You might have heard that eating before bed can result in nightmares. According to rumors, you’re more likely to have nightmares because digestion occurs during sleep, preventing your body from resting. So nightmares occur because you can’t rest properly. Let’s see if that logic works, and eating before bed causes nightmares.
There have been many debates about this topic. Even though there are different opinions, we will discuss what the common view is and how you can support sleep health in this article.
What are dreams related to?
Although some claim that they do not dream, dreaming is a common experience for every human. People’s efforts to make sense of their dreams throughout the centuries resulted in various mystical and scientific explanations. For example, Nightmares have always been undesirable dreams that can be interpreted as bad omens or side effects of your physical or mental health problems.
Yes, nightmares have many causes. You can count stress, challenges you face, and problems in your relationships are among them. In addition to such psychological causes of dreams, some nightmares develop physiologically. In particular, experts present a lot of research data on the effect of bodily health on nightmares. One of them is related to the impact of eating before sleeping on dreams.
Does eating before bed give you nightmares?
A study of the causes of nightmares deals specifically with spicy foods. The effect of spicy foods on body temperature makes it difficult for individuals to fall asleep and reduces sleep quality. In particular, it disrupts slow-wave sleep, making it difficult to switch to REM sleep.
The answer to the question, “why does eating before bed cause nightmares” can be related to the effect of what you eat on the body temperature. Consuming foods that are difficult to digest, spicy, and high in calories will make it difficult to fall asleep, and the difficulty experienced during this will also cause nightmares.
How to get sleep health?
In terms of development, sleep plays an essential role in the life cycle. Especially for young children, sleep health plays a vital role in their development. Sleep, which is not limited to the early period, should also be paid attention to by adults, and it is in a position to be affected by events in daily life. In this respect, you can achieve sleep health by paying attention to the following issues:
- The stressful situations you experience may prevent you from falling asleep and getting quality sleep. You can improve your sleep health by getting professional support.
- You can improve your physiological health by incorporating activities such as walking into your daily life. In addition, walking has many effects on mental health.
- You can arrange your mealtimes. For example, you can stop eating 3-4 hours before sleeping. As a result, you can fall asleep more quickly and prevent nightmares.
- Being exposed to devices such as phones, tablets, and computers during the day is inevitable. However, you can prefer activities that will relax and calm you by refraining from using these devices for at least 1 hour before falling asleep.
- Reading a book is an activity that reduces stress. During the day or before going to sleep, you can keep calm by reading a book.
- Writing down your dreams is an excellent way to understand what might be causing your nightmares. So, by keeping a dream journal, you can take steps to improve your sleep health.
If you still have nightmares even though you have tried to improve your sleep health, do not neglect to seek professional support.