Picture this…
You are lying down to go to sleep. Things are progressing well. You close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. You try to think of happy things instead of the stressful things that you need to take care of tomorrow. After a few minutes, you’re just about to slip off into happytime dreamland and BAM. Suddenly your whole body jolts for no reason. Well that was weird. Why did that happen? You start scanning your body for signs of trouble, because that’s too weird to ignore. Sure enough, there’s some weird shit going on. You notice your heart feels like it’s beating faster and faster. Uh oh. But wait, now it skipped a beat. Oh god… Now your breathing is starting to catch up with your heart, but no matter how hard your breathe, you can’t seem to get enough oxygen. Your fingers and toes feel tingly and you are getting weird random pains. Putting two and two together you think that it has got to be a heart attack, right? Hurry, take an aspirin and call 911! Whoa whoa whoa… slow down. You aren’t dying. You also aren’t the only one who has gone through this sort of progression before.
There’s a name for it
Technically what you are experiencing is called “misattribution of interoceptive cues” and it’s not something that only happens during sleep. That’s a bunch of psychobabble mumbo jumbo B.S., so let me break that down for you piece by piece. Interoceptive means that it’s a physical sensation within your body. Cues imply that they clue you in to something else going on. Put them both together and you have particular physical sensations in your body that tell you what is happening. Or at least they are supposed to. When we know what to make of interoceptive cues, the process is easy. When you look too close to the sun and you get those prickly tingling feelings in your nose, you know that a sneeze is coming. When you aren’t sure what to make of them or they feel similar to cues that imply scary shit like heart attacks, you run into trouble. If you aren’t actually having a cardiac event, that’s what we call misattribution.
This is a big contributor to anxiety and panic attacks for many people. If you live with anxiety, it’s in your nature to get “in your head” and turn little deals into huge catastrophes. The bitch about it is that even if you were wrong about whatever crazy health concerns you concocted in that brain of yours, getting so worked up about it can still throw you into a panic attack that sucks majorly in its own right.
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So What Can I Do About It?
Well there are several things that you can do. First off, being equipped with the knowledge that this is a somewhat common source of difficulty for people with anxiety can help you better recognize when this is happening and mitigate the discomfort that you might feel. You should also figure out whether you have anything to actually be concerned about. Go to your doctor and tell them your concerns. Here’s the thing, though. You gotta believe what they tell you. Finally, you can work on better recognizing your anxiety triggers and where your douchebrain is throwing you off track, by engaging in some simple exercises like the ABC thought log that I talk about in Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety.
What to learn more about how to battle that beast called anxiety?
Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety is for those of us that find the prospect of reading a traditional self help book to be way too boring. How are you supposed to make positive change in your life if the book itself feels like a chore? This book is definitely not a chore.
In Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety, I talk to you like a friend. There is a lot of swearing and humor along with loads of helpful and actionable information. You learn about anxiety and how to find the weapons within yourself to slay it for good.
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I genuinely agree with what you are saying, but I have one issue… It isn’t JUST anxiety. I’d almost rather have a heart attack or some other medically “normal” diagnosis because I feel like the word just minimizes the struggle I go through lying on the bathroom floor alone irrationally afraid if or who will find my body and praying that my dog is saved and my family knows how much I love them.
Maybe being a psychology major and long-time sufferer of anxiety has given me a better understanding of the mind body cycle a panic attack throws you into. I’ve been taught so many coping mechanisms that I know immediately to start my progressive relaxation, etc. but I would consider perhaps refraining saying it is JUST anxiety because I honestly feel like anxiety is just as scary and unpredictable as death.
Just throwing that out there. I found you through following your wife on Twitter, and I absolutely can’t wait to read your book. You seem like a super chill guy that tells it like it is which is refreshing (for the most part). Thanks for tackling the tough issues that so often get glossed over! I can’t wait to learn more!
That’s valid! I don’t mean to minimize it at all. Anxiety is really scary and painful. At the end of the day I will hope that you have an anxiety attack and not a heart attack every time, because you will definitely live through one of them.
As i’m experiencing the things you’re talking about, I decide to search on the internet and happen to come across this article, it sure helped calm me down in the time being. I appreciate it. Hope all is well.
I too suffer from these attacks. Typically I will wake up during the night my heart racing, nauseated and basically feel like I am slipping away. I get in the tub and try to breath praying it will be over soon. I throw up and have diarrhea. People minimize these attacks. It is so incredibly scary. I have read so much on this but cannot seem to stop them when they start. I wish I could.
The situation you described just happened to me. I definitely freaked out upon waking up. I already suffer from health anxiety and now with the coronavirus pandemic occurring my level of anxiety has definitely heightened. Reading this article made me feel much better. I have to remind myself the body is weird and these things happen and I’m okay.
This changed everything thank you
Thank you for this. I have weird panic anxiety attacks almost exclusively when i go to bed. especially if good things are happening in my life.more so if I’m alone.
Im afraid to go to sleep because I cant not focus on my heart beating. As soon as I start falling asleep and stop hearing it,I jump awake because I think Im dying-and it triggers again.
I went to the e.r @4am the first time because I thought I was having a heart attack- they did ekg,xray,toropin tests,blood work- they said your hearts fine. You had an anxiety attack.
This was 5 months ago-and I know its not my heart-but I cant stop it. I just want to sleep like real people again ahhhaha.
I have constant chest pains, and as soon as my body feels the slightest bit off im jumping to the biggest of conclusions about whether or not im dying. I used to have anxiety and i was completely normal but now all of a sudden i feel like a heart attack is constantly around the corner and im scared every single day. I also somehow developed a sever case of Driving Anxiety because ive almost convicned myself that it will happen to me in a car. I am trying everything i can to get over this part of my life and move on to better things. Ill make it and i hope everyone else can too.
Very informative, thank you…
I can relate to the situation you described currently and I have been experiencing it for the better part of this year, right now even I woke up about 2 hours ago and I cant find my way back to sleep. My heart feels like its racing, my breathing feels weird and every time I lay down and try to sleep it feels like I just ran a mile and have to breath really hard. I went to the doctor and she said everything is just fine with my heart and respiratory system. I still freak myself out, reading this article temporarily made me chill out and relax but when I reached the end of it I started noticing my heart racing again. Thanks for the 3 minutes of relief, it actually was so nice considering that I felt normal for just a few minutes as I have been constantly anxious for the past 2 hours now.