Can Eating Before Bed Cause Nightmares? (Yum!)

There is no direct relationship between eating late and nightmares, but eating late can disrupt your sleep in a number of ways. Having restless sleep leads to much higher dream recall, which is often the main cause of nightmares and vivid dreams in general.

I got in really late from work the other night, and I hadn’t eaten in hours. I was exhausted, but I knew it would be really bad not to eat before going to bed.

I grabbed some leftovers out of the fridge and ate them probably in far too much of a rush.

I went straight to bed as soon as I was finished and I was out like a light—or so I thought.

I had really pretty bad nightmares all night, and after a certain point I struggled to get back to sleep at all.

I wondered if this could have been brought on by my eating so late—so I decided to look into it.

While there is no direct biochemical or neurological link between eating and having nightmares, indirectly, it can indeed cause more restless sleep which in turn leads to nightmares or higher recall of those nightmares.

Let’s look further into this.

Does eating late cause nightmares?

So, again, just to be clear, eating late at night does not cause nightmares or bad dreams in any direct, quantifiable sense.

Eating late doesn’t have a neurological effect which causes dreaming due to increased brain activity.

That said, some foods do certainly have a stronger altering effect on our bodies.

Though cheese is long said to cause weird and uncomfortable dreams, this again is not the case neurologically.

Indirectly, eating cheese may cause nightmares or vivid dreams before bed—I’ll get into why shortly.

But even though the correct answer is that no, eating late does not directly cause nightmares, the more helpful answer is that it does and can cause nightmares.

In general, you should aim to finish eating any large meals at least 3-4 hours before bed.

This gives your body a chance to break down and digest the food well before you go to sleep—as this can take up considerable brain power when you’re asleep!

So, let’s look at why all this is the case.

Why do you have nightmares when you eat before bed?

There are a couple of possible reasons eating before bed can cause nightmares.

The simplest explanation is that when you eat right before bed, this causes your sleep to be significantly disrupted in a number of key ways.

Most of our dreaming occurs in the deepest stage of sleep, REM or rapid eye movement sleep.

We go through stages of sleep each night, and we don’t always properly achieve the deepest states of it if our sleep is not optimal.

When you eat before bed, your body is using a lot of energy in the preliminary stages of breaking down that food.

This use of energy means your body will have trouble properly shutting down for sleep.

When your body is not properly shut down and going into a deep sleep, you’re far more awake and aware and are far more likely to wake up in the night.

When you are frequently waking up in the night, your dream recall is much higher. This can cause nightmares, or at least causes us to be more aware of our nightmares.

So, the notion that cheese, for example, gives you nightmares, is only true in the sense that eating pretty much any high-calorie food at bedtime is going to have this effect.

What can I eat before bed to stop nightmares?

The simple answer is nothing.

There aren’t any foods that will stop you from having nightmares if you eat them before bed.

But that’s not to say there’s nothing you can do.

It starts, however, with not eating at all before bed.

As I said, it’s not the foods you’re eating but the fact that you’re eating them. your body is having trouble breaking everything down, and is keeping you awake in the process.

Try to finish eating at least 3 hours, preferably 4, before bed.

Other than that, try to stick to a really regular schedule.

Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day.

Getting your body into these rhythms is one of the most helpful things you can do for your sleeping pattern.

The other question mark is around night terrors—can food cause these?

Can food cause night terrors?

If you aren’t, as an adult, already predisposed to night terrors, then eating before bed is very unlikely to cause them.

Children much more commonly suffer from night terrors, and in the same way, eating before bed can affect dream recall, the way it will keep them from properly sleeping may also increase the likelihood of night terrors.

You shouldn’t have anything to worry about, though, if it isn’t something you have already experienced.

Even though there isn’t a direct link—or, at least one which has been proven yet—there is very clearly an indirect link between late-night eating and bad dreams.

Ultimately, to give yourself the best chance of avoiding these dreams, you should take steps to ensure your sleep is as deep as it could possibly be.

This means finishing eating long before you go to bed, and taking what steps you can to ensure the deepest most relaxed sleep possible.

Can Eating Before Bed Cause Nightmares? (Yum!)

Does eating late cause nightmares?

Why do you have nightmares when you eat before bed?

What can I eat before bed to stop nightmares?

Can food cause night terrors?

More in nightmares

Was this helpful?

Leave a Comment Cancel reply