You wake up with a knot in your stomach and a sense of heavy pressure on your chest. Before you even open your eyes, your heart starts racing. And even though you don’t know why, the morning has already started nervously. Unfortunately, many of us start our days with an overwhelming sense of anxiety. While it’s fine to be a little worried when you’re thinking about your day, the team at the Liven app has found out that it can be a sign of unhealthy habits. Waking up shouldn’t feel like too much. Today, we’ll discuss the phenomenon of an anxious morning and what to do about it.
Why Do We Wake Up Feeling Anxious?
It’s one thing to feel stress build up over the day, even if it’s a relatively normal one. But it feels a little unfair when you’re on the edge before you even get your morning coffee. Here are the factors that set the stage for your morning worry:
- Biological factors. Our bodies naturally experience a surge in cortisol, a stress hormone, shortly after waking. This is called the Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR), which helps us wake up and move in the morning. Furthermore, many people wake up with lower blood sugar levels, causing their bodies to release adrenaline. Then, there’s the lack of sleep: if you’re consistently exhausted, your body can treat waking up like a threat, and your nervous system becomes more dysregulated.
- Psychological factors. Let’s be honest: mornings are often stressful. It’s a time when our world is launching into movement, and we have to face the challenges ahead. So if we’ve encountered such a pattern before, we anticipate it every day. Morning anxiety is often tied to anticipatory worry — the dread of what’s coming in the day ahead (deadlines, tasks, social situations!).
- Lifestyle habits. Yep, we would like to discuss this as well. Many of us tend to start checking our phones immediately after waking up, which floods us with new messages and news before we have the mental capacity for it. Another tendency that makes us victims of morning anxiety is what we do before falling asleep, such as drinking alcohol or eating heavy food before bed.
The Night Before: Making Changes
Alright, now that we’ve got some understanding of what can be behind your anxious mornings, it’s time to move toward problem resolution. How you end your previous day has a significant impact on your mornings. Here’s what you can do.
Avoid late-night stimulants
As you probably know, too much caffeine can have a debilitating effect on your morning and how you sleep. Many people drink their coffee late in the evening and struggle with falling asleep. However, when considering how to replace it, don’t fall into a high-sugar trap: too much sugar can still make you anxious. If you’re looking for more tips on healthy sleep habits, you can find more information here: techtimes.com. The same goes for alcohol. Although alcohol can seem like a good option since it gets you sleepy, it harms the quality of sleep, so you may wake up regularly and contribute to the cortisol spikes in the morning.
Create a personal routine
While some individuals can simply fall onto their beds and fall asleep immediately, most of us need time to get comfortable. Make it just for you. Do you like scented candles? Cuddling with your cat? Making a quick coloring? Try something to help you wind down and turn it into a routine.
Then, if you’re prone to overthinking, which makes you anxious by the time you wake up, do another sort of routine: do a brain dump. Take a piece of paper or a journal and write down everything that bothers you. This is a sort of ritual that lets you let go of the extra clutter and focus on resting.
Transform the Start of Your Morning
Even if you happened to wake up nervous, don’t let yourself get caught in chaos — give yourself time to readjust.
Don’t check your phone immediately. We know it might be hard, but try to avoid taking your phone and staring at the screen the moment you wake up. Give yourself at least 10-30 minutes before launching into the world of emails and news feeds.
Let the light in. Even if the morning isn’t particularly sunny, letting in some outside light will help you switch gears. This also lowers your melatonin and helps regulate your circadian rhythms.
Pick a morning playlist. Instead of waking up to the song as an alarm and starting to hate it in a few days, find a playlist and play it after you’ve woken up a bit. Over time, it’ll help you set your mind in the “awake” mode faster.
Stretch and breathe. With just a few minutes of your time every morning, you can transform your mornings into something more manageable and wake up your body and mind.
Try a short morning grounding routine. Do light 5-minute stretching that won’t go hard on your sleepy joints but will still feel good. A small tip: don’t do it on a cold floor because it will immediately spoil the mood. Once you’re done, sit on your mat (or the carpet) and do a short breathing exercise or meditation — whatever you fancy.
Remember that if your anxiety is constant and feels like it’s overwhelming you, it may be time to seek professional help. If your mornings exhaust you and the sleep loses its quality, consult with a physician to focus on the right direction.
Do Not Sleep On It
Adjusting some of your routines to wake up without the press of panic can be difficult — we are highly dependent on habits, after all. However, imagine opening your eyes and feeling just calm and the desire to see what the day brings you. A gentle start to the morning will give you a gentle day or prepare you for stresses ahead.
