Stress · 4 min read ·
You open your eyes and your chest is already tight. What happens in the first half hour, and how to redo the first twenty minutes.
If you have 30 seconds
- 1When you wake, your body switches itself on, and sometimes it feels like an alarm.
- 2The evening before matters: late stress, blood sugar swings, short sleep.
- 3You can redo the first twenty minutes: up, breathe, daylight, breakfast. Phone later.
It's twenty to seven and the alarm hasn't gone off yet. Morning anxiety is already there: tight chest and a quick pulse, ahead of any thought. Then your mind goes looking for a reason and finds one. The nine o'clock meeting, that client.
I see it often in the business owners and managers I work with. Nearly all assume the thought is what tightens the chest. Often it's the other way round. The body fires up first, then the mind finds a story for it. And in the morning you can do plenty with the body.
How to spot it
- Chest first, head second. A tightness, and your pulse picking up.
- Your breathing stalls. You hold it without noticing, then it comes back short and fast.
- Your stomach is shut. You can't face breakfast. Coffee, you can.
What causes anxiety in the morning?
Usually several things at once: the morning hormone surge, overnight blood sugar, coffee, your phone. Stacked up, your body can read them as danger.
The morning surge. In the first half hour after waking, cortisol rises by about half. It lifts your blood sugar after the overnight fast and gets you moving. It's also the stress hormone. After weeks of pressure, you can feel that rise as an alarm.
The evening before. Heavy stress late at night can leave you with less cortisol next morning. And cortisol keeps adrenaline in check. When it runs short, your body can lean on adrenaline instead.
Blood sugar overnight. On waking, your blood sugar is low. If dinner ended with pudding, or had no carbs, the swings can be bigger, and your body calls on cortisol and adrenaline to bring it back up.
Coffee instead of breakfast, and the phone. In the morning, coffee usually works with your cortisol. It's still a stimulant. If you're sensitive, one cup can be enough to set your heart racing. Emails and news do the rest. Your brain's alarm goes off before the reasoning part, and you can carry that edge for hours.
Before you ask what's worrying you, look at how the evening went.
What to do in the first twenty minutes
Get up, and free your breathing. At the first tightness, get out of bed. Lying there you go round in circles and the alarm stays on. Check whether you're holding your breath. Then two breaths in through your nose, the second short, and a long one out through your mouth. One to three times.
Water, then ten minutes outside. Walk in daylight. Bright morning light helps cortisol follow its curve, and movement quickly lifts the chemicals that steady your mood.
Breakfast, and coffee with it. Eggs, Greek yoghurt, nuts. With cereal or toast and jam, your blood sugar shoots up and a couple of hours later can drop below where it started. The jitters often come from there. If you're anxious most mornings, cut back on coffee for a few days, or drop it.
Evenings, for the morning. Keep the last hour free of email. Have a portion of carbs with dinner, which gives some people a calmer night. And protect your seven or eight hours. When you're short of sleep, anxiety tends to feel louder.
Try this
0 of 5 done
Your ticks are saved on this device.
Test yourself
It's half six and you're in bed, heart racing. What do you do?
Keep the sequence for a week and score each morning out of ten. If the tightness eases, you've found your lever. If it stays the same, take those scores to your doctor.
