Sleep Heart Rate - Anxiety ?

Dear Community members,

I would like to gently remind you of Community Rule 6: No medical or legal advice. Do not offer medical or legal advice. Always seek professional help for these matters. Treat any medical or legal information shared as the opinion of the user who posted it and meant for general discussion purposes only. 

Many thanks,

ChloeMod

Oh well that rules out menopause then, lol. It could be a reaction to certain foods or alcohol, I think allergies are an often overlooked cause of many problems, although unless you have a histamine response then it won't be rated as an allergy, but down graded to a food intolerance. I say down graded as having quite a few of them myself, I kno what its like trying to get anyoone to take them seriously, people seem to think that an intollerance is somehow voluntary, but thats really no help at all when you've got real adverse effects. Good luck with keeping a food diary, it can be a pain in the bum though, as you need to think about everything contained in everything you eat.

My Apple Watch has been alerting me to the possibility of sleep apnoea. I am reluctant to see my GP as I had previously told the GP I had a low heart warning on the watch over several nights and he dismissed it as inaccurate. Also, I seem to have had a run of other issues that required my GP’s attention over the last while and find it difficult to request an appointment for another thing. But I think I will request a telephone consultation anyway. I will tell him that I know of someone who had sleep apnoea confirmed through their own technology, so thank you for that Bunny. 

Thanks Bunny

Just to add, there’s some useful information here about sleep, including a list of reasons why we might struggle with interrupted sleep, and some strategies to try:

NAS - Sleep

Hi McFrost thanks for your advice

I think I'm fine on 6 hours sleep if not broken, I usually go to bed by Midnight  so maybe I'm just not getting enough rest and poss need to try an hour earlier, that said I tend to stay up late to ensure I'm proper tired before going to bed, but find I'm doom scrolling whilst watching the tv and all but a few nights a week, having a couple glasses of wine.  So may be I need to sort some of this out to give myself a better chance.

I do have sleep music playing quietly when I go to bed I find this helps distract from tinnitus (which varies based on my anxiety)

Hi TheCatWomen, 50s and male

It could be something minor triggering it...I know I have some allergies and even wondered if it happened after certain foods or even alcohol, hence why am just going to do my own log to see if there's any pattern whilst seeing what the doc says

Hi Bunny - that's good you caught that with the gadget.  Hope the CPAP machine is of help to you 

I have a Samsung smart watch + app , but mine can't pick up Apnea.  I think it can in the US but it never got approved for UK/Europe so they've not enabled it (yet)

Am not expecting a diagnosis on here,  just seeing if it sounds familiar to anyone.

I was only diagnosed last month - and my Docs have yet to read the diagnosis as was told by the receptionist.  

I have long spells of waking up very early in the morning (0330-0430) but I wouldn't say that I feel odd when I do. It's just that my mind starts immediately whirring through the usual pattern of worry and I can't then get back to sleep. It becomes a bit of a vicious cycle because it happens when I have anxiety but being really tired makes me more anxious. I very rarely have trouble getting off to sleep so it's not really insomnia and I probably get the bare minimum of sleep I need 5.5  - 6 hrs, but it does start to catch up with me, and some evenings I'm wondering if it's bedtime yet by 1900.

I have good sleep hygiene - no screens or light in the bedroom, keep the temperature reasonably low. I rarely drink alcohol any more and I have cut my caffeine intake considerably but none of it makes any difference at all. I try not to worry too much about it and eventually I will start to get some good nights again. Haven't been able to see any pattern other than, the more anxious I am, the worse my sleep is, which makes total sense.

I wish you the best of luck getting to the bottom of it. The only advice I can offer is, try not to stress about it. I used to get very worried by bad nights of sleep which is obviously counterproductive. Since we had kids, I guess I realised how little sleep you can actually function on so if I am wide awake, I just get on with my day. It's a chance to get some peaceful time alone to read and I tend to go out for a run early most mornings.

It could be so many things, a dream that stimulates you, hormones, sorry I don't know your age or gender, so could it be menopause related? COuld you be to hot or to cold? There are so many things that could be causing it, or a mixture of different things. It might even be perfectly normal!

I'd stay away from the internet or AI for things like this, I think, like reading a medical encyclopedia you could scare yourself half to death because your symptoms could be due to so many things.

My feeling is that this is best left to your doctor, and other medical professionals, to advise you on. We’re not allowed to offer medical advice here, but I think it’s fair to say that there are lots of potential explanations.

Just for example, based on my own experience, sleep apnoea can involve low HRV coupled with waking in the night. 

I’m a big fan of using technology to help monitor our health and identify potential issues. Last year, as part of my quest - following my autism diagnosis - to improve my sleep, I bought a sleep monitoring device that lies beneath my mattress and measures all kinds of things, with data synched to my iPhone.

The app flagged sleep apnoea / apnea as a potential concern, which I followed up on with my GP. They referred me to a specialist and I was given a medically-approved monitor to use. This confirmed severe sleep apnoea, and I’m now due to receive a CPAP machine (which involves pumping air into a mask worn over the nose and mouth during sleeping hours).