Sleep is one of the biggest factors affecting your mental and physical health. Which is why it’s important to be well-rested in order to be more productive. Having said that, it’s not always easy to sleep well every night. Some people suffer from insomnia and others can’t sleep because they get horrifying nightmares. Nightmares can not only affect your sleep but also how you function throughout the day. Hence, you might say it’s important to treat it and not take it lightly for the sake of a healthier lifestyle. If you’re wondering why you even get nightmares and how you can treat it, here are all the details.
What are nightmares?
Nightmares are basically a series of disturbing dreams that mostly consist of safety threatening. A few symptoms of experiencing nightmares are—waking up in the middle of the night because of a disturbing dream, having scary dreams on a regular basis, disturbed sleep and feeling anxious when you wake up after a nightmare!
If you get nightmares, here’s what you can do about it.
If you can relate to the symptoms we’ve mentioned above, then you may have the nightmare disorder and should definitely get it treated. Head to your family physician to figure out how to go about treating this, and he may even suggest a specialist who can help you get better. You might even have to run some specific tests like polysomnography to check your sleep patterns. The specialist will then treat you with either therapy or meds but if you want to try making it better at your end, here’s what you can do.
1. Discuss it
Talk about your nightmares with the ones you trust and are close to you. Discussing the issue itself helps in easing you down to a great extent. Once you start sharing this with people, you’ll notice feeling much calmer when you go to bed.
2. Watch happy movies & read some self-help books
Movies and books are a great way to change your current mood as you kinda escape reality and enter the world shown in the movie or the book. Indulge in more positive books and happy movies to make sure you sleep with a similar kind of state of mind.
3. Drink chamomile tea before sleeping
It is proven that chamomile tea has calming effects on your body. It is also known to treat insomnia and reduce anxiety. Drinking one cup of chamomile tea will help you have a sound sleep.
4. Avoid social media
If you have a habit of scrolling through your social media before going to sleep, chances are it could be causing you nightmares too. A lot of times we come across news on social media that disturbs us or is just too sad to accept. And when news like these is the last thing you read before sleeping, it stays in your subconscious mind and triggers nightmares.
5. Meditate
Meditation will help your brain relax and get a detox. That’s because our brain works non-stop throughout the day until you go to bed. Meditating gives your brain the much-needed break to function smoothly, by reducing the stress. Regular meditation can help with nightmares too.
So, if you’ve been experiencing nightmares lately and have no clue how to deal with them, try out these tips and see if they help you!
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