'Our sleeping brains...': Too many bad dreams? You might be ageing faster than others

Nightmares are often ignored as just a bad dream. Just like one has happy dreams, the creepy and scary ones are also seen as part of the game. However, a study has now found that nightmares might not just be a one-night thing, but can affect the person having them in the long run. Researchers from the European Academy of Neurology last month said in Helsinki that people who have frequent bad dreams age faster biologically. They said that their bodies underwent more wear and tear and suffered from "significantly accelerated biological ageing" when compared to another person of the same age who did not have nightmares as frequently. Dr Abidemi Otaiku, PhD, a clinical research fellow in the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, revealed the results that are a part of a health study in the US. A total of 2,429 children aged eight to 10 and 183,012 adults aged 26 to 86 participated in the study on nightmares.

Nightmares age you faster

Otaiku noted that adults who had nightmares three or more times a week had a higher chance of dying before the age of 70. Shockingly, the frequency of nightmares emerged to be a stronger predictor of premature death than smoking, obesity, and poor nutrition. Otaiku admitted that "people with nightmares do have a higher number of chronic conditions," but even when these factors were removed, " the link between nightmares and premature death remained significant." Otaiku has been diving into the study of nightmares and their potential impact on our health for a long time. One of his earlier studies found a link between older adults having nightmares and developing Parkinson’s and dementia. Those who reported having nightmares once a week were twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s, and four times as likely to develop dementia in the next decade. In children aged between 7 and 11, frequent nightmares indicated cognitive decline by the age of 50.

Stress hormone and poor sleep quality

Other studies also found similar effects of nightmares on human health, which led Otaiku to carry out an in-depth study into the extent of the link. He wanted to understand whether faster ageing because of nightmares was causing health problems. He found that this was certainly the case, as displayed by the telomeres or the DNA sequences. This is because nightmares seem real to our brains. “Our sleeping brains cannot distinguish dreams from reality. That’s why nightmares often wake us up … because our fight-or-flight response has been triggered. This stress reaction can be even more intense than anything we experience while awake," Otaiku said in a press release. When we have nightmares, our body releases the stress hormone cortisol. Besides this, overnight cellular restoration is also affected because of poor sleep quality.