What you ate for dinner could be a sneaky culprit of those bad dreams, reports Yahoo.
- Spicy meals. If you’re suffering from heartburn or having a hard time digesting your food, that struggle may slip into your dreams. “This has more to do with indigestion than anything else,” says Breus.
- Lack of sleep. Oftentimes, when people are sleep-deprived, they see more nightmares, says Michelle Drerup, PhD, sleep medicine specialist at the Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorders Center. “Your body goes into REM sleep more quickly so you’re spending more time in [the] stage of sleep where the majority of dreams and nightmares occur,” she tells Yahoo Health. Plus, sleep deprivation can up your stress levels — which is another bad dream trigger.
- Sleep apnea. “In my practice, people with sleep apnea have reported dreams of being underwater and not being able to breathe,” says Breus. This could be your brain’s way of manifesting the sleep disorder — in which you stop breathing in your sleep, he explains.
