How Anxiety Dreams Can Influence Your Sleep Patterns

Stress is a natural human response that can affect our ability to sleep soundly and may even influence our dreams. For example, when you are highly anxious and agitated about something, you may have an anxiety dream, an intense or distressing dream often centered around daily stressors. While the occasional nightmare or restless night is not something to worry over, consistent nightmares and anxiety dreams can change your sleep patterns and affect your overall well-being. As a result, you may benefit from mental health support. Read on to learn about anxiety dreams and how they can influence your sleep schedule and overall health.

What are anxiety dreams?

Examples of topics

Many people might describe bad dreams through a series of common themes. These themes can often reflect possible events in real life and can trigger discomfort that can lead to feeling overwhelmed. Examples of major themes in anxiety dreams include:

• Experiencing natural disasters such as earthquakes or tornadoes 
• Failing, forgetting something vital, or making terrible mistakes
• War or other violent, traumatic topics
• Dreams about accidents, injuries, or illnesses for yourself or loved ones
• Being threatened, chased, or attacked
• Financial hardships such as bankruptcy or being evicted from your home
• Betrayal or abandonment by a romantic partner or close friend

How poor sleep can affect your life

Studies have shown a close correlation between stress and insomnia-related sleep disturbances. There seems to be a sleep-specific component related to stress known as sleep reactivity that causes insomnia, or the inability to fall asleep or sleep well through the night. You may have noticed how stress from the day can affect your ability to sleep or how even sleeping in a new environment can keep you from snoozing soundly. 

An occasional disrupted night’s sleep is inevitable for most and generally does not cause any long-term health effects. However, several nights of sleep deprivation or poor sleep can not only cause you to feel tired, restless, or cranky throughout the day but also impede your memory, focus, and ability to make decisions. According to researchers at Harvard Medical School, a close connection exists between inadequate sleep and negative moods. Those with chronic insomnia are at higher risk of developing mood disorders, including increased anxiety and depression.  

Why do anxiety dreams happen?

Mental health professionals have not identified a single cause for anxiety dreams. Still, they have identified a number of risk factors that can influence how likely you are to have dreams that leave you feeling tense and unsettled. 

Risk factors

• External stressors
• Prescribed medication side effects
• Breathing problems while sleeping, such as sleep apnea
• Insomnia or other sleeping disorders
• Anxiety disorders
• Substance or alcohol use
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

If you are struggling with substance use, contact the SAMHSA National Helpline at (800) 662-4357 to receive support and resources. Support is available 24/7.

Do your dreams mean anything?

Our dream contents often reflect our daytime activities, suggesting that the process of dreaming involves processing and integrating our daily experiences. Most dreaming occurs during REM sleep, a phase of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement, where the brain's activity is closer to that of being awake, suggesting a potential link between dreaming and the processes of memory consolidation and emotional control.

People have been interpreting dreams for thousands of years, yet science still does not have a conclusive answer as to what our dreams mean. Dreams are incredibly individualized by the dreamer, further complicating efforts to study their meaning on a large scale. 

A recent study found that individuals with anxiety disorders experience dreams with more negative content, including higher instances of aggression, failure, and negative emotions, compared to those without anxiety disorders. However, a 2014 study showed a significant reduction in the frequency of anxiety-related bad dreams in patients with generalized anxiety disorder after a treatment course of 12 weeks or ten individual cognitive behavioral therapy treatment sessions. 

Coping with anxiety dreams

Anxiety dreams may leave you feeling unsettled after a restless sleep, disrupting your resting patterns and affecting your stress levels. Mental health professionals may recommend the following to manage anxiety-related sleep troubles in our daily lives. 

Treat your anxiety and other mental health challenges

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most common treatment for anxiety disorders. This therapeutic approach may help reduce anxiety by helping you identify and replace negative thought patterns and behaviors. As a result, you may be able to reduce stress reactions and manage your anxiety symptoms in healthy, practical ways. 

Develop a calming bedtime routine

Establishing a soothing bedtime routine is a key part of good sleep hygiene. It allows you to work self-care into your routine while reinforcing the preparation necessary for good sleep. Tweak your habits as you find what works best, and structure your bedtime routine to help you feel calm and relaxed as you prepare to sleep. 

Relaxing before bed is all about putting your brain into sleep mode. Many people with anxiety disorders have trouble “turning off” their minds enough to rest properly. If that’s the case for you, consider trying some of these methods to switch gears before bed. 

• Deep breathing or meditation
• Avoid using your phone or other electronics for at least an hour before bed. 
• Relax with quiet, soothing music. 
• Keep a journal and track your emotional experiences
• Stretch before you get into bed, or if you can’t sleep, get up, stretch, and climb back into bed.
• Limit blue light exposure by using filters or wearing blue light-blocking glasses.
• Read a favorite book or one with a slow pace that lulls you to sleep.

Avoid stressful activities before bed

Some activities, such as excessive screen time and heavy late-night eating, can lead to more stress and poor quality of sleep. Try not to do things that cause stress or are likely to keep your mind working, interfering with your regular sleep cycle. While avoiding every stressor is impossible if you know something is expected to cause an adverse reaction, try to handle it earlier in the day when it won’t affect your rest as much. 

Journal to clear your mind

Keeping a journal and writing about your day and its stressors can be a helpful way to clear your mind before bed. Writing about your feelings and experiences requires examining and identifying them, which can help you process them and allow you a restful night’s sleep without replaying the day’s events in your head. 

Maintain a healthy diet and exercise

Working even 30 minutes of daily physical activity into your routine can offer numerous health benefits, including improved sleep. However, experts recommend you exercise at least an hour before bed because exercise releases endorphins that can energize your body rather than help you sleep. 

Establish healthy sleep hygiene

According to the Centers for Disease Control, good sleep habits, or sleep hygiene, can influence how effectively you rest. 

• Being physically active during the day can make it easier to sleep at night. 
• Develop a consistent sleep routine. Go to bed around the same time each night, waking at the same time in the morning, even on the weekends. This habit can train your body to expect sleep at the established time. 
• Keep your bedroom dark, quiet, relaxing, and at a comfortable temperature while sleeping. 
• Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and large meals before bed.
• Try not to use your phone or other electronics for at least an hour before sleeping.

The connection between dreams and the waking world

A recent study found a link between stress, depression, and anxiety levels experienced during the waking state and the frequency of nightmares and distressing dreams. Study authors reported that the content of one’s dreams has “a bi-directional relationship with psychopathology and that dreams react to new, personally significant and emotional experiences.” 

During the pandemic, 34% of the study’s participants reported increased dream recall, with dreams often focused on threats, death, and being ineffective in stopping an impending doom. The study concluded that bad dreams and nightmares were associated with higher stress levels and aligned with many of the more significant symptoms of anxiety and depression. 

Know when to seek professional help

If your anxiety negatively affects your sleep patterns or causes functional impairment throughout your daily life, seeking professional help may be helpful. Consider speaking to your doctor or mental healthcare provider about treatment for anxiety-related sleep problems. While anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition in America, they are also highly treatable with psychotherapy, medication, or a combination of both approaches. 

How therapy can help

Working with a licensed therapist through an online therapy platform like BetterHelp can be a convenient way to treat your anxiety so you can enjoy better sleep. With professional support and guidance, identify what is causing your anxiety dreams and find practical coping strategies to deal with those feelings so you can relax when it is time to dream. Online therapy is often less expensive and involves shorter wait times than its traditional counterpart, and flexible appointment formats make it easy to fit treatment into your busy schedule. 

According to a 2020 study, online CBT is as effective as in-person treatments for anxiety and stress-related disorders in particular. Internet-based interventions also make therapy reachable to people who do not have face-to-face treatment options. Many patients said the added physical distance made it easier to open up emotionally to their therapist, and attending from home made it possible to receive treatment more reliably. Medical professionals agree that the effectiveness of CBT increases with more sessions.