Help! anxiety upon falling asleep

[webfoot1970]

I've been having some weird symptoms. Upon getting into bed & starting to fall asleep I become anxious & agitated. Just as I'm about to fall asleep I will get a bump in my chest or a feeling I'm not breathing. I eventually become so tired I just pass out due to exhaustion. I'm afraid I'm going to die in my sleep.

Last night I had this problem only to awake @ 4:30 this morning & unable to go back to sleep. Finally around 6:30 I started to drift back of to sleep only to start experiencing chest pain & the losing my breat sensations again. I have tried taking a nap today only to have the same thing return. I'm mentally, emotionally & physically drained & really discouraged since I had a very good day yesterday or at least a 7-7 1/2 of 10 day. I have been walking 3 miles a day but don't feel I have the energy today since the sleep problem. It's also I believe causing me to feel something bad is going to happen soon (impending doom, fear of dying). :'-(

I sat at my local ER from 9:00 pm til 1:00 am Saturday night sure I was dying. Couldn't get to the top of my breath & felt like a fish out of water with chest & arm pain. The feeling finally subsided after 2 Ativan so I drove home exhausted & climbed into bed & quickly fell asleep.

I NEED some RELIEF! If this is something medical the Dr's are missing after all the tests I truly wish it would just hurry up & be over. I'll miss my sons, but their being cheated by this anyway.

[THH]

Welcome Webfoot!
It sounds like you have anxiety!!! Your at the right place! Do you have the program? Have you started it or what session are you doing?

I think its a common trait to wake up from a sleep in a panic, or be thinking of bad things before you go to sleep and you toss and turn. This program will help you. The more you say whats wrong with me, the more you scare your self the more the symptoms go.

Tell yourself more calming things and breathe, and float with it. Good luck and I hope you feel better soon!!!

[webfoot1970]

Yes I have the program I am on session 2. I have been to so many Dr's over the years & ER visits & told my heart & everything else is fine. I just throw all rationale out the window every time I panic again. I read stories about people with panic attacks & it sounds to me like they have an attack it lasts 10 mins subsides the person is wore out & tired but then they get back to feeling normal. I feel anxious or bad most every day & an attack seems to last for a long time for me & even come in a series of waves. I'm just really scared & missing out on a lot of life at 40.

[JNicoleG83]

I as well experience a similar problem. It seems like once it gets dark and I know that bedtime is approaching, I grow fearful and anxious of not being able to have restful sleep. If I am lucky enough to fall asleep around 11:30 p.m., like clockwork I seem to wake up between 1:00-1:30 a.m. panicking and having a feeling of nausea. I usually have to take 1-2 Xanax before I can calm down but I typically can only fall asleep after putting on the TV and falling asleep as I distract myself by watching something. I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes because my feelings of anxiety make up most of my day. I'm rarely calm and not thinking about getting anxiety even if I'm not experiencing it at that particular moment. I'd really like to avoid the medication and have tried the natural route such as melatonin, warm milk, etc. It seems that nothing is working and this has been going on for at least the past 3 months consistently. I would've thought that after experiencing this for such a lengthy time, that I'd be exhausted enough to sleep peacefully. For the past 2 weeks of using the program, when I wake up I listen to the relaxation CD and it seems to help me fall back asleep.