Morning Guided Breathing for Anxiety, Insomnia, and Brain Fog

Some mornings feel like this. You keep going anyway.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: chronic insomnia will turn your brain into a feral raccoon rummaging through last night’s trash. I have taken more than 30 sleep medications. The on-label ones. The off-label ones. The “why did my doctor think this was a good idea” ones. And the ones that made the brain fog roll in so thick it could put a San Francisco Bay morning to shame.

Some nights, I never slept at all. Some mornings, I woke up inside someone else’s brain. None of those versions of me were helpful.

My surprisingly steady lifeline has been morning guided breathing meditation.

Yes, I still have mornings and nights where trying to focus on this exercise feels more frustrating than productive. But I have found that it is a risk worth taking.

Why Guided Breathing Became My Morning Anchor

I do not have a normal 9 to 5. I do not even have a normal 9 to 9. My schedule is more like this:

“God, please let it be after 5am so some of the world will be up soon.”

“Did I sleep?”

“Why is my anxiety already running wind sprints before my eyes are even open?”

That early morning mental chaos, the go go go energy mixed with ADHD paralysis and Bipolar II fog, used to knock me flat before I even got out of bed. My brain wanted action. My thoughts wanted organization. My body wanted quality sleep. Any amount of sleep that lasted longer than 45 minutes.

Guided breathing gave me a place to begin.

Not a goal. Not a checklist. Not a pressure cooker.

Just a starting point.

And honestly, that alone started to relieve those mornings where I would wake up feeling like a one ton boulder was crushing my chest, my heart racing like it had just completed a marathon in record time.

Breaking Through Morning Anxiety

You know that feeling when you wake up and immediately think, “Okay, let’s do this.” And then ten minutes later, you have started 15 things, completed none, and somehow have not done a single thing you actually intended to do that day.

Guided breathing cuts through that. Not perfectly. Not magically. But consistently.

There is something about doing it before the world wakes up, before notifications start screaming, before the noise kicks in, before my brain drafts 101 contradictory plans for the day. It feels like hitting a reset button I did not know I had. A form of grounding, even if only for a brief moment.

On days when the fog rolls in thick, I still give at least a three minute meditation a try. It will either help me gain traction for the day, or help me recognize that this is a day where I need to give myself grace. Because I am in for the roller coaster of hell that my nervous system is queing me up for. One that I never want to ride, but often end up on anyway.

This roller coaster isn't like one at Disneyland. There is never a line, and it is not something anyone would ever label “The Happiest Place on Earth.”

It Builds Momentum, Even on Days I Have None

Here is the thing about living with ADHD and Bipolar II. Your ability to start the day is basically a slot machine that hates you. To be fair, it is like most Vegas slot machines. You keep playing even though you desperately want to leave. You try one more time, hoping for even the smallest jackpot.

Some mornings, I can do ten minutes of guided breathing.Some mornings, I can do three.

And on the worst mornings, the depression heavy ones or the hypomanic ones where my thoughts sprint faster than my lungs, that tiny three minute meditation is sometimes the only productive thing I accomplish that day.

But it counts.

Because I did something that aligned with taking care of myself. Not my symptoms. Not my to do list. Me.

That quiet victory is momentum, even if it is microscopic.