Nightmares are debilitating in the long run, irreparably damage the well-deserved rest, and carry aftermath even the following day. Let’s see together how to avoid it.
You are being chased by someone or something. Whatever it is, it always seems to be behind you. Run and run, your whole body on fire with fear, and you can’t fight your pursuer. Jump in the air e suddenly you are in free fall.
Your teeth start chattering and falling out. Then, somehow, you are on stage, in the spotlight, and you realize that you are not wearing pants and that everyone in the audience is staring at you.
Hopefully, you haven’t experienced any of these events in real life. But I bet you’ve tackled at least one of these common themes in the dream world and woke up in a cold sweat with your heart pounding.
What are nightmares and who has them most often?
Nightmares can be a mystery. All over the world, folklore tales have attributed demons, souls of the dead who were wronged in life, and evil spirits to nightmares.
While we have not yet completely solved the mystery of why nightmares exist and how they occur, we do know that they are an intense mental activity that occurs mainly during REM sleep.
Most commonly, we experience nightmares as very vivid dreams that are terrifying or distressing. And, of course, they can disrupt our sleep and affect our mood.
For most of us, we only experience nightmares once in a while (perhaps after watching a particularly scary movie). But for about 2-5% of the population, they often happen at night.
Nightmares are much more common among girls and women than their male counterparts. Those who struggle with alcohol or drug addiction are also more likely to have frequent nightmares.
People who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or have experienced childhood abuse may also have frequent nightmares. But for some people, there seems to be no particular reason for persistent nightmares – instead, they have something called nightmare disorder.
This is a disorder in which you not only often have vivid and disturbing dreams, but also suffer from severe discomfort or impairments during the day, such as anxiety, concentration problems, tiredness and worry about going to sleep.
Whether you have Nightmare Disorder, PTSD, or just experience more nightmares than you would like, there are things you can do to reduce nightmares and regain a good relationship with sleep.
1. Don’t avoid sleep and keep a regular sleep-wake schedule
It is not unusual to be afraid to go to sleep if you regularly have nightmares. Who could blame you? That moment when our head hits the pillow could be a sweet joy for somebut for you it’s like stepping into a horror movie: you don’t know when you’ll turn the corner and see your worst, well, nightmare.
You might try to delay bedtime by keeping awake as much as possible by watching another movie, just reading a few more chapters of your book, or scrolling your phone for another hour.
But depriving you of sleep can backfire and cause more nightmares. Avoiding sleep leads to REM sleep (less rapid eye movements), which is the stage of sleep where most dreams occur.
When the brain is deprived of REM, it brings REM back with a vengeance later in the night or the next night. This is called the REM rebound effect: the brain goes into REM faster, stays there longer and creates more intense dreams.
Something similar happens if you keep an irregular schedule, such as having a rotating shift job or having a very different lifestyle on weekdays versus weekends.
Your brain’s internal clock gets confused and can save “REM propensity” which takes you straight into intense nightmares when trying to catch up on lost sleep.
Even if bedtime sounds scary, do your best to maintain a consistent sleep-wake schedule. Give yourself ample opportunities to sleep. It will be worth it once a pattern is established.
2. Cut down on alcohol and review sleep medications
Alcohol may seem like a tempting way to “Calm the mind” as it makes you sleepy and may help you pass out. However, it actually disrupts your sleep, keeping you in lighter stages and preventing you from entering the healing and restorative deep sleep stages.
Alcohol also reduces REM: drinking a lot is just like depriving yourself of REM. This leads to REM bounce and more opportunities for intense nightmares the next time you fall into the city of dreams. If someone drinks frequently, even abstinence from alcohol when trying to reduce alcohol consumption it leads to more nightmares.
Alcohol isn’t the only substance that can cause nightmares. Some sleep medications, antidepressants, and other types of medications have been linked to nightmares, so review your medications with your doctor to see if there are any possible culprits.
The time you take your medications can also affect your dream, so it’s important to ask your doctor if you need to take the antidepressant at night or if there are other options.
3. Wake up fully and prepare for a quick check-in with reality
At this point, you’ve set yourself up on a regular sleep schedule, cut down on alcohol consumption, and checked with your doctor about your medications. But you may still have nightmares, especially if they are related to a traumatic event or if you have been having frequent nightmares for a long time. What should you do when they happen?
The first thing to do when you wake up from a nightmare is make sure you wake up all the way. The veil between waking and sleeping can be thin, and your brain could easily switch back and forth between the two in the middle of the night.
If you don’t fully wake up, you may return to the nightmare you were having once you calmed down. This will reinforce the nightmare, making it adapt more and more to your brain.
Don’t worry about disturbing your sleep even more by turning on the lights or getting out of bed. Simply waking up, even several times a night, is good for overall sleep health. It is also a far better alternative than repeated nightmares night after night.
Pinch yourself, get out of bed, drink some water, pamper your partner or pet, whatever you need to do to fully wake up and ground yourself in reality, before you lie down again and close your eyes.
4. Rewrite the ending and try out the new script
One of the most widely used and evidence-based treatments for nightmares, regardless of whether they are caused by PTSD or not, is trial imaging therapy (IRT). This therapy has a very simple premise: Having nightmares is a learned behavior for the brain, which means it is possible to unlearn.
In other words, your brain has gotten into the habit of creating nightmares, and the more it does, the easier it is for it to move on. It’s like driving a car on a muddy road that has deep ruts – the more you drive into the ruts, the deeper the ruts get and the harder it is to get out of those ruts.
The goal here is to help drive the car out of those ruts. In other words, you want to give your brain an alternate path that leads not to the nightmare, but to another story. You can give your brain that alternate story inventing it and then telling it and telling it to yourself.
Take a recurring nightmare, or recurring theme, and write it down in as much detail as possible. While this can be scary or emotional, don’t hesitate – you have to put your brain into the scene before you can change it.
Take an element of the nightmare you wrote about and change it. You can evaporate the monster into thin air, create a magical escape door, give yourself the power to snap your fingers and freeze the scene… get creative! It’s your dream, after all. You are the boss here!
During daylight hours, allow yourself some uninterrupted time to experience the dream and alternate ending in your mind. Do this every day, imagining it in as much vivid detail as possible. With a few days or weeks of practice, you may have fewer nightmaresor at least they might be less scary.
5. Seeking treatment for PTSD and other mental health needs
Taking care of the health of your sleep means taking care of your entire health. Nightmares often occur due to post-traumatic stress disorder or another psychiatric condition, and effective treatment of those conditions can often reduce nightmares.
Treating PTSD will also improve your day, allowing you to have less anxiety, better relationships, and the opportunity to be completely yourself.
There are excellent evidence-based treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, such as cognitive processing therapy, which uses an evidence-based step-by-step approach to help you learn about the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder, identify the “Blocked points” that keep you bogged down and learn strategies for finding balance.
But if you are not yet able to start work directly on post-traumatic stress disorderthat doesn’t mean you have to wait to face the nightmares.
Research has shown that for people with PTSD-related nightmares, a few trial imaging therapy sessions can reduce nightmares even without directly targeting PTSD symptoms.
In fact, just making nightmares a little less scary could reduce post-traumatic stress disorder overall. Your brain is always working hard and sometimes it needs a little extra help to relax at night, so make sure you take care of yourself.
Remember that nightmares are not totally out of your control – you can instead use the strategies above to prepare for sweet dreams.
#Nightmares #ways #stop