Nowadays, anxiety affects millions of people worldwide. Its impact ranges from mild impairment to severe disruption of daily life.
Anxiety can affect your dreams, turning them into nightmares or vivid dreams that make you feel trapped. It can worsen depending on your daily habits. What is the best approach to address this?
For starters, how do I know it’s anxiety?
Anxiety can manifest itself in many ways.
- The more obvious is feeling nervous and on edge
- Sweating, trembling or shaking from worry and nervousness
- Feeling tense, as in the whole body is not relaxed
- Experiencing some heart palpitations, rapid heartbeat
- Having a hard time concentrating
- Less obvious is gastrointestinal issues like nausea, heartburn, cramps and indigestion
- Having a sense of impending doom, danger or panic
- Feeling overstimulated from sensory overload regarding their surroundings
- Feeling irritated, tense and restless
- Having trouble sleeping, bad sleeping patterns
- Leading to fatigue
For more on stress/anxiety on sleep, check out our stress effects on sleep article.
What are vivid dreams?
As for vivid dreams, they are extremely detailed and lifelike dream experiences that often resemble real-life situations. In the realm of dreams, you may encounter a diverse array of sensations, where the touch, taste, smell, and sound manifest with a vivid and lifelike intensity.
These may sound nice when dreaming of an ideal life but can be nightmarish when stuck in a dark and ominous world.
Keep reading about vivid dreams on the dreams website for a broader understanding.
Here are things to avoid in your routine for a more soothing, dreamy experience
First, you want to avoid caffeine, alcohol and drugs. Although some substances are sometimes associated with sleeping faster, they can disrupt your sleep and induce those nightmares and vivid dreams we are trying to avoid.
In that same vein, you should be mindful of the medications you are taking (if any) in case they affect your health in any way, leading to sleep disturbances.
Avoid eating large meals before going to sleep, as they can also cause nightmares and discomfort in your body.
Avoid (or try to) spending your last moments before dozing off on your phone! Mindlessly scrolling and thinking about “one last video” will lead to FOMO (fear of missing out), concerns about life, body image, buying and consuming, and even work-related worries. I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel anxious just thinking about it!
One last thing that might seem obvious to most, but if you get easily scared by scary YouTube videos or movies, don’t watch them before bedtime as it might keep you awake and make you see things in the corner of your room.
These habits will help you have a more pleasant trip to dreamland
Now, you may have heard this A LOT; I know I have, but reading before bed does work! If you don’t like reading, you can listen to music, color, paint, knit, stretch, whistle, or even talk to yourself. The possibilities are endless, and they all aim to prepare you for blissful sleep.
Another thing you can do is write, more specifically, journaling. All you need to do is spend a few minutes writing down your thoughts, reflections, or things you’re grateful for. Writing can help clear your mind and reduce stress.
Another funny thing I’ve learned, well, funny in my mind, is setting aside time in the day to worry. Otherwise known as scheduled worry time, you take the time in the day to think about your worries. Ideally, you want to write them down in a column of worries and a solution column. You don’t want to spend hours on it, and it’s only natural that not everything in life has solutions, so simply take it one step at a time. The goal is not to overwhelm you.
Breathing exercises is something that has always been challenging to me personally as it makes me think I am either not breathing correctly or makes my mind wander off. I have learned, however, that that is entirely normal; you need to practice to reap the benefits and feel more relaxed. It’s a great concentration exercise as well.
If you enjoy guided meditation, you will also enjoy guided imagery, which immerses you in a scenario, usually involving nature, where you visualize yourself in these calm and serene atmospheres, making it a great way to ease your sleep.
If nightmares still jolt you awake at night, here are some coping strategies to help you even more
Similarly to journaling, keeping a dream journal can be therapeutic; you can write down the dream and its associated emotions so that you feel less heavy and scared. You can even take a step further and try to interpret those dreams or all your dreams with our dream interpretation article.
Keeping a nightlight is always comforting when nightmares are frequent. Having one beside my bed keeps me at ease in these situations.
Take a moment to remember where you are and remember you are safe in your bed. Touch your surroundings, your body and your significant other or pet if they are there. You can also do the five senses technique, where you find 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
You can also try Progressive Muscle Relaxation where you gradually tense and then relax each muscle group in your body, starting from your toes and working up to your head.
If it’s hard to fall asleep again, go back to reading a book or do a comforting activity that relaxes you so you can relieve your mind.
A quick reminder
One last thing to keep in mind is how your worries and anxiety affect you during the daytime. If it has been hard to function lately, always reach out to someone you trust to speak up about what troubles you. It is entirely essential, and you and your worries matter.
If it is too much and you need more help handling these worries, try to contact professionals, as they can help and guide you to sleep better and have a better quality of life.
