Help with Anxiety/Stress/Sleeplessness

[kitten645]

I might add that the anxiety attack comes from exhaustion. When you are tired you tend to think of worse case scenarios and panic. I've been an insomniac forever but quit a stressful job 2 years ago. Now I just accept that I am part cat and need naps..LOL..Not possible during the week but if I'm sleepy I go to bed and take advantage! Some days I get home from work and take a nap before I fix dinner. When I'm up at two I just accept it and do something useful. I don't add to it by stressing out about not sleeping! It's a vicious cycle, I know

[Catty1]

How about getting out of that place and getting another job? Have you started looking just to see what's out there?

I don't know how big your company is, but is there anything like an HR department that could get you a transfer within the company? Or an EAP for some counselling.

Melatonin is wonderful, as are all the other suggestions...I just believe that at some point you are going to have to change the cause of this stress, or more of your off-work time will be revolving around ways to not get stressed out by your boss.

JMO.

I hope you get some more sleep soon!

{{hugs}}

[Laura's Babies]

I had a job that caused me anxiety attacks and I often thought about quitting it but that was back when Mama was dying and I was to close to home to change boats at the time. I wanted to be near enough to be able to get home QUICK! In my mind, I HAD to stay there so I went to the doctor and she put me on medication. That was the worst time of my life. Only take medication as a last resort! It took me YEARS to get off of it due to withdrawls. All I needed at the time was something like Zannex (? spelling?), something temporary to take but those other things like paxil and SSRI's are long term. I couldn't talk to anybody about it because it upset me to much and throw me into another panic attack. I knew all I needed was something temporary and TIME.

What I learned from that part of my life is NO job is worth your health, happiness and life and NOBODY will ever treat me like that again. I refused to go back to that boat and because of that, and with the sick leave I took, I was off of work for right at a year. I rebulit in me what that boat tore down and I am a lot stronger now and NOBODY will tear me down like that again and believe me, they have tried.

FIND ANOTHER JOB! YOU are more important that that job! No job is worth that and neither is no amount of pay if your well being is being harmed. Stress causes all sorts of problems with your health and it DOES effect your health. They are finding it a lot bigger factor in your health than they had thought.

[beeniesmom]

A lot of good suggestions here.

When I can't sleep when I have a lot on my mind, I too, like Karen said, write everything down that I am afraid I will forget to do. It helps a lot.

A couple Tylanol PM's work too and some Chamomile tea, even if you drink it with dinner. It will relax you.

A warm bath or shower helps.

A cool room (temperature wise) helps. People sleep better when it's cool.

Sometimes reading a few pages of a book before bed gets me thinking about the book so it's easier to fall asleep.

Last thing, for your sore neck and shoulders, try a thermacare wrap overnight. It helps me a lot when I have sore shoulders.