Help.."mini" panic attacks as i fall asleep

[curranimal]

Hi, i am a 23 year old man whose had bad anxiety and panic attacks for a while now. I found a method that has pretty much eliminated my panic attacks, every once and a while ill have a panic attack but lately ive been having these what i call mini panic attacks almost right after falling asleep. literally a couple minutes after. its almost the same feeling as a panic attack  normally would be with the drop in the stomach and adrenalin rush then the rapid heartbeat. sometimes they happen once and sometimes they happen multiple times in the same night. I rarely(only once or twice) have waken up in the middle of the night with them, only right after i kind of drift off it hits me like a frieght-train. I have had my anxiety and panic attacks under control for a while now but these new sleep feelings are drivin me crazy and bringing up some of those feelings i thought id kind of left behind... =(  any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you!

[tired145]

I am also having the same problems funning feeling in chest, like a dropping feeling, then heart beats fast arm and legs feel weak. They only happen at night right when i am about to fall asleep.I feel I wont wake up in the morning, like I will have a heart attack or quitt breathing I am a smoker for 30 years now, so maybe it is my lungs.

[TracieC67]

No it is stress and a panic attack

[gespacho]

This just started happeneing to me a week ago. I am a 20 year old male. WTF is wrong with us that we are so young and have so much anxiety? I h8 this. every night (i repeat, EVERY NIGHT) right b4 i am about to fall asleep it hits me. The first time was really bad. But now when i feal it coming on i just try to ignore it. I now know im not going to die and it will be over soon and that helps. They are not as bad because i expect them and i can calm myself.

**Try reading a book before bed or listening to some zen music, just try to calm your soul. It has helped me..**

[Afg21]

I'm dealing with this for 1 year now. I'm 21 male. It's really hard to ignore it. Just as I'm about to fall asleep my body jerks and I feel like Im having a heart attack and I can't breath. I don't smoke or do drugs I never touched alcohol. But still this is happening to me almost every night. No matter how tired or sleepy I am, in the back back of my brain a thought is running and the moment Im about to fall asleep, it comes like a giant monster and shakes me to my very soul.

[flicts]

YES! I've been feeling this too, exactly when I begin to fall asleep. I feel the drop in the stomach and adrenalin rush, and dizziness too, all at the same time. The dizziness lasts for 2-3 seconds but the panic for a while longer...

Been to the doctor, did bood tests and checked my thyroid and everything was ok, so he told me it is nocturnal anxiety...

I've anxiety for a long time but never felt anything like this before.

It began in the last 2 months and happens almost everynights sometimes several times before I can fall asleep.

I made a post about this, you can check if you want, and the reply I got was that this was normal because it's when our bodies are more relaxed and we can't no more control the anxiety...hope this helps.

If anyone has a method of dealing with this please let me know it is realy terrifing and tiring...

[saphireonblue]

Im facing the exact problem right now. im afraid to go back to sleep. i feel terrified that something could happen because wen i shut my eyes and am about to fall asleep, something snaps me oit of it with a shock and panic and my heart racing. its horrible. aometimes i eat something like a bun or bread or cake or.milk and it helps..  but only sometimes.

[doridori]

@saphireonblue sounds like a low blood sugar issue. I noticed this too and then i realized that i mostly get these attacks after i eat carbs/sweets close to bedtime

[Paxiled]

I think this might be backwards.  If you had a low blood sugar problem, eating sugar should make it temporarily better, not worse.  If you have high blood sugar, it might be a problem.  Also, carbs is the largest category of foods we eat, and most of them are the most healthful foods we eat, such as veggies.  Lastly, nobody should eat anything close to bedtime, as it can cause reflux and it also creates work for the body to do in the digestive system when you're trying to relax to sleep.

[inkedbarbie]

I have had panic attacks for years. I am 26 years old and have had panic attacks since I was 12-14 years old. I am so used to them at this point. I know who, what , where and when I will have one. I can feel one coming on from a mile away. I take xanax for them and it has ALWAYS helped. Recently I have started having what you are calling MINNI panic attacks at bedtime as well. As soon as I drift off....I do mean as soon as I drift off....The panic hits....heart races, sunken feeling in my chest. But not like a normal panic attack. And it throws me out of bed like a rocket. After a few minutes it goes away and I lay back down but as soon as I fall asleep again...there it is. Happened 3 times last night and I was not able to fall asleep until 6:30am this morning.

      What common denominator do we all have in common. All our symptoms are the same. We are all relatively young from 16-26 years old. What else do we all have in common??? Maybe it could help explain this new onset of panic attacks before bed. They are driving me nuts. My husband wants me to go to a doctor, but I dont see how one would be able to help. I already take xanax.

I need help!

[TracieC67]

I am 50 now - I have had these symptoms since I was little......back then they attributed it to low blood sugar.  At 17,I was diagnosed with MVP.  At 32, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue.  At 40 - Deg. disk disorder, arthritis, panic disorder, etc.  Enough about me......I now have two children in their 20's with the same anxiety/panic issues........Talk to your family.....You are probably not the only one that has these feelings.  My mom and grandmother had the same issues but when I was little, I was just told that I am Type A and to suck it up.  It is miserable if it is ignored or they put you on the wrong meds.  If no one is listening to you - Find a psychiatrist that does DNA testing and can tell you exactly why you have the symptoms you do and how to fix them.

[Bulle]

Hi everyone, I just wanted to say that I've been having the exact same thing for a while now: I feel reluctant to go to sleep but at some point, my body feels so ridiculously tired that I have to try to sleep. And as I drift off, it feels like my mind refuses to let my body sleep and so I feel this shock in my body, I feel like my heart is sinking and then it beats really fast. I then get excessively scared that something might be wrong with my heart so I refuse to sleep. I get so scared every night and it's exhausting.
Also, I don't know anyone who has this too so it's hard to talk about it and make people understand. I'm glad I'm not the only one with this.
But I've been going through a rough couple of month and I've been having a lot of panic/anxiety attacks. I only just recently started taking antidepressants so they're not effective yet.
But it seems quite obvious what it is: it's closely linked to the state of anxiety in which we all seem to be. And the fear to fall asleep and not wake up, or the fear that these shocks might come again are all responsible for this too. Like I said before, it's like my brain refuses to let my body drift off because I'm scared.
If you think about it, imagine you're walking in a forest and you find yourself in front of a snake, for example. Your brain will automatically see the danger and you will feel that adrenaline rush in your body, preparing it for and eventual fight or escape. It's the same here. You're scared of falling asleep, and as you are, your brain registers the "danger" and wakes you up with an adrenaline rush.

Anyway, I'm anything but a doctor, but I've read a lot of things on anxiety attacks and this is my interpretation.
I hope you will find this useful