth in and it brings space from what's happening. The kind of grounding and relief that the non-judging empathy of a good friend gives you. It's okay to feel this. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or anything wrong. Many humans feel this and indeed are feeling it alongside you right now, Even though you'll never meet them. So the tiny practice here. . . For a few moments, Let activation simply be activation. You don't have to give it a meaning yet. You don't have to take instructions from this feeling. And although anxiety can feel urgent and authoritative, Very often it is neither. Could say to yourself as you feel your solid bed. As you flex your solid ankles to feel your muscles in your legs switch on. These feelings don't know what the day will bring. I don't know what the day will bring. Including all the good things. You can have a note on your bedside table to pick up and remind you. You could choose the morning meditation that helps. Remember, You get to be the author of today. You get to write the story of today. Hasn't happened yet. Can you ask yourself to let the day be the actual day? Not a negative prophecy about the day and to let yourself feel what you feel. So much more likely for those feelings to settle when you approach in that way instead of adding catastrophic thoughts. Number two, Stop automatically believing morning anxieties messages. Morning anxiety can be incredibly convincing when it says things like, I can't cope with today, Something's wrong, Or something's going to go wrong, Or I need to worry about a lot of things right now and try and solve them or fix them. I'll make sure I don't take my eye off the ball. Or even reviewing the past. It's such a fascinating, Anxious brain process that says, I feel bad, Therefore there must be something bad to think about. We really want to notice that that's what's happening. And of course, Once you go hunting for what could be wrong or what could go wrong, You can come up with 99 problems from the past, Present and future that are only going to reinforce your body's detection of danger. So what you really need to do is disrupt that pattern. And therefore disarm the danger detector so you don't have to feel anxious anymore. So instead of arguing with those thoughts or trying to replace them with unrealistically positive ones, You just stop treating them as instructions or predictions. What if you're allowed to wait for reality to arrive before building a response or defense to it? So we often get this anticipatory anxiety, This sense of dread that kind of triggers our mind to look for the worst possible scenarios the day may bring. It's like, I feel dread, So what am I dreading? So when you notice your thoughts going in that direction, Step in and redirect them like you're redirecting traffic, Right? And use the facts. You don't in this moment have to live the whole day. You don't have to solve the day before it's begun or before you've entered it. There is no need to review your life from your pillow. It's not going to do anything. Especially if you want to stop feeling anxious, Which most of us do. The meeting you might be worried about isn't happening in this bed. You're allowed to wait for reality to arrive before responding to it. And you can practice when you notice your mind searching for something to attach this feeling to. Remind yourself you don't have to help it find that meaning. You can reduce the horizon to this minute, Your body on this surface. This room you're in this movement you might be doing. We'll get into that. You can say, If an anxious thought comes, That's what my anxiety is telling me, But I really don't know yet. I don't know yet. You could say that to every thought. That, I don't know yet, Opens so much space. And another space opener I like is, For me is, Um. . . I can decide. I don't have to decide now. I can decide how to meet this. But I don't have to decide now. There will be a way. I say to myself, There'll be a way. There'll be a way. But we're not thinking about that now. This open space for me. There'll be a way. I don't know yet. I know there will be a way. So you don't have to get rid of this feeling even before you begin your day. You're simply giving your body a little company. While it finds its way into the morning. You're not even trying to make yourself feel calm. You're feeling the mattress underneath you. Feeling the warmth maybe that's around you Maybe you're looking around your room at some very ordinary objects and letting your body receive the very ordinary message, I'm here. Morning is here. That's all we know so far. So our third. . . Thing to bring in. This is an important one, Is to give your body a different felt experience or some different felt experiences than you usually do. Often we try to think ourselves into feeling safe and then we kind of make it worse because we can argue against every thought we have. What the body wants to feel is not something you can tell the body, It's something the body knows how to feel already, Which is sensory information. Your body is designed to feel sensory information, Felt-sense things. How about giving your body some sensory information that helps your body feel more here, More supported, More comforted, Which is what it wants to feel, Right? Feel how your weight is being supported. Underneath your sitting bones or your spine, Like which points of you are connecting. To your mattress or to your chair. Really feel that and maybe press your heels into the mattress where they are. Flex your toes. Rub your hands together. Place your hand somewhere comforting. On something solid or have some weight against you, That feels good. Look around the space you're in and find something familiar or even something nice. Those flowers, That photograph, That inspirational quote, That drawing someone did for you, That gift. The sunshine coming through the curtains. Let that touch your spirit. And then you can stretch. Feeling the muscles of your body awakening in their own time. And you're giving your body experiences other than anxious ones to register. If we keep doing that, Each day your body will begin to expect to feel better. It's discovering that anxiety isn't the only available sensation. That warm blanket is also true. That solid mattress is also true. The good things around you and your environment. The flowers, The photographs, They are true and here and in your life. The pleasure of stretching. That's also true. And then our fourth thing is about recovering movement, Choice, And possibility. And I'll just do a little recap of the other three things before we get to that final thing. So, Remembering, We've looked at the first thing, Understand what anxiety is telling you. The second thing, Stop automatically believing its messages and its bad news. Three, Give your body different felt experiences. The fourth one is to recover movement, Choice and possibility. So. For some people, At some times, The feeling of anxious urgency on waking really comes with that urgency, Makes them need to get up and rush into the day before they feel properly grounded and stable. And that can mean the day is driven by that, That feeling of rushing and urgency and nervous system activation. And then for others, There's that feeling of needing to hide under the duvet, That freeze response. So, If you're in that acceleration, That first one, And there's no shame in either of these very human responses. There's no shame, But there's information that we need to change a pattern. So if you're an accelerated person, You know, Someone who has to race into their day, And you're really spinning and you may burn out really easily and you don't have time to process your inner feelings or this buildup of stress and wear and tear in your body, The real practice for you is to give yourself the choice and the chance to linger a little longer and steady yourself and ground your body so that it shifts into more of a state of, I've got this, I'm present enough I don't have to run away from myself and into the day. I can take the day at my own pace. Can live alongside the day and in it, You know. It's not pulling me along or I'm not like a person being pursued. I've got this, I'm present, I'm here. And people with accelerated states might actually need permission not to obey urgency. Everything does not need your attention at once. Feel your weight. Press down. Feel the bird. Hold something and feel what you're holding. Stroke or tap the outline of your body. Your container where you live. To feel here. All those ways to give your body solidity and containment. And being able to say, Everything doesn't need my attention at once. I don't have to do everything. All at once. And then for the person who feels more frozen and stuck. The permission is to find, Is to gently start to thaw that response in a way that's not overwhelming. I can mobilize. I can take one thing at a time according to my pace and my energy today. Often if we're someone whose anxiety is more paralyzing. It may be saying to us, Don't move until you feel better. But waiting to feel ready can sometimes strengthen the sense. That I can't get up, I can't face today, I'm not ready. So what you need to know is you don't need to feel ready before you make one small movement. You can move and not feel ready. And you have to. It's the best way forward. You can wiggle something. You can wriggle and wiggle some part of you. Sparkling fingers, Toes. You can press down. Stretch up. Rub your palms together. Push against the mattress. Start to rock and sway a bit. Open and close your fingers. So you're opening your palm and then closing it, Feeling your body, Having this experience of moving and having capacity to move and change the way it's moving. And in both cases, We're letting our body psyche know that we don't have to wait until the anxiety is gone to begin our day. And we can choose to begin our day the way we want to, Not the way this anxiety is telling us to. And you can explore this for yourself, This recovering movement. It's a very powerful way of informing your body, I have choice here. I'm not being pushed along nor pinned down. I can move my own body the way I need to. I can move in my own body. And then, It's a nice little morning mindful ritual for putting our feet on the ground in a way that feels steady, Settled, Solid, And more ready. To do this. In by gently moving your toes. And stretch your legs. Stretch another leg. And then bend your knees and roll over onto your side. Press a hand into the mattress. Come to sitting in some way. Place your feet on the floor. Push down. You're not facing the whole day, You're just putting your feet on the floor. And then you can give yourself even more choice because anxiety creates must and can't and have to and what if. Bring back the agency. What is one thing I can choose right now? What would I like next? To take a shower? To make a cup of tea? Do you want the curtains open? Make your bed. Do you want to put some music on or have quiet? Would you like to go for even the smallest walk? Do you want to be outside or inside? Tiny ordinary choices restore something that anxiety temporarily steals. The felt sense that you have agency. You have power. And then leave some room for the day to surprise you. Now you can gently turn toward all the goodness that wants to reach you today without having to use any forced positivity. You haven't lived this day yet. There are conversations you've not had, Things you've not seen, Pleasures you haven't encountered. You don't need to know that today will be wonderful. Just leave a little room for the possibility. And certainly for the possibility that the way you feel in these first waking moments is not the story of the day. And perhaps you could find one pleasurable sensory bodily pleasure right now. And remember one good thing that might be waiting somewhere. In the day, And it might be quite an ordinary thing. But is special. And let your heart feel that. So those, My friend, Are the four things. And you can come back and listen and take notes anytime. And please do try these things. Understand what anxiety is telling you. Stop automatically believing its messages. Give your body different experiences. Recover movement, Choice and possibility. And in the description for this talk, I will link my other talk about morning anxiety and my morning anxiety tracks. And a morning meditation playlist. So that you have other resources. And if you take one thing from this talk, I hope it's this, That the way you feel on waking is completely separate from what's actually true about you. Your life and the day ahead. But what it can do is help you to start to help yourself in ways that are positive and lasting. And it's so good to feel when we can support ourselves. I hope this helps my friends. Let me know in the comments and also ask any questions and I'll continue to offer on this topic. And until we meet again, Bye for now.