👋 Why You Wake Up Anxious
🎧 Your Brain’s Been Playing the Same Bad Playlist on Repeat
🌊 Trying to Calm Down Is Making Things Worse
🌿 Sol Bites: 3 Things You Can Start Doing This Week to Prevent Morning Anxiety
📹 Video Bite: Sharana Ali on Breathwork for Anxiety
💭 Things You Might Be Wondering
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Why You Wake Up Anxious
Do you ever have those mornings when you feel jittery the second you open your eyes? You haven’t read a single notification. You haven’t thought about your to-do list yet. But somehow, anxiety is already there—sitting on your chest, uninvited. You’re not imagining things, and you’re certainly not alone.
1 in 5 adults experiences anxiety in the morning, which makes a lot of sense since cortisol levels peak in your body at 6 am. Unfortunately, there’s no instant fix: It takes three weeks to break a conditioned anxiety habit.
Your Brain’s Been Playing the Same Bad Playlist on Repeat
Morning anxiety has absolutely nothing to do with what’s actually going on in your life. It’s not about your job, your emails, or that text you forgot to send.
It’s actually something your brain learned, and it all comes back to something called classical conditioning. Ever heard about the classic Psych 101 lesson about Pavlov’s dogs? Here’s a quick refresher: Psychologist Ivan Pavlov would ring a bell whenever he gave his dogs food. Eventually, just ringing the bell with no food in sight made his dogs salivate.
Your brain has been trained to work in a similar way, but instead of associating bells with food, it associates waking up with worry. There was likely a time, maybe during a tough season in your life, when you developed the habit of waking up in bed and thinking about your worries. Now, your brain automatically associates those two things with each other.
The thing that is not so obvious is that the connection happens in a split second. Your eyes open, and then suddenly your worries have already started. When you start worrying about your worries, things really start to get bad…
Trying to Calm Down Is Making Things Worse
When we feel anxious, most of us have an immediate reaction—whether it’s breathing deeply, repeating affirmations, or scrolling through our phones to distract ourselves. Those things aren’t necessarily bad, but using them as a way to combat anxiety in the moment can actually make things worse.
The reason for that is because when you try hard to get rid of something, your brain takes it as a sign that you’re in danger. Why else would you be fighting it? As a result, those actions can end up making you feel more anxious, rather than less.
It’s also worth noting that your frontal cortex—the area of the brain that helps you think logically—isn’t necessarily going to be functioning well in the morning. Trying to think your way out of anxiety while lying in bed at 7 am? Not your best plan.
Sol Bities: 3 Things You Can Start Doing This Week to Prevent Morning Anxiety
1) Schedule your worry time
This is counterintuitive, but bear with us: Every night (ideally after dinner), grab a piece of paper, start a 10-minute timer, then use that time to write down everything you’re worried about, from the biggest concerns to the smallest issues. Don't try to solve anything. Just write down the problems. Then crumple up the paper and throw it away.
The idea is to condition your brain to realize that worrying is safe. It's not something to be feared or battled. If your brain no longer fears worrying, it will be much easier to simply let it go in the morning.
2) Get out of bed immediately
This one sounds almost too simple, right? But trust us, it’s actually powerful. The instant you wake up and feel that first rush of anxiety, do not lie in bed and try to overcome it. Get up.
By doing this, you’ll be breaking the worry-anxiety cycle before it has time to gear up and go into overdrive. In the process, you’re literally rewiring the connections your brain makes. Instead of associating waking up with anxiety, you’ll be creating a new connection: Waking up means getting moving!
3) Create your own morning routine that makes you feel like a main character
Anxiety loves nothing more than feeling helpless. The more you feel like you're in control of your life (and not like things are happening to you), the less you’ll experience anxiety. The key is to create a morning routine that makes you feel like you have l what psychologists call a high-agency routine.
The perfect formula for getting out of bed in the morning: pride + pleasure. So take some time to ask yourself, What do I feel good about doing in the morning? And what do I enjoy doing at that time? When you have something to look forward to, you'll have no problem getting out of bed.
Because deep breathing is cute, but facing our unresolved stress is cuter.
Video Bite
Sol TV Creator Sharana Ali shares a way to snap out of anxiety by doing a simple breathwork exercise of smelling a flower and blowing out a candle.
Things You Might Be Wondering
Is morning anxiety the same as an anxiety disorder?
Not necessarily. Morning anxiety can happen to anyone. It’s more of a conditioned response than anything else. However, if it’s impacting your life in a big way, it’s a good idea to get professional advice.
What if I can't get out of bed right away due to chronic illness/disability?
When it’s not possible to get out of bed right away, there’s still something that can be done. The idea is to stop what you’re doing. A change in your physical state or even just reaching for something out of the ordinary could be effective.
How long until I actually notice a difference?
For most people, small changes will be visible in one to two weeks. More significant changes will be visible in three weeks. Remember, your goal isn’t to be perfect. It’s more about being consistent.
Words of Wisdom
Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.
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