Can Orange Juice Cause Nightmares?

Can Orange Juice Cause Nightmares? (Helpful Content!)

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Orange juice can indirectly lead to nightmares. If consumed too soon before going to sleep, then it can disturb your sleep which in turn leads to vivid dreams if not nightmares. Orange juice is highly acidic, and your stomach has to work hard to neutralise it. This added activity will keep your body more awake late at night.

 

It’s not, then, as simple as saying that orange juice will give you nightmares if you drink it.

It’s more to do with how it affects your body when you’re trying to sleep.

That said, orange juice in particular is not something that has calming or relaxing effects.

Let’s find out more.

Can Orange Juice Cause Nightmares?

 

Does orange juice lead to nightmares?

In an indirect way, orange juice can in some cases lead to nightmares.

In order to understand why and how, though, we need to have an idea of just what triggers dreams or nightmares in the first place.

It’s all to do with how restful our sleep is.

Sleep each night involves a number of cycles, which we go through several times.

REM sleep is the deepest part of the sleep cycle, and is where most dreaming tends to happen.

When this sleep is disrupted in some way or another, it can make us more aware of our dreams.

You may have heard that we dream more or less every night, but it’s just a question of how well we remember them.

The less deeply you are in REM sleep, the more you will remember your dreams.

This is why, when you wake up several times throughout the night, you are more likely to remember your dreams and even feel them to have been more vivid than usual.

How deeply we sleep is of course a question of many factors.

But assuming every other variable is as it ought to be, orange juice alone could have some profound effects.

The acidity of orange juice is high enough that your stomach has to work quite hard to neutralise it and balance the effects.

If your body is trying to do this while you are also trying to sleep, then you’re going to be restless.

This will make you more aware of your dreams and thus you’ll feel them to have been more vivid.

The question of vivid dreams versus complete nightmares depends probably more on external factors.

External stress is more likely to cause nightmares, which you are then more aware of due to the orange juice.

 

Can drinks cause nightmares or vivid dreams?

Drinks can indeed if indirectly, be the cause of vivid dreams and nightmares—it’s not just orange juice.

However, every drink is going to be very different, and the effect it has will depend on whether there’s anything going on that will disrupt your sleep.

For orange juice, as I said, it’s acidity.

This can really disturb sleep and cause bad dreams because your body is working hard to counteract it.

The same is true of other acidic fruit juices, like grapefruit.

Sugary and caffeinated drinks can also have a big impact, of course.

Sugar alone is enough to make your brain more active and keep your sleep from being as deep as it might be.

Caffeine is perhaps one of the worst offenders if you can get to sleep at all with caffeine in your system.

So, as you can see, it’s much more to do with what is in the drink rather than just the drinks themselves.

In general, though, one thing that drinks do that will keep you waking up at night is make you need the bathroom.

So, really, any drink can indeed have an apparent effect on your dreams.

 

Should you drink orange juice before bed?

It is not a good idea to drink orange juice before bed.

As I said, it’s highly acidic and your stomach will be working hard to handle this while your brain is attempting to go to sleep.

There are no benefits associated with drinking orange juice late at night or before bed.

Keep yourself well hydrated with just plain water in the hours before you go to bed.

This allows you to go to the bathroom before going to sleep, and your body isn’t working hard to break anything down.

Orange juice is very sugary, too, so that’s another reason to avoid it before bed.

 

Can orange juice lead to night terrors?

Orange juice is not likely to cause night terrors in anyone who was not already predisposed to them.

Night terrors are not very common in adults, and cases, where night terrors emerge in an adult who has never experienced them, are vanishingly rare.

If you’ve never had issues with night terrors, it’s unlikely you ever will.

That said, for someone who does suffer with night terrors, children especially, orange juice late at night could certainly make the problem a lot worse by the same mechanism.

It will keep them from deep sleep which will ultimately lead to increased likelihood of waking up with night terrors.

 

So, it’s really just a question of consuming the right things at the right time.

Almost anything that you eat or drink right before bed can have an impact on your sleep and thus on your dreams.

Orange juice, being so highly acidic, is in fact one of the bigger offenders.

Try to avoid drinking such highly acidic drinks before bed or even at night at all.

 

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