Anxiety and nocturnal panic: how are both phenomena related?

Anxiety is such a common and frequent phenomenon in the population, as it is diverse in its ways of expressing itself.

In fact, it sometimes triggers psychological alterations that go beyond anxiety disorders, overlapping with psychopathologies of all kinds, to which it contributes.

Here I will talk about the relationship between excessive anxiety and the appearance of the disorder known as nocturnal panic, a parasomnia similar to sleepwalking.

• Related article: "The 7 main sleep disorders"

What do we understand by anxiety?

Anxiety is a set of psychological and physiological phenomena that keep our nervous system in a state of high activationsometimes with excessive intensity. Normally, anxiety appears in situations that involve real or imagined danger, or the idea that if we do not act quickly, we will lose an important opportunity.

This activation has different implications in what the person with anxiety feels and does: they experience a greater sensitivity to unexpected stimuli, they tend to react to them suddenly and without thinking about it, has difficulty being totally still, and is more likely to be irritable with the rest.

On the other hand, when anxiety reaches a very high degree of intensity, the following symptoms appear:

• Tremors and generalized muscle tension
• Cold sweats
• Dizziness
• Accelerated heart rate
• Elevation of blood presure
• Recurring pessimistic thoughts

When is anxiety a problem?

So far we have seen what anxiety is, but we have not yet seen what is the line that separates normal anxiety from that which is problematic. This distinction is not always straightforward, and to understand it, it is necessary to understand the origin of anxiety.

The entire set of biological and behavioral mechanisms that constitute anxiety are produced by evolution and natural selection. These are survival resources that have allowed our ancestors to react quickly to avoid danger and stay alive in all kinds of harsh environments. In fact, the ability to develop anxiety is so important that it is present in practically all the most evolved animals.

However, while anxiety gives us a push in the right direction to survive thanks to our ability to react in time without having to think twice when the latter is not an option, it can also lead to problems. In fact, sometimes our way of reacting to anxiety causes us to produce it ourselves and the main problem becomes that state of activation.

For example, many people deal with anxiety by bingeing or using drugs, which in turn instead it worsens their situation and makes them more likely to continue experiencing anxiety in a matter of hours. And on the other hand, when anxiety processes are a constant in our lives, they wear us down physically and psychologically and can give way to other psychological disorders. This occurs, for example, with sleep disorders. Which leads us to talk about the night panic.

• You may be interested in: "What is anxiety: how to recognize it and what to do"

What is night panic?

Night panic, also called night terror, is a sleep disorder that is part of the group of parasomnias, characterized by the appearance of abnormal movement patterns or psychopathological that occur involuntarily, without the person having fully recovered consciousness. In this sense, night panic is a bit like sleepwalking, since it is expressed while the person sleeps and in a certain sense, when it does, the person may appear to be awake.

However, what most distinguishes the night terror is the expression of reactions of high anxiety or fear, and disruptive movements, sometimes even aggressive. When night terror is expressed through its symptoms, the person appears to wake up suddenly, screaming and / or with an expression of fear on their face and gestures; It is common for those affected to get upright in bed, showing a lot of muscle tension.

However, they will not do all this in a conscious state, but will remain in a semi-unconscious state in which they will not be able to talk to others or reason. Also, once they are fully awake, they probably won't remember what happened.

Night panic It is an alteration that occurs mainly during childhood, but in some cases it remains until adulthood.

The relationship between both psychological problems

As with all psychological disorders, there is no single cause that explains the appearance night panic, but there is a combination of factors that reinforce each other and give way to this symptomatology.

However, it is known that the presence of a state of high anxiety facilitates the appearance of this parasomnia. This may be due to the fact that the predispositions that make us anxious during the day act at night, altering the natural transition of a phase of the sleep to the following, affecting the functioning of the vegetative nervous system, which is responsible for a good part of the unconscious movements that We perform.

And it is that when the nervous system tends to be highly activated, sleep is more likely to be shallow and There are times when we wake up in the middle of the night, and this same predisposition works by exposing us to parasomnias.

A) Yes, solving anxiety management problems contributes to a good night's sleep without symptoms of night panic, so in cases like this it is advisable to go to psychotherapy.

Are you looking for psychological assistance?

If you have trouble sleeping or anxiety-related or are experiencing other stress-related problems, I invite you to contact me. I am a psychologist specialized in the cognitive-behavioral intervention model and I have been helping people with anxiety-type psychological disturbances and other forms of psychological disorders with emotional or behavioral. On this page You will find more information about how I work, and my contact information.

Bibliographic references:

• American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Association.
• Guzman, C.; Wang, Y. (2008). Sleep terror disorder: A case report. Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry 115 (11): 169.
• Rynn, M.A.; Brawman-Mintzer, O. (2004). Generalized anxiety disorder: acute and chronic treatment. CNS Spectrums. 9 (10): pp. 716 - 723.
• Snyder, D.; Goodlin-Jones, B.L., Pionk, M., & Stein, M.T. (2008). Inconsolable night-time awakening: Beyond night terrors. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 29 (4): pp. 311 - 314.
• Sateia, M.J. (2014). International Classification of Sleep Disorders-Third Edition. Chest. 146 (5): pp. 1387 - 1394.
• Sylvers, P.; Lilienfeld, S.O.; LaPrairie, J.L. (2011). Differences between trait fear and trait anxiety: implications for psychopathology. Clinical Psychology Review. 31 (1): pp. 122 - 137.