Skip to main content

Bad Dreams, Disturbed Sleep

Image
By

 


A good night’s sleep, so essential to rest your body and mind, and restore ‘energy” and vitality, is becoming a casualty for many these days.

Last week a 58 year old lady complained that she woke up with a startle in the middle of the night dreaming of “drugs”, something she had never been exposed to all her life. Another reported a nightmare in which he felt someone was “strangulating” him by tightening something around his neck, till he woke up feeling choked! Yet another reported dreaming that he was in an ICU of a hospital with PPE draped figures surrounding his bed while he was being prepared to be hooked to a ventilator.

Bad dreams can be disturbing to say the least. One wakes up with a startle or in sweat, feeling disturbed and uneasy, and feeling drained. The mood in the morning is usually uneasy and snappy. Creative thinking has usually gone for a toss…postponed to yet another day when one feels more cheerful and positive. 

Several factors could be contributing to “bad dreams” and “restless” sleep.

1.      The thoughts and feelings that engage the ”conscious” mind before you fall asleep, especially if they are intense, often impact what the unconscious mind throws up as dreams during sleep.

Watching an “intense” TV program or a movie depicting heinous crime or cruelty, in the late evening before sleep could be a culprit. A heated argument the previous evening could do just do that too.

Experts therefore advise switching off electronic devices and turning your mind to calmer positive thoughts for an hour before sleeping as a preparation for good quality of sleep.

2.      Physical conditions matter too. If the bed is uncomfortable, room is stuffy or hot, or there is too much light or noise…the sleep quality suffers.

3.      Late night heavy dinners are often a cause of disturbed sleep, especially for “refluxers”, that is those with GERD. Light early dinners have been shown to enhance the quality of sleep.

4.      If a person with diabetes wakes up in the night with bad dreams and in sweat, a dangerously low blood sugar could be the cause. A blood sugar test at that time helps pick up episodes of “nocturnal hypoglycemia”.

5.      Patients with hypertension could often complain of throbbing headaches associated with bad dreams when they wake up. A quick BP check could help resolve the matter.

6.      Several medications are known to disturb sleep or cause bad dreams, some Beta blockers for example. Check with your doctor, or read the drug pamphlet if you are having problems.

7.      Calming the mind and feeding it with pleasant calming thoughts before sleeping is a good idea. For readers, a few pages of PG Wodehouse could be therapeutic.

8.      Music lovers have quite a choice these days. Apple music or You Tube provides a wide range of soothing “music for sleep” that we and our dogs enjoy best.

A good bit of sleep research has focused on quality of sleep and dreams, and have gone on to study the effect on our performance and mood the next day, and in our lives. It is time to pay attention to your sleep!

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 13, 2020 at 6:50 AM

    Very informative article sir.
    Sir i m also taking ciplar 10 ( beta blocker) n i also have sleep disorder. What to do ???

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How do you like your Tea?

By
The way we drink our tea may not only reflect our taste and style, but our health as well. Tea drinking is around 4700 years old and had its origin in China. Leaves of the shrub Camellia sinensis (tea plant) were in use at that time as a remedy for wounds and diseases. With the legendary emperor Shenong brewing and drinking its extracts, tea drinking became a popular habit in this part of the world. The British, impressed with the brew and the customs that go with drinking it in China and Japan, tried to emulate and evolve a tea-drinking custom of their own, and soon “tea-time”became a familiar term across the globe. Every home or cafe seems to have its own flavour. The north Indian variety of “chay” is a glass of hot creamy milk (more cream as it gets more “special”) with lots of sugar and a lacing of  “tea liquor” of strong tea that grows on lower heights (Assam, Nilgiri, Sri Lanka etc). In contrast, the Chinese and Japanese prefer light green or jasmine tea without a drop of mi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Food Fads in Liver Disorders

By
In an attempt at trying to do well to those they love, spouses and parents often enforce diets on patients of liver diseases that often turn out to be detrimental. The commonest food fad is pale insipid boiled cabbage being doled out to nauseous patients suffering from hepatitis that makes them puke even more.  The liver, in a way, is a buzzing manufacturing unit that requires lots of energy to keep its multiple functions going. And it derives all this from the food we eat. During disease, such as during an attack of jaundice, when many of the liver cells get killed, the liver attemptsdamage control by trying to regenerate quickly. For its cells to multiply however, it requires a generous supply of energy that comes from carbohydrates, and protein, the building block for its cells and tissues. Boiled green vegetables unfortunately have neither of these. Hence the situation often progresses to that of a starved liver unable to recuperate due to cut-off food suppl...
2 comments
Read more

Colas have No Class

By
Cola drinks, once a symbol of American upmarket style, is now to be found perched mainly on the shelves of road-side ‘paan walas’ and local grocers. True, there still are Americans who drink more colas than water, and consume an average of 2 bottles per day of the tangy fizzy dark drink, but it has clearly fallen in stature as offering it to visitors or serving it at parties is no longer elegant. Premiere schools in Lucknow such as La Martiniere College for girls have shunned colas from their canteen for the last 4 years. The story started with extensive campaigns by HOPE Initiative (Health Oriented Programs and Education) in 2005 creating awareness among the bright students about the long term harms of cola drinks. A heated debate followed in which the rights of an individual student  was pitched against the hazards of allowing gullible youngsters to be enticed by aggressive marketing to gulp colas and fall sick. The intelligent and alert La Marts students dcided on ...
Post a Comment
Read more