Worry It can happen at any time of the day, but some of us notice that our anxiety often gets worse in the evening. We finally get to the point in the day where we can sit on the couch and try to relax before bed…but our evening anxiety has other thoughts. Some days, it can be really hard to get it off.
Why does evening anxiety happen?
There are many reasons why you might feel more anxious in the evening. We are all individuals, so specific situations or concerns will be unique to us. But there are some general themes related to evening anxiety.
Today’s preparation
many of us Busy The whole day. We run from one thing to another, with little time to sit and think. When we finally stop, the treatment we haven’t done all day can hit us all at once.
Maybe the interaction that morning wasn’t planned, so we flip it over and over in our minds, trying to figure it out. There could have been something a loved one said or did that was out of character and needed to be followed up. An area of our living space may suddenly need a fix, and we need to find out If our finances are stretched to cover it.
Worry Don’t limit yourself For anxiety most people also feel. We may read in far more situations than we need to. Sometimes, we even worry about things that didn’t happen (because anxiety tells us it could have happened!). We can replay situations over and over in our minds.
long-term anxiety
On top of addressing the day, there may be long-term issues that come to join the anxiety party. We might have spent the day ignoring them or telling ourselves we’d think about them later. “Later” often ends up being an evening.
Perhaps we are concerned about our ability to do our job (even though we only get good feedback). we may have money worries. If a friend does not respond to our most recent messages, our anxiety may escalate to the point that we think they hate us. Anxiety really has no limits. For some of us, it’s as if we’re worried about something, then we do.
worry about the future
If long-term worries and treating the day aren’t enough to worry about, we may also start thinking about the next day and beyond. We may worry about something we need to do, remember, or deal with.
During the day, we can sometimes stick these thoughts to one side. But when we finally stop for the evening, they can send our thinking into disarray as we examine every aspect of every situation, often at the same time. Sometimes we just can’t do anything at all about an upcoming situation… but that doesn’t stop us from worrying about it.
Social media and evening anxiety
Many of us use files Social media In the evening. We may not have checked during the day, or we may not have responded to messages. When we settle down, discovering that we have multiple notifications in multiple apps can cause us to become more anxious. Even if we don’t have any notifications, we may feel compelled to keep up with things other people have posted. We may check the news, which on some days may be enough to make anyone anxious. Some of us will find ourselvesscroll“.
Format our social media feeds to be as positive as possible, border in place, realizing the effect of blue light on hormones They can all help reduce the impact of social media on our anxiety levels.
How does fatigue affect evening anxiety?
we usually exhausted In the evening. When we feel tired, it can be much more difficult to cope. We may feel more “worried” or cry. It can be hard to think things through, rationalize, or resolve things. We are more likely to make Errors. Both the possibility of making mistakes and actually making them can be alarming. Sometimes we have anxiety we tried and tested coping skills Which we use regularly, but if we are too tired to use them, we can get stuck in a circle of anxiety.
Isolation
Depending on when we settle down, and our friends and family’s work patterns, evenings can be lonely. If we live alone, social media, phone calls, and texts can It connects us to the outside world. But if they’re making us anxious, or we’re too tired to process them, it doesn’t really help. It could make things worse.
Even if we don’t live alone, many of us in joint families will need alone time to cool off, and balancing that alone time with loneliness can be challenging. We can still feel isolated and separated from People in the same room as us, sometimes. Especially if we all focus on our own screens.
When we feel isolated or unable to share our fears with others, they can heighten them. Without someone outside our head helping us rationalize things or offer alternative perspectives, our anxiety can quickly escalate.
Sleeping difficulties
Some of us have trouble sleeping. We may fear it because we often wake up panicked during the night, or have nightmares. Some of us spend hours upon hours lying there, in the dark every night, thinking about rumination. Staring into the dark at 2 a.m. can make us feel like one of the only people in the world, which is awful if our thoughts make us feel insecure. Going to bed can bring back flashbacks. We may be anxious about falling asleep because doing so makes the next day come faster, which is a possibility we can’t handle thinking about.
Many of us have difficulties going to bed and/or sleeping, so, unsurprisingly, we become more anxious as the evening goes on.
Evening anxiety and routine
The good news is that we can do things to try and reduce our evening anxiety. big one pattern. Getting into a routine of stopping and settling down at a similar time each night will help our bodies understand that it’s time to settle down, not a time to send a flood of worrying thoughts our way.
Our body will Adjust naturally Our hormone levels help us wake up in the morning and sleep at night. A regular routine can help support this.
weighted blanket
If weighted blankets are safe and appropriate for us, a weighted blanket can help level our anxiety levels. We may choose to have one on our sofa and/or on our bed. Although the research on its effectiveness is LimitedAccording to anecdotal accounts, many people find it useful. In theory, they can mimic the sensation of a hug, which can help our nervous system calm down.
self-soothing box
self-soothing can help to calm our nervous system down too. This is the idea that we treat ourselves in a similar way to a child. Use sensory inputOr activities that help us feel calm.
A box or list of things that help us self-sooth on hand from the evening “calm spot”. This means that we don’t move around trying to find things, which can exacerbate our anxiety levels. Sometimes, when it’s anxiety, it’s hard to think properly. Having thoughts on hand can help us calm ourselves even when we can’t think clearly.
Comfortable media
Many of us watch movies or TV shows in the evening. Although many of us love true crime or enjoy tense drama, if our anxiety creeps in, we may want to avoid it.
Instead, retreating from the comforting media that helps us feel calm, calm, or cared for can help us settle. This could be mindless TV, stress-free TV, or re-watching things we’ve enjoyed for many years.
paper and pen
Having a pen and paper at all times helps us remove the worry that endlessly revolves around our brain and put it somewhere else.
Pen and paper can also help us work through things. By writing down our problems, we can clearly see what we have to address and begin to break them into sections and/or justify them.
stop during the day
One cause of evening anxiety is the lack of time to process things during the day, which leads to a tsunami of things that need to be addressed once we stop being busy. Making sure we have times during the day when we can stop, breathe, and catch ourselves, can help reduce the amount we have to process at night.
Some of us may find it helpful to block out time in our diaries. Others may want it to be more personalized. But realizing that we need to stop these pauses can help us become more aware of how busy we are, and consciously seek pockets of calm.
Evening Anxiety Support
If our evening anxiety has become a regular thing and/or is starting to affect our quality of life, it may be time Contact for more support. At first, this could be from family or friends. We can then contact our GP who should be able to rule out any underlying conditions and guide us to appropriate care. We can also Self referral To the NHS mental health services if we live in England, or approach a third sector organization for more information the support.
No matter how dark and lonely evenings we feel, we’re not the only ones who feel the way we do. Lots and lots of evening anxiety suffers, and there are things we can do to try and reduce it. We are not alone.
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