Depression Special Article
Panic attacks
Try not to stress about sleep
Surrender to whatever may or may not happen during the course of a night, and you’ll put your mind under less pressure. After a certain point, it’s really the anger
and frustration that keep you awake most of the night.
A good physical workout each evening in the outdoors. This is very effective because the mind may try to keep you awake, but the sheer physical exhaustion brings on sleep quicker. Couple that with a willingness to accept sleeplessness, and you’ll find yourself sleeping much easier.
Remember that alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine should be avoided several hours before sleep. You may be the type who finds it initially hard to get to sleep as your mind races
Should you find your mind racing and you simply can’t achieve sleep, keep a journal beside your bed.
Sit upright and start to write down how you feel:
“I’m feeling quite restless. I keep turning over and over,
trying to sleep, but I have worries on my mind.”
Now write down all of your worries, for example:
“Tomorrow I have to do X, and I’m afraid I won’t be
well rested, etc.”
Continue to write down your worries until the exercise actually becomes quite boring. Then your body and mind will slowly want to return to sleep. Writing like this is a simple
tool for preparing your mind in a linear way to wind down and return to sleep (an advanced form of counting sheep).
Writing down all your worries on paper has the effect of saying to your mind:
“Okay, mind, you think these are important. I’ve written
them all down in detail. They won’t be forgotten, I promise.
I can come back to them tomorrow and deal with
them then-but RIGHT NOW, let’s sleep.”
The mind can be like a small child who just needs reassurance that things will be dealt with and looked after. That’s all it needs to let go of these mental worries. You then discover, in the morning, that almost all of the worries or concerns aren’t big issues. Many of our worries are the workings or an overactive imagination.
Most night time panic attacks aren’t caused by dreams. Records of sleep polysomnographia show that most panic attacks take place during the early sleep
phase (phase II), not during the REM phase associated with dreams.
This is different from nightmares. Nightmares happen during the second half of the night, so we’re often able to remember the content of these dreams.
It’s important not to go to bed fearing you might have a panic attack. Go to bed confident that if one should arise, you’ll successfully deal with it. That way, you don’t put yourself under pressure to NOT have a panic attack. Many panic attacks are experienced at the very moment of falling asleep.
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