Can Hormones Cause Nightmares? (Revealed!)

It depends on the source of the hormones, but, PMS being the most common, hormones in this area can cause restless sleep, which in turn causes nightmares. Any disturbance in your regular cycle of sleep can be a cause of increased vivid dreams and nightmares.

 

So, it’s important to be clear that the main thing that “causes” bad dreams is restless sleep.

It’s all more to do with whether or not we recall our dreams, as opposed to the hormones intrinsically turning dreams bad or causing nightmares.

There are things you can do to make the experience better, though, and to lessen the pain of hormone nightmares.

Let’s look further into this.

Can Hormones Cause Nightmares?

Can hormones give you nightmares?

The simple answer is yes, they certainly can lead to nightmares.

However, it’s a more indirect route.

It is not direct cause and effect.

There is, generally speaking, nothing about hormones that causes a chemical change in the brain, leading to bad dreams.

Broadly speaking.

That said, hormones can affect you in a number of ways that may ultimately lead to bad dreams.

Most importantly, hormones that affect your mood and overall feeling will get in the way of a good night’s rest.

“Hormones” can obviously describe a very wide variety of things, but I’m doing my best to give you a broad overview of what you’ll be experiencing whatever hormones precisely we are talking about.

Broadly speaking, it will affect you in the same way.

So, why is this the case?

 

Why do hormones cause nightmares?

As I said, the big problem is when you can’t get a good night’s sleep as a result of your hormones.

This is where the bad dreams will come in.

If you aren’t properly rested, or you aren’t in a deep enough sleep, then you’ll be much more conscious of your dreams and have much higher dream recall.

When you are more aware of your dreams in this way, they end up taking on a much more vivid, and often more nightmarish, character.

Of course, your overall mood can certainly affect the content of your dreams.

Hormones can have this effect.

It does all get a bit muddled and complicated, as there are multiple factors affecting your dreams, and few of them directly.

What you need to know, though, is that your hormones don’t have to affect your dreams in this way.

I want to be clear, first of all, that we are talking about a very broad spectrum of issues.

Some hormonal problems may, ideally, need medical help to resolve.

If your hormones are routinely affecting your quality of life, then you should speak to a professional about it.

That said, there is some advice I can give you to help ease the restless nights and bad dreams.

 

How to stop nightmares from hormones

What you’re going to want to do is to take every possible step to make your sleep as deep and restful as possible, as hard as the hormones might make that.

There are a number of basic relaxation techniques you can make use of to help get the best sleep.

The first thing is to have a solid and strict bedtime routine, taking a good amount of time to get your body ready for bed.

Take time to meditate, and make use of aromatherapy.

These are two really simple and effective sleeping aids, which won’t solve the problem alone but are really helpful in a broader picture.

Staying active during the day, too, if possible, is helpful.

If you can get to the gym a few times a week, this will really help you fall into a deeper sleep.

For a lot of us, the root of these kinds of insomnia is a simple lack of bodily activity and over saturation of mind activity.

Try to put your phone down an hour or so before going to bed.

Other than that, if you’re still having problems with nightmares, then you may want to consider speaking to someone about treatment.

There are many simple sleeping medications that will help you with these nightmares.

 

Do hormones cause night terrors?

Night terrors are very different from nightmares and operate in a fundamentally different way. it’s worth noting that, in general, unless you’re already predisposed to nightmares, it’s unlikely they will be caused by your hormones.

That said, for someone, especially a young child, who is already prone to nightmares, then the onset of hormones in puberty could well make the problem worse.

 

So, again, hormones don’t exactly trigger a reaction in your brain, chemically, that causes bad dreams.

Bad dreams are caused, more or less entirely, by whether or not our sleep is restful.

If your hormones are causing bad dreams, the best thing you can do to combat it is take as many steps as you can to get a good night’s rest.

There is medical help available if your hormones are getting in the way of your quality of life.

 

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