Panic attacks in my sleep? I'd appreciate some help here.

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Lately, I've been getting bad panic attacks in my sleep. I don't get them when I'm awake. only when sleeping.


The practice of everyday life has been quite stressful lately. I have a lot of things I need to do and a lot of big decisions to take. These tasks might not be so stressful to a normal person, but I'm finding it hard to delegate concentration and time. This makes me stressed. During the day I can cope with stress ok, but when I get to sleep, it really bothers me. I've been having bad dreams ranging from confusion to fear to helplessness. This is disrupting my sleep badly. When I wake up, my heart feels stressed. It's not beating very fast as it would if I was running away from a Lion or something. It's another feeling, it feels like it's being crunched by a fist. Is there a term for this? I find it difficult to explain.

I have a feelinng that things I'm not dealing with during the day are coming into my thoughts when I sleep. This is annoying because it's disrupting my sleep and thus making it harder to get things done during the day and that then affects my sleep. It's a vicious circle.

Any suggestions about how to control thoughts during sleep? How to better relax?

Are there ways you can cut back on the stress of your waking life? Can you take more breaks (time to space out or process?) Can you arrange a time before bed to do that? I think if you do more of this during the daytime, there will be less built up to induce panic at night.

I would also talk to a doctor about it. My AS BF was offered a prescription for a medication that helps nightmares. I don't remember the name of it, but it's given to people with PTSD. He took it for a brief time and then didn't need it anymore.

I used to have night terrors-I'd wake up suddenly from an innocuous dream feeling a heavy "evil" presence and impending doom. I know it's not the same but I think the root cause of both is internalizing all your stress. At the time I was under a lot of personal stress and had no one to talk to. Anything to release some of the built up tension would help I think.