Getting up early in the morning and anxiety

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Tamaya
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06 Dec 2025, 10:20 pm

Does anyone else get really anxious when having to get up early for work? My job starts at 4 in the afternoon, so I don't need to ever worry about having to get up early any more, but at my old job I used to have to start early and it caused a lot of issues for me (except for the hot summer mornings).

People called me "lazy" or a "snowflake", but I'm not sure it is that or if I just don't do well in the mornings. Everyone groans about getting up early for work, but to them it just becomes routine and they are able to just live with it and I don't think they feel the same degree of anxiety I felt when having to get up early.

I don't know, it just felt weird how I was forced out of my comfy bed and outside in the streets, where the world still felt asleep and so did I. During the winter months the sun wasn't even up yet so it felt like I was getting up in the middle of the night. I started inventing ways to make it easier, for example sleeping in my clothes to avoid having to dress in the morning. It made things a bit easier in the morning but I still couldn't shake off that feeling of anxiety and dread. Sometimes I even suddenly became agoraphobic and had to really force myself to open the front door and walk to work.

But even after the walk to work in the fresh air I still arrived at work tired and fed up. I don't like coffee and I felt too sick to eat anything, so I often just drank juice.
But I don't think I could go back to that again. What is it about the early morning that make me feel so anxious? The early morning doesn't have an effect on me if I'm not going to work, or if it's a glorious, warm summer morning.

Does anyone else have this trouble with getting up early for work or school? It's like I woke up with a hangover each morning, even though I don't drink.


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Fishyfisherton
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07 Dec 2025, 6:01 am

Yes! I'm very much a night owl and it feels like torture to have to be up early. I'm not awake yet so I feel like I'm barely functioning. I also get the feeling that I'm being forced against my will to do something unnatural. And yeah, too groggy and sick feeling to want breakfast yet. Idk if you experience this but I get crazy insomnia the night before an early start because I'm mentally preparing to wake up for the alarm so it means I'm too alert. And going to bed early doesn't help because I'm not tired yet. I don't have early starts every morning because I'm not employed full time, but if I did I think I would struggle to keep it up. Because that's certainly been the case in the past.
It does feel like a hangover, or based on how people describe them!

I'm not sure what exactly causes it but some people's circadian rhythms naturally run a bit later. But early birds have decided that society should revolve around them and accuse night owls of being lazy failures. When really, jobs, schools and businesses should have two different sets of hours. With a break in the middle like the Spanish siesta or something.


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babybird
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07 Dec 2025, 6:09 am

I'm the opposite

I've always opted for early mornings for work

The only time I do have an issue is when it's about 4am and that has on occasion made me feel nauseous and dizzy and that's not very pleasant

But apart from that I enjoy the peace and quiet of early mornings so that's motivation enough for me to get up and venture out

Plus I used to cycle miles for work and the roads are way safer before everyone else's day starts


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Tamaya
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07 Dec 2025, 9:57 pm

Well I guess we're all different.

I was often met with "everyone has to get up early for work, nobody really likes it" and "you're just lazy" remarks. But there was just something about walking out in the early morning that made me suddenly feel all anxious and depressed. When I got to work I was still half-asleep, and everything felt loud and bright (even though I'm not sensitive to light, nor general workplace sounds).

I think it also stems back to my schooldays where I had to be there by 9 o'clock and I was always the most anxious in the mornings at school.

Also, has anyone ever felt that the time of the year can cause more anxiety too? For example, at school I was always more anxious going in the colder months than I was going in the summer. In the summer school felt more fun, maybe because we were allowed to play outside more, or maybe because of knowing the 6-week summer holidays was coming up, I don't know. But summer made school feel less threatening.

I remember on my first day at the care home back in 2012, it was a freezing cold and foggy November morning. I wasn't really used to getting up that early. I suddenly felt quite intimidated by the dark, cold, quiet, foggy streets, and then when I arrived I was hit by that unpleasant, humid care home smell. Out the windows was still dark and gloomy, and I still felt half-asleep, while the other workers there seemed full of energy.
But in the summer it was quite nice working at the care home, as all the windows were open, letting in that lovely grassy sort of scent, and most the staff were outside with most the residents, so it all felt quiet inside the home and I could get on with my work without many obstacles. It was also much easier getting up in the summer.


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Fishyfisherton
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08 Dec 2025, 5:35 pm

I know what you mean about the winter months. I'm quite miserable in the winter. I tend to take a lot longer to get ready because I'm dreading feeling the sudden cool air when getting changed or getting in/out the shower and things like that. And I don't like wearing lots of layers even though I need to in order to stay warm. It's very restrictive, bags feel tighter and layers bunch up under eachother or touch my neck and there are lots of little annoyances involved in wearing big layers that build up throughout the day. I get frustrated.
And there is that sense of dread when having to leave the house early on a winters' day, the specific sensory annoyances of winter make it a bit of a chore.

It must be a manifeststion of seasonal depression, which is already super common. I would go as far as to say that it's normal for people in the northern hemisphere to become a bit sluggish in winter, like hibernating bears. That must be why we have so many festivals in autumn and winter, it makes the whole ordeal a lot more bearable. It's cold and drizzly and dark and tiring but atleast we get Christmas dinner.


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