Eating cheese before bed might do more than upset your stomach — it could be hijacking your dreams. Scientists found a strong connection between dairy, sleep quality, and nightmare frequency.
Credit: SciTechDaily.com
New research reveals a surprisingly creepy link between nightmares and dairy, especially for those with lactose intolerance.
In a survey of over 1,000 students, scientists found that people who consumed dairy products like cheese before bed were more likely to experience unsettling dreams, possibly due to gut discomfort disrupting sleep. The findings suggest that what’s in your stomach might be influencing what happens in your dreams — and that late-night snacks could be fueling more than just cravings.
Dairy Intake and Disturbed Dreams
Eating too much dairy might be doing more than upsetting your stomach, it could be disturbing your sleep. In a new study, researchers found a strong connection between nightmares and lactose intolerance. The likely culprit? Gastrointestinal discomfort like gas or bloating may be sneaking into your dreams and disrupting restful sleep.
Dr. Tore Nielsen of Université de Montréal, lead author of the study published in Frontiers in Psychology, explained, “Nightmare severity is robustly associated with lactose intolerance and other food allergies. These new findings imply that changing eating habits for people with some food sensitivities could alleviate nightmares. They could also explain why people so often blame dairy for bad dreams!”
A Curious Link Between Food and Dreams
To explore the link between diet and sleep, researchers surveyed 1,082 students at MacEwan University. Participants answered questions about their sleep patterns, dream experiences, overall health, and eating habits.
Roughly a third of students reported frequent nightmares. Women were more likely to experience poor sleep, remember their dreams, and report food intolerances or allergies. Around 40 percent of participants believed certain foods or eating late affected their sleep, and 25 percent said specific foods seemed to make their sleep worse.
The results also showed that students who ate less healthy diets tended to have more unpleasant dreams and were less likely to remember them.
While it’s long been a popular belief that food can influence dreams, scientific evidence has been limited. This new study helps fill that gap. “We are routinely asked whether food affects dreaming — especially by journalists on food-centric holidays,” said Nielsen. “Now we have some answers.”
Dairy, Sweets, and Nightmare Triggers
Most participants who blamed their bad sleep on food thought sweets, spicy foods, or dairy were responsible. Only a comparatively small proportion — 5.5% of respondents — felt that what they ate affected the tone of their dreams, but many of these people said they thought sweets or dairy made their dreams more disturbing or bizarre.
When the authors compared reports of food intolerances to reports of bad dreams and poor sleep, they found that lactose intolerance was associated with gastrointestinal symptoms, nightmares, and low sleep quality. It’s possible that eating dairy activates gastrointestinal disturbance, and the resulting discomfort affects people’s dreams and the quality of their rest.
Gut Discomfort Hijacks REM
“Nightmares are worse for lactose-intolerant people who suffer severe gastrointestinal symptoms and whose sleep is disrupted,” said Nielsen. “This makes sense, because we know that other bodily sensations can affect dreaming. Nightmares can be very disruptive, especially if they occur often, because they tend to awaken people from sleep in a dysphoric state. They might also produce sleep avoidance behaviors. Both symptoms can rob you of restful sleep.”
This could also explain why fewer participants reported a link between their food and their dreams than in a previous study by Nielsen and his colleague, Dr. Russell Powell of MacEwan University, conducted eleven years earlier on a similar population. Improved awareness of food intolerances could mean that the students in the present study ate fewer foods likely to activate their intolerances and affect their sleep. If this is the case, then simple dietary interventions could potentially help people improve their sleep and overall health.
Unraveling Diet–Dream Mysteries
However, besides the robust link between lactose intolerance and nightmares, it’s not clear how the relationship between sleep and diet works. It’s possible that people sleep less well because they eat less well, but it’s also possible that people don’t eat well because they don’t sleep well, or that another factor influences both sleep and diet. Further research will be needed to confirm these links and identify the underlying mechanisms.
“We need to study more people of different ages, from different walks of life, and with different dietary habits to determine if our results are truly generalizable to the larger population,” said Nielsen. “Experimental studies are also needed to determine if people can truly detect the effects of specific foods on dreams. We would like to run a study in which we ask people to ingest cheese products versus some control food before sleep to see if this alters their sleep or dreams.”
The Life of Earth
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/
Fresh caught crab from the ocean, can be quite the dream stimulator.
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