Why do we have nightmares when it’s hotter?

Anything that goes above 20 and 21 degrees on average throughout the night is “added heat stress”a factor that influences the nightmares. “And more at this time, when we are already tired, the heat, everything that is happening…”, he points out. Oscar Larrosa, expert in Sleep Medicine. The ideal temperature for sleeping is between 15 and 18 degrees in adults, ensures the head of the MIP Salud unit in Madrid.

This added stress, which is experienced when our body makes an effort to adapt our internal temperature to the ambient temperature, makes sleep more unstable. So much so that one is capable of wake up from REM sleep, a special dream that you have periodically, says the expert. That’s where nightmares happen. And it is also there where the body bears thermal stress worse and, therefore, it is more difficult for it to adapt to heat.

Larrosa explains that, once we initiate the dream, the body temperature drops to make it easy. However, if the environmental temperature is much higher, the body has to make more efforts. And this makes it more possible for us to wake up. For all this, the thermal stress increases the chance that you will wake up startled by the nightmare above. And that’s the exact definition of nightmares, he insists: “distressing, unpleasant dreams that wake you up with a start with the nightmare images all over you.”

Why do we always have the same nightmares?

Because we always worry about the same things. The head of the MIP Salud unit in Madrid ensures that, generally, the content of nightmares has to do with what worries. Therefore, the content can be very recurrent, the same theme. “But it’s not a hard and fast rule,” he adds.

Thus, the expert points out that it is difficult to control these nightmares. “Must handle worries“, he explains. He also insists on the need to keep the temperature room and body to acceptable levels with the air support or fans. “Encourage the body to perspire, with particular attention to clothing worn to sleep,” she says.

In any case, ensure that you have to prepare for sleeping. “You go to bed to sleep, you’re not going to think. That’s why it’s important two hours before going to bed be physically rested and psychologically”. For all these reasons, Larrosa insists that we should not do anything that activates us mentally two hours beforehand. “It is not good to do sport the hour beforehand because it tires you and there is no time to rest before going to sleep. We have to associate the brain to darkness with activity and rest. Sport with light and three four hours before going to bed.”