Navigate the Storm at Dawn: How to Relieve Anxiety Awakening

This is the second of two posts on the underreported challenge of waking up anxiety. in Part 1: Awaken to tensionI explained this phenomenon itself. The flicker of initial consciousness can feel like a sunrise, and it can feel like an ambush, and the “grid of reality” snaps along with fear, vigilance, self-deprecation.

Now we look at the practical side: how to prepare for this morning’s storm and how to respond when it hits. Although it cannot stop the weather system from being formed, Mindful Strategies can reduce its impact, soften its edges and create a little more freedom at the start of the day at bedtime and the first few minutes after waking up.

These tactics are naturally divided Preparation before preparation and Morning maneuvering– Both aim to create a little more room as the storm rolls.

Bedtime Tactics

• Externalization of “I went/I did it”: Create a quick list of ending day tasks, worries, and reminders, and create another list the next day. “Brief” means several bullet points. Some people swear to “three roses, three thorns.” However, this shorthand document shows that in our minds what is important is captured for the benefit of the self of tomorrow’s awakening.
• Celebrate the day that took place in a short sit-in: For some people, just breathing is effective. I prefer “self scans,” a four-brace check-in for the body, heart, head and the entire space. This is also a moment to center some self-compassion for the thorns. Thanks For roses.
• Rehearsal of a new script: Morning will is painful, but they are familiar to most people who suffer from them. Working with the patient, writing another script for the morning and rolling it at bedtime can be helpful. You can identify familiar sequences of “out… barely awake… reality and pain”, but recognize some possible anxiety (to reduce the secondary “what’s wrong with my well?” aspect). The script can also include alternative plans for the morning weather. The intent to make you sleep hard at night is also helpful: “When I wake up, I see three breaths, regardless of what I think.”

Morning Tactics

• Hold your breath: Look at those breaths, etc. and if it feels right, observe more. Another self-scan can help codify our bodies, whether it’s a burst of tension that increases our constitutionality, causing us to plague emotionally, and/or produces a snowstorm in our minds.
• Follow the script (Mindful Witness): Set the day with a short, intentional sequence of our own designs. In the present moment, it can be based on a close observation of that scan, or a common sense task. A glass of water is being made nearby. You can also take a look at what you can hear (or your music choice) and the visual aspects of the room’s basis.
• Follow the script (mindful motion): I had planned this at the dress rehearsal the night before, so I got up and moved. Please do something. Beyond the speed bump of tension. You may have some unsettling pebbles in your shoes, but you take a step forward. Physical movements have ways to help us fight. And then, it’s reframe: “This is the weather this morning. It doesn’t mean that the day was ruined.”

Our mornings may not feel like soft focus ads make us believe. A golden shaft of light, a steaming mug, and a worry-free smile. For many of us, the day begins with intense weather, with a storm rolling before our eyes open. But identifying it as part of our biology and experience and normalizing it, rehearsing both night and morning tactics can change predictions. The storm at dawn is real, but it is also the weather. If you can meet it with consciousness, compassion, and some mindful manipulation, you may at least find the possibility of tidying up, rather than the blue sky every morning.