Why we feel anxious in the morning – and what to do about it

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Firstly, working carers should be reassured that they are not alone, says Strazdins.

“It’s not just you,” she says, noting that early morning stress for working parents is worse in many ways than 40 or 50 years ago, when most families had one person who stayed at home and managed all the home and childcare responsibilities.

Next, says Strazdins, parents need to understand that while they are used to “time discipline” – organising our actions around the clock – children are not, and cannot be expected to.

Parents need to create a plan to facilitate getting their children out the door with as few obstacles as possible. “And understand where their children are coming from and work around that,” she says.

Anyone experiencing stress in the morning for any reason should cut down on caffeine and alcohol – which can mess with your sleep cycle – and take one minute to practice deep breathing and be mindful about the tasks and activities ahead of you, says Dr Carys Chan, a lecturer in organisational psychology at Griffith University.

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“And just tell yourself, every one of us goes through this process – we wake up, we feel stressed – and maybe give yourself a bit of positive self talk, that you can get through this,” she says.

Parents who find it difficult to stop thinking about work, while they’re with their children – another peak source of stress, says Chan – might find it helpful to jot down their work concerns in a notebook, put it away, and then not think about them until they are next at work, and read the notebook.

Aimee Brennon is all too familiar with pre-work stress. Three years ago, her mind would start reeling as soon as she woke up.

“You’re just waking up… it’s like you have to start going through this whole thing again, it’s another day of dealing with it,” says Brennon, referring to being in an abusive relationship and on top of that struggling to get to work on time and struggling to focus when she got there. Eventually she reached out to a psychologist for help – first thing in the morning, before heading to work.

A year later, Brennon, a 34-year-old Melbourne business consultant, started a new job and recalls worrying about meeting her boss’s expectations while she was still feeling fragile.

The tips she was given from a psychologist – including the reminder that she was bringing value to her new company – were life changing.

“They [the psychologists] would ask, ‘Why are you feeling down?’ and break it down, but then [they’d] turn that into a positive, so I could try and see [that]. Over time with them doing it, I’ve noticed myself, I don’t actually always think the worst now. I think, ‘Ah, you know it could happen, but we’ll find another way now’.”