For someone who suffers from anxiety the morning jitters can be much more severe and frightening. So when we wake up in the morning and notice right away that we are filled with anxiety we have to shake it off. I’ve mentioned literally shaking off anxiety before, but here I am talking about waking up, becoming present in the moment enough to “turn off your mind” and the let the REAL, PRESENT, AND FULLY CONSCIOUS YOU take over.

When you’re sleeping your subconscious gets to run wild, and fearful, and anxious thoughts can come over in a dream state. You don’t have the advantage of being conscious and present when you are dreaming, and this can cause you to wake up seemingly defenseless against negative thoughts that are pure fantasy. We need to disregard these anxious morning thoughts completely and take them with a grain of salt.

I’ve also mentioned before that when we have a good thought that gives us hope and a feeling of well being, that is a sense of reality coming to the forefront of your present moment. This is true. The universe only understands “good”, and “feeling good”. If you could speak to a tree or a cloud trying to explain what feeling bad is or felt like, they would be quite amused and confused by the idea of anything being bad. They know (the universe knows) that there is ONLY GOOD, and the idea of BAD is nothing but a human invention and ego disease. I know to some who are not familiar with new age material this sounds insane, but in reality human minds and egos are the only thing insane (unreal) on this beautiful earth. After all, the grass, the trees, the clouds, a raindrop, the sun, the planets, and galaxies don’t worry about who has more property, attention, money, or status.

So when you wake up in the morning and feel like you are deep in a negative “funk” there is an exercise that works well to restart your framing of reality. That is to turn off you mind. This is why most people who meditate do it first thing in the morning, when they have the most energy – so they can get the bearing with universal reality and turn off their minds.

When you wake up filled with anxiety you need realize that your brain and ego has attempted to control the moment. Remind yourself that your ego and mind are not really you. Your thoughts can’t be taken seriously if the thoughts are anxious or negative.

What Do You Do When You Don’t Know Why You Are Anxious and Filled With a Negative Energy

There are those times (and the morning is one of the most common times) when you feel anxious and filled with negative energy and you don’t know why. You can sit there or lie there wondering why you are filled with sadness (or anxiety). This is very frustrating for sure, and when a friend or family member notices your melancholy mood, body language, or tone of voice, and they ask you, “what’s wrong” – you don’t have an answer.

Now you do have an answer. Tell them that your unconscious mind and ego have snuck up on you and tried to hijack your moment.

When you are in this state of negativity just remind yourself that your mind can’t be trusted, and the real you is all that matters. That the current morning moment is not a time for allot of mind activity. All your mind needs to do is help you get up, have a shower, get dressed, do some exercise, or eat breakfast – it does not need to worry about the future or rerun fantasies about the past.

Remind yourself how grateful you are to be alive to experience the new day. Remind yourself to except the moments of day for what they are, and not let your mind or ego judge everything you see or experience. Remind yourself that you are changing rapidly as a human being – for the better.

When I wake up in the morning filled with anxiety I say these words, “I’m awake now and the real me is taking back control of the new day, and I want to feel good”. Sounds nutty I know, but this is the reality of the human anxiety disease. We have let our minds and ego have TOO many of our days. For those of us who let our overactive minds steal our days, we need to reaffirm the truth of our existence sometimes.

How To Stop Your Anxious Morning Mind In It’s Tracks

In the morning you may need to STOP your anxious mind activity in it’s tracks, or you could continue on in a miserable and unconscious state.

Concentrate on your breathing and try to imagine a great stillness within your chest. Then imagine that stillness radiating into the rest of your body – right out to your finger tips and toe tips. When you succeed (and you will) remember that that stillness you feel is the essence of the universe and reality. When you feel “that stillness” this means your mind and ego are not dominant for that brief time.

Try to block out thoughts about the past, other people, or the future. Just concentrate on your current moment and the room you are in NOW. Anytime you find yourself “thinking” about what is going on at work, stop yourself and be aware of your thoughts. Once you are aware you will start to notice your anxiety levels decrease.

To Stop Morning Anxiety Get Enough Sleep and Get Up Earlier

The majority of people don’t get up early enough experience the peace and quiet of the morning. They get up when the world is in full swing, or close to full swing. There is more noise, and the sun has been up for awhile already. Try going to bed earlier, and waking up earlier.

If you have to go to a job this is the best thing you can do. Give yourself some quiet, cool morning time to wake up slower, and get your still “center” back. Exercise is a great way to ease your morning stress, but it’s often not enough – you need to control your mind. You need to laugh at your anxious morning mind. Seriously. If you feel anxious you can try just grinning at your minds anxious and negative thoughts. If you can’t identify what negative thoughts you’ve had or are having to make you feel so listless and filled with a sinking sad feeling, then grin at the negative feeling altogether.

It really is worth laughing at. Any time your mind and ego has taken control, or hijacked your thoughts with negativity it’s human insanity, absurdity, and it’s yes……laughable. This may sound sick to someone who is in the depths of depression or anxiety. I understand that.

This is why so-called “crazy people” who are in the depths of mental illness sometimes laugh loudly and uncontrollably. It’s literally a (still existing) SMALL window of their real natural selves bursting out through their mind created thick shell of anxiety. When these so-called “mental patients” (actually mind and ego patients) go on one of their insane laughing fits, they feel a small bit better in that moment because reality is present for a brief moment. Soon after they fall back into a shell that is hard to penetrate – their minds have taken over again. Paranoid mentally ill patients are nothing more than human beings that have become almost completely self absorbed into their mind and it’s cyclic thought patterns. These patients have usually suffered from a painful experience that most other humans have not. Therefore their minds have an extreme movie (more like a nightmare) from their past to keep replaying in their minds. Because their minds have had total control for a long time, they have managed to attach themselves to their pain. They fear the future complete, and they have amplified their past trauma to the level insanity. This is just an extreme case of what ALL humans do to themselves every day of their lives.

So like the so-called “mad mental patient” give yourself a break and LAUGH at your fear, your worry of the future, and your “bad stories” from your past. It’s all unreal and untrue.

Look down at your breathing body and be amazed at the wondrous organism your energy field is inhabiting for your brief time on earth. When you see the true magic of your physical existence then you will be filled such gratitude you will find it impossible to complain. You won’t complain about a fantasy future you are imagining, a bad past you have amplified, or a bad present moment that so many of us choose to imagine sometimes.

Even if your body is old, broken, wounded, sick, or diseased, it’s still a miracle of our universe. It’s still miraculous because it has breathing lungs, a heart beating, and blood moving.

Humans that read this who are filled with anxiety and negative thought patterns will find these statements to be impossible and fantasy, when in reality their negative thoughts are the unreal and unnatural. The reality is that every day is perfect. Every morning is perfect. Every second is perfect, and your existence is perfect. A soon as you turn off your mind and your ego you will understand this perfection – you will understand bliss. You will understand God (universal energy).

So recognize your mornings for what they truly are – another gift experiencing physical form. How much money is in your bank account, how “happy” or “unhappy” you are, how old or young you are, how “important” you are, “how powerful you are”, have nothing to do with the gift of your new day.

That street urchin you see lying in downtown doorway, sleeping in dirty, urine soaked cloths, has the exact same gift you have. They have been given a human body to learn what being really is. They are truly no different than you in the laws of universal energy. Their life experience and current circumstances are VERY different than yours, but ask yourself this question:

When a bowery bum wakes up in the back doorway of a downtown alley to the sun in their eyes, do you think they have less morning anxiety than you? or do you think they have more morning anxiety than you? Just think about it.

The poor man who has never fretted the collection of things, money, and status, will often be more connected to the NOW and be less anxious that your average middle class person with a family and a so-called “good job”. I’m not saying you should give away all your material wealth, and quit your job – I’m suggesting that you don’t need to worry about LOSS so much.

Wake up each day THANKFUL. Make sure you FEEL thankful and don’t just let your mind fake it’s way by saying, “Gee – thanks for this day”. Try closing your eyes, quieting your mind, and feeling gratitude. You will begin to understand that what’s causing stress in your mornings, your days, and your life, is fear of loss. You have enough, and if you become truly grateful you will have more – MUCH more. Let the morning unfold without forcing it. Don’t try and control your morning and day. Let the universe unfold naturally. Let the people around you, with their unconscious egos, take part in the drama and the trauma of the human runaway mind disease. Don’t judge them or scold them in your mind, and leave your ego in the dirty tool shed at home.

Don’t hate others or even dislike others. Don’t judge a moment as bad either. There is a natural order to things and happenings. Be a witness to the miracle of life.

You can be happy right now at this very moment.

There is nothing fancy about this idea, but it works very well. In the POEM system the important idea is to “snap yourself out of it” so to speak. With the POEM system you are focusing your attention at the end of a panic attack.

You are treating the end of a panic attack as a moment of opportunity. This moment of opportunity is when you say to yourself, “Wow! That was a drag and no fun, but no big deal. I’m just going to get my body moving, and shake it off.

Literally Shaking off Your Anxiety Attack

By “shaking it off” I mean literally shaking your body. Flail your arms and legs out and shake them vigorously. It looks quite ridiculous but it feels good, and it’s gives you a feeling of jolting yourself out of a bad thought, and anxious thought. I’ll post a video example of me doing the shake so you can see what I mean.

You can do this before what seems to be an oncoming panic attack. I’ve stopped a downward spiral into panic and anxiety many times using this shaking. This shaking of your body and limbs can help you when you are in medication withdrawal mode too.

Rebooting Your Brain

What I do, if I feel some severe anxiety coming on, is stand up right away and shake all my limbs, shake my head and make lip roll sound like I was stepping into a freezer. Sort of shake up and rattle your body to reset your thinking. Like a reboot, so to speak.

Reboot your brain, reboot your thoughts. You are a very special creation – a perfect machine created by universal love and compassion. You have just bought into your own fear, or the fears others (including the media) have pushed upon you. Do a simple reboot of your brain, and when you reboot it, turn off all the needless thinking that is sucking up your resources. Uninstall all the crap programs that are dragging you down, slowing you down, and making you tired. You don’t need fearful and negative programs running in the background of your beautiful, and pure, God-given brain.

Uninstall the newspapers, television news, cranky people, angry people, doom-and-gloom people. Uninstall all your guilt and fear of a bad future. Uninstall all of the negative viruses that have infultrated your thought patterns and your natural processing bus.

Clean and defrag your mental hard drive of all the useless files, folders, and applications of guilt and the past.

If you ever feel frightened, scared stiff, or just plain depressed – SHAKE IT OFF and REBOOT your brain.

It’s not a bad world. You are wonderful person born into a world of love and compassion. Everywhere we look around this world, the vast majority of people are beautiful, loving, caring, kind, compassionate, understanding, and loving. Don’t let the massive amount of negative and worrisome incoming data skewer these truths.

Ever wonder what happened to the bird-flu virus. Hmmmm….where did that go. Every wondered what happened to the imminent terrorist attack that was coming……been a while and we’ve been waiting. Ever wondered what happened to you through all these years of worrying, stress, anxiety, and panic attacks…….you’re still here and you still have a choice to make every day.

Choose to tell yourself that you are going to be just fine. Tell yourself that you will eventually be anxiety free and drug free. Tell yourself that you are going to change the way you look at life and all the other humans sharing your space. Tell yourself that you can control your thinking and change how you feel. Tell yourself that day-by-day you will learn to reboot your brain and shake off anxiety. Tell yourself it’s all going to be OK. You will my friend.

God bless……now let’s go do the shake!!

Jacob

You can use medications to help you get to sleep, but then your sleep is not as good. If you just can’t get to sleep naturally, then medication may be the only way to get some sleep. Some sleep is always better than no sleep however.

I’ve gone from stages of crippling anxiety to a perfectly normal stage of anxiety after one night of sleep. This is how important your sleep is.

Tips for Getting Some Good Sleep

1. If you can’t sleep, try not to worry about and make things worse. Your body will only go so far before it you will doze off at some point. Don’t worry that you only sleep for 5-10 minutes and wake up with a flood of anxiety. This is normal if you have extreme anxiety. If you are in that state you must not be afraid to go the doctor and get some help in the way of medication. Usually one Ativan will put you to sleep if you take it before you go to bed.

2. Don’t fight it. If you can’t sleep don’t worry about it and whatever you do don’t go to bed and lay there awake stressing about it. Go to another room and watch some bland television, or read a good book. If you are suffering from extreme anxiety then you will have trouble concentrating on the television program or the the book but that’s ok. Just keep watching or reading and eventually you will doze off to sleep – even if it’s just a few minutes, like I said above. It’s all good when you doze off. Just remember that you body will always bring to the point of getting at least a little sleep.

3. What to do when you try to sleep and your mind just won’t let you. If you are suffering from extreme anxiety you will notice the following symptoms. You will try to sleep, and you will move really slow from lack of sleep, but you won’t be able to sleep. You lay down on a bed in a quiet room, and every time you feel like you are about to fall asleep, you’ll get another rush of anxiety, and wake up in a panic. Don’t let this freak you out and cause you more anxiety. This is normal from extreme anxiety sufferers.

If you are having this symptom of extreme anxiety then it’s important to get yourself to the doctor and get some professional help. Your doctor will very likely prescribe some medication to put you to sleep. You may sleep for a very long time and that’s great!!!

Once you have had a couple days of sleep you have a great window of opportunity. You may have some of the extreme symptoms of anxiety, but you will feel better, and this is your chance to get everything back on track.

Now – when you have had some sleep, wake up and IGNORE any scary thoughts or anxious feelings. Let the anxious thoughts and feelings come. Don’t fight them. Just except them and let it go. Remember, this  to shall pass. Just get up from bed and find some healthy food that sticks to your ribs (such as oatmeal) and get that done. If you are suffering from extreme anxiety then eating may be a problem as well, so get some long lasting food inside you and focus the next few hours on doing something. Find a job or mundane household duty that take very little concentration and do it. Getting on your hands and knees and scrubbing the floor or baseboards is a good example. Why? Because as you are busy cleaning you will feel the sense of accomplishment, you will be making your body tired which helps your next slumber, you are getting some exercise which is great for you and your heart is gently picking up pace, and you will likely sweat from the mild exertion. All this will help you when it’s time for your next bit of sleep.

4. Once you begin to sleep, don’t worry about it if you are sleeping allot. Your body has been going will very little sleep during your high anxiety and depression during the last days or weeks. Your body is just catching up. Let your body catch up. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Just remember to keep yourself busy when you wake up, and don’t just sit around stewing over your condition. You are on your way back to your healthy normal pattern.

5. If it’s possible, try and go to work no matter how hard that may seem. If you have a job where you have to focus and concentrate, then you might not be able to, but if you can find jobs at work that are manually laborous then take those jobs. The interaction with other people will help you deal with your anxiety. If your employer is completley insensitive to your condition, you MUST inform them of what you are going through and explain that you want to work, but you need jobs are in the “grunt work” category. If you manage to go to work, then great. This will help you sleep the next time you get ready to slumber. If your boss or your employer does not have these kinds of jobs and is possible unsympathetic to your situation, then you need to get away from that job and take a stress leave. Use every possible avenue to get away from work and still maintain your monthly paycheck. Give yourself time to recover from your episode of anxiety and/or depression. Give yourself to time to slowly get back on track.

Now My Anxiety Tip #1

Don’t get caught up in your own mental movement. Remember that the thoughts rattling around in your head are useless to you unless they’re good thoughts. If you have any negative thoughts keep in mind that in this universe only positive thought is true energy. Negative thoughts are simply trash that is going in and going out.

Treat your stinkin’ thinkin’, negative fears, concerns, and anger as the garbage that needs to be tossed out. Don’t fight your negative dialogue. Just don’t give it credit. Don’t treat a negative thought with respect. Laugh at it. Giggle at it. Don’t get angry at yourself for having negative thoughts because that is just another way to dwell in negative thoughts.

Dwell in Your Positive Thoughts

When you feel any kind of positive thought coming forward, hold it. Dwell in it for this the truth coming through you. Your positive thought patterns are truly in sync with the universal energy of life. Dwell and bask in the thoughts that make you feel safe, happy, peaceful or relaxed. When you dwell in these thoughts you are dwelling in truth.

When negative thoughts and fear creep back in to your thinking, say this to yourself.

“Hello there negative thought – I’m going to recognize you for what you are, and I’m going to let you go now because you don’t hold any weight in my life or in my mind.”

If this kind of inner dialogue doesn’t help, make sure to identify what is causing you the stress. When you identify what is the cause of your stress you are in a much better position to eradicate the stress.