For medication-induced nightmares, dosages might need to be altered or different drugs administered. People with post-traumatic or chronic nightmares can be treated with psychological therapy or with medication. Psychological therapy for nightmares is called image rehearsal therapy, or IRT.
In this form of cognitive therapy, individuals, especially those who repeatedly experience a given type of nightmare, are asked to recall and write down their nightmares, then asked to rewrite the nightmare and give it a positive ending.
The individual then rehearses the rewritten version before going to sleep with the aim of displacing the unwanted content during sleep. IRT has been investigated in a number of studies, says Winkelman, and found to reduce nightmare frequency and distress. A study published in in the "American Journal of Psychiatry" reported that the drug prazosin could help relieve nightmares in people with PTSD.
The drug, traditionally used to treat hypertension, reduced the level of neurochemicals in pathways that become overstimulated in PTSD. The Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute hosts a public lecture series to continue its efforts to educate the public on the latest scientific discoveries in neuroscience and translate how these discoveries are relevant in our daily lives.
Since its founding in , the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute has helped advance neuroscience at Harvard Medical School by promoting public awareness of the importance of brain research and by helping to fund research at the School's Department of Neurobiology.
Campus Alert. Anything that affects your waking mood is likely to affect your unconscious mood, too. So, if a sugar crash has you moping around during the day, those feelings could carry over into your sleep. Also, food that causes you to wake up throughout the night may result in you waking up more frequently in the REM stage. A small study found that one good way to sleep more soundly is to exercise in the morning. Runners and other serious fitness enthusiasts tend to spend less time in dreamy REM sleep, which is one of the lightest stages of sleep.
That should help cut down on nightmares and interrupted sleep each night. The dreams you remember are the ones that are ongoing when you awaken. Since dream recall can be easily interrupted by even the slightest distraction, you should try to remember as much of your dream as soon as you wake up. Try to grasp whatever images or memories you have of your dream and write them down on a pad next to your bed or on your smartphone.
And what those vivid dreams could mean about your sleep. These are…. Dreams about falling tend to occur as you fall asleep and sometimes coincide with involuntary muscle spasms. Learn more here. Experts say you can prepare for the end of daylight saving time for days in advance. Among the recommendations is outdoor physical activity. Here's everything you need to know about shopping for the…. Szumstein says the main treatment is cognitive behavioral therapy. But this only occurs when nightmares affect sleep in a chronic and severe manner.
To learn more about treatment for sleep disorders, visit Piedmont Sleep Services. Need to make an appointment with a Piedmont physician? Save time, book online. Close X. Back to Living Better Living Better newsletter. Zip Code. Sleep problems can be induced by nightmares in several ways.
People who have nighttime disruptions from nightmares may wake up feeling anxious, making it hard to relax their mind and get back to sleep. Fear of nightmares may cause sleep avoidance and less time allocated to sleep. Unfortunately, these steps can make nightmares worse. Sleep avoidance can cause sleep deprivation, which can provoke a REM sleep rebound with even more intense dreams and nightmares. This often leads to further sleep avoidance, giving rise to a pattern of disturbed sleep that culminates in insomnia.
Nightmares may exacerbate mental health conditions that can worsen sleep, and insufficient sleep can give rise to more pronounced symptoms of conditions like depression and anxiety. You should talk to your doctor about nightmares if:. To help your doctor understand how nightmares are affecting you, you can keep a sleep diary that tracks your total sleep and sleep disruptions, including nightmares. By reducing nightmares, treatments can promote better sleep and overall health.
Psychotherapy, also known as talk therapy, is a category of treatment that works to understand and reorient negative thinking. Talk therapy has broad applications in addressing mental health disorders and sleeping problems like insomnia. A central component of CBT is reorienting negative thoughts and feelings and modifying detrimental patterns of behavior.
Behavioral recommendations associated with talk therapy frequently involve changes to sleep hygiene. This includes making the bedroom more conducive to sleep as well as cultivating daily routines and habits that facilitate consistent sleep.
Many psychotherapies for nightmares involve a combination of methods. Mental health professionals can tailor talk therapy for nightmares to fit a patient, including, when appropriate, account for a coexisting mental health disorder.
Several types of prescription medications may be used to treat nightmare disorder. Most often, these are medications that affect the nervous system such as anti-anxiety, antidepressant, or antipsychotic drugs. Different medications may be used for people who have nightmares associated with PTSD.
Medications benefit some patients, but they can also come with side effects. For that reason, it is important to talk with a doctor who can describe the potential benefits and downsides of prescription drugs for nightmare disorder. If you have nightmares that interfere with your sleep or daily life, the first step is to talk with your doctor. Identifying and addressing an underlying cause can help make nightmares less frequent and less bothersome.
Whether nightmares are common or occasional, you may get relief from improving sleep hygiene. Building better sleep habits is a component of many therapies for nightmare disorder and can pave the way for high-quality sleep on a regular basis. There are many elements of sleep hygiene, but some of the most important ones, especially in the context of nightmares, include:. Eric Suni has over a decade of experience as a science writer and was previously an information specialist for the National Cancer Institute.
His research and clinical practice focuses on the entire myriad of sleep disorders. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
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Updated June 24, Written by Eric Suni.
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