4 Years With CPAP - Now Sleep Anxiety Is Giving Me Issues

I'm about 4 ears into CPAP. Had a little trouble adjusting to it but had a perfect record up until recently. I had a bad cold that made it tough to use my nasal pillows.
Never had a problem before.

Then my anxiety kicked in - and for me this manifests itself in insomnia and sleep dread.

I'll have trouble falling to sleep, get more anxious and tense and then the vicious circle starts.

A lot of it is my breathing is not relaxed and this makes me fight against the machine.

Last night I ended up sleeping without my CPAP because I just kept getting claustrophobic.

I went through this in 2013 just before being diagnosed with sleep apnea. I think the undiagnosed sleep apnea contributed to the condition.

I know I'll get past it, and I'm taking yoga and really working on lowering my anxiety level, but in the meantime, it sucks.

I had been sleeping so well with the aid of my new friend.

Wish me luck.

See your primary care doctor...a prescription of something like Xanax may be all you need to get you back on track. It would relax you before bed.

LSAT wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:38 pm

See your primary care doctor...a prescription of something like Xanax may be all you need to get you back on track. It would relax you before bed.

I have a script for Clonazepam for just that purpose. However, I'm really tired of taking them and have been working on sleeping without them.
I also take Nyquil sleep aid that helps to make me a little more drowsy.

Last night went very well. Perhaps it was the meditation exercise I did before bed. Hmm..

Hi JCWarrior ~~~

So glad to hear last night went better for you. *I* definitely respond well to meditation, yoga, The Jesus Prayer and also to very specific scents. For example, I like to burn frankincense (on cleanburn briquettes) as part of the meditation though not in my bedroom.

In the bedroom I use oils, my personal favorite is peppermint / spearmint which is supposed to excite people (lavender is more commonly recommended) but for me, mint puts me right in to the rhythm of ritual prayer and breathing and works AMAZING with a CPAP. I use a little on on cotton disk placed in front of the air intake.

Using another (and very primitive sense) like scent, along with white noise from a fan, and the tactile sensation of a cold room, a wonderful bed, sleeping naked under the most sumptuous covers I can find. This all combines to giving blissful feedback with each breath so that the experience of even being in bed is a complete joy and from this state, falling asleep in just an added benefit.

I'm in a personal medical hell right now of many catscans, PETscans, and very long nuclear scans and I use these same techniques while I am "in the tube". I even bring the scented cotton round in a baggie. I never open my eyes and sometimes could almost fall asleep except that I have to listen to the instructions "Breath IN ... HOLD ... Breath".

I think the more we can use all of our senses to feed positive information in to our brains the safer we will feel. I've begun to think of anxiety as "hunger" and something completely natural that goes away when "fed".

~~~grace