How can we avoid nightmares?

Something important that helps us to avoid nightmares is to relax, especially before bed time. Try drinking herbal tea – chamomile and honey and lemon are particularly soothing flavours available. 

Light exercise also helps us to relieve the day’s tension and avoid nightmares. Try following a yoga video before climbing into bed. Once you lie down you’ll feel lovely and relaxed and will hopefully avoid nightmares. 

Having a nice, warm bath also helps us to relax and thus avoid nightmares. You could even give yourself a double dose of relaxation – have a cup of tea while you soak in the bath! Use fragrant soaps and body cleansers in your bath and add to the water relaxing oils such as rosemary and lavender. 

Try having a light snack such as a glass of warm milk or some yoghurt. The calcium in things like this can have a relaxing effect, helping you to avoid nightmares. 

Something you should definitely avoid before bed time is any food that is high in fatty acids or is spicy. These foods can give you gas, which will do nothing to avoid nightmares… in fact, it might even have the opposite effect. 

If you must watch TV before you go to bed, avoid watching scary movies, things with graphic images and the evening news. These things are more likely to give you nightmares than help you avoid nightmares. 

Something very positive that you could do, not only to help avoid nightmares, but also for your general health, is to quit smoking. Studies have shown that nicotine can actually cause some sleep disorders, which can at times prompt nightmares.