This brings us to the topic of night panic attacks. Often, people who suffer from anxiety will find themselves waking up with a panic attack. Most nighttime panic attacks are not caused by dreams. Sleep studies show that most panic attacks happen during the early phases of sleep, not the dream phase. It’s different from nightmares, which happen during the second half of the night, which makes us more able to recall these dreams.
As I mentioned before, there is not many cures for anxiety, especially when you sleep, but by making sure that you don’t fear having a panic attack before you go to bed, you can greatly reduce your chances of having one, this is almost like a cure for panic attacks. When you go to bed, you should be confident that if you do wind up having a panic attack, you’ll be able to deal with it. In doing this, you’re not pressuring yourself to not have a panic attack. Since most people report having a panic attack right as they fall asleep, if you stay confident that even if a panic attack should happen to you, you will be able to overcome it, you are able to reduce your chances of having one.
One woman has recently told me that just as she’s about to fall asleep, it feels like her body will jolt awake, much like it’s being shocked. This scares her and will keep her up for hours.
The jerk that this woman, and many others who experience panic attacks report is called a hypnic jerk, or a hynagogic massive jerk. Big terms aside, what it does is occur just as you start to fall asleep. Many who have experienced it say it’s like falling or being electrically shocked and this is completely normal. It most often happens when we’re not comfortable or are over tired.
While there hasn’t been a whole lot of research on the subject, theories say that when we drift into sleep, our body changes in temperature, breathing and our muscles begin to relax. A hypnic jerk may be a result of our muscles beginning to relax. Since your brain isn’t completely asleep yet, the thought is that it misinterprets our relaxing muscles as a sign of falling and sends signals to our limbs to wake up, which causes the jerk. Now that you know what it is and that it happens to everyone, this should help you to cure your anxiety over what the feeling is a little.
PS.Read my personal story on how I cured my severe anxiety. See My Anxiety Story
