It is during the REM state that we dream the most. Stress and anxiety are one of the most common causes of nightmares. Experts suggest that stress can cause hyperarousal, which, in turn, imbalances your sleep-wake cycle. So, if you are stressed about something before you go to bed, chances are you will have disturbed sleep and end up having bizarre dreams. Additionally, those with PTSD post-traumatic stress disorders have nightmares more often than others.
Such patients relive all their traumatic experiences in their sleep. If you have PTSD, talk to a doctor to help cope with the condition. Certain medications like antidepressants, antihistamines and drugs that are used to control high blood pressure may cause nightmares. This is because all of these drugs interfere with the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.
Acetylcholine controls the duration of the REM sleep. Hence, these drugs could lead to REM rebound just like sleep deprivation would. According to an article published in Psychology Today , dreams during REM sleep are usually nightmares.
If you had a lot of alcohol right before going to sleep, chances are you will end up having dreams and nightmares. As a result, brain activity increases during REM sleep and can potentially trigger nightmares.
One study found that when healthy male athletes added Tabasco sauce and hot English mustard to their evening meal, they slept fewer hours and less efficiently. Other than buffalo wings, what other foods should you stay away from? Cheese, milk, yogurt, ice cream, and pizza were the most frequently cited culprits in nightmares or bizarre dreams in a study conducted by Canadian researchers.
And because dairy is a common food sensitivity, it can also contribute to poor sleep and waking up multiple times throughout the night. Sleep on your right side A study looked at the relationship between sleep positions, types of dreams, and quality of sleep. Here are three food types with the strongest link to nightmares, what the studies say and what you might take from it. Perceived wisdom says you should never eat cheese and drink milk before bed — but does the science match up to this assumption?
A questionnaire published in the Frontiers in Psychology in did establish dairy products as the foods most likely to give you a nightmare. The foods most often cited were cheese, milk and ice cream. The study did consider a few possibilities for its conclusion alongside encouraging more lab-based research. First, it could be that certain foods induce particular moods or alert levels that affect the kind of dreams you have at night.
Their second suggestion was the same as the one above — that food affects your dreams indirectly by affecting your sleep. Common folklore suggests that dairy and cheese in particular gives you nightmares.
Those who participated in this study may simply have had a nightmare one night and associated it with the pizza they ate earlier — without that categorically being the cause. Back in , the British Cheese Board looked to provide some of the experimental evidence that seems to be lacking. Their week-long study of people found no direct link between eating cheese an hour before bed and having a nightmare.
The first of those cited studies above is also relevant here. In the list of foods that participants said affected their sleep, sugary treats came in just behind dairy. This was supported by another study, reported by Lifehacker , that established a link between nightmares and junk food.
The study found that sugary treats trigger more brainwaves during sleep. A more active brain is then more susceptible to nightmares — as seven in ten of their participants found. This was established back in and published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology. An experiment involving six people found that adding Tabasco sauce or mustard to an evening meal disturbed sleep and affected the quality of sleep. Apply the logic that food affects your sleep, which in turn affects your dreams, and you might want to rethink having a vindaloo before you hit the hay.
When you eat spicy food, your body temperature rises as you try to release heat. This can lead to restless sleep or sweating during the night, which is more likely to wake you up. Ultimately, eating anything is not recommended before you go to sleep.
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