Can Steroids Cause Nightmares?

Can Steroids Cause Nightmares? (Helpful Content!)

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Steroids have been shown to have effects on sleep and dreaming. They can cause sleep disruption in a number of ways, such as how they affect serotonin. Ultimately, steroids have profound physiological effects which alter your brain chemistry as well as the rest of your body, and this can cause nightmares.

 

It is not always quite as simple as saying that steroids do or do not cause nightmares.

Plainly, they can lead to circumstances in which nightmares are more likely, and their effects are so profoundly related to the brain that they do so more than a lot of other factors.

Let’s find out more.

Can Steroids Cause Nightmares?

 

Will steroids give you nightmares?

Steroids certainly can cause nightmares, but there are no guarantees involved.

Steroids affect the mind and body in countless profound ways, any one of which could lay the groundwork for increased dreaming and ultimately nightmares.

It’s important, though, in answering this question, to get into the specifics of our dreaming and nightmares and how they work.

An important point to note first of all is that dreaming is something we do, to some extent, virtually every night when we sleep.

You may have heard it said that how much we feel we’ve dreamed is more a question of how well we remember the dreams we had, and this is broadly true.

Sleep involves a number of cycles each night.

The deepest part of sleep is called rapid-eye-movement sleep, and this is where most of our dreams take place.

If that part of sleep is somehow disturbed, or indeed if it is made more deep than usual, then this can lead to higher memory retention of our dreams.

It can also mean we are more aware of those dreams as they are happening, which makes them feel more vivid.

Steroids can have this effect for many reasons.

I’ll get into the specifics of how steroids, broadly speaking, can affect your sleep shortly, but in general, they certainly can disturb your sleep enough to give you vivid dreams.

How we get from vivid dreams to nightmares is largely about the individual.

Nightmares specifically are more often than not a symptom of some greater anxiety in our lives.

This, in combination with the way that steroids can get in the way of our sleep, can lead to nightmares in many people.

How, then, do steroids affect our sleep?

 

Can steroids cause sleep problems?

Steroids can and do affect sleep in many profound ways.

Of course, the term “steroids” is an umbrella term comprising a great many different pharmacological products.

In general, though, there are a few things we can say about most steroids that certainly show how they can affect sleep.

The biggest is how steroids affect our mood.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is responsible for affecting and improving our mood.

Most steroids can have a profound effect on this neurotransmitter, which can lead to mood swings.

Serotonin becomes less well-regulated in those who take steroids, especially at high doses, and this can lead to periods of elation followed by crashes and periods of depression.

This instability makes it very hard to fall asleep and just as hard to stay asleep.

When we frequently wake up at night, we are more likely to remember our dreams and thus we feel we have dreamt more.

Steroids in general, even apart from their effects on serotonin, simply stimulate the brain in a variety of ways.

Studies have shown that those on steroids, again especially at higher doses, have more disturbed sleep and thus dream more due to the mental effects of steroids.

Ultimately, though, it’s all a question of context.

Small amounts of steroids taken in the case of something with a respiratory condition are not going to be much comparable to the amounts taken by competitive bodybuilders.

 

Do steroids cause mood swings? 

Steroids definitely do cause mood swings, and long-term use of steroids can have permanent mental effects.

Those who take steroids, again in high doses, for long periods of time are far more likely to be depressed, anxious, or even bipolar.

The chemistry of our brains is a delicate thing, and it can sometimes take only the slightest thing to knock it out of whack.

You can imagine, then, the kinds of effects that long-term steroid use can have.

 

Should you avoid steroids to sleep better?

If you are not prescribed steroids for a medical condition, then it is the best advice I can give to them up.

They may help with muscle mass and performance, but at most competitive levels they are obviously not allowed in any case.

Furthermore, the effects that they will have on your mood, your outlook, and your sleep, may ultimately outweigh these effects in any case.

Your sleep will begin to improve almost immediately once you come off steroids.

This, in turn, will make your entire outlook more positive and ultimately you will be happier.

Again, people use steroids for many different reasons, but if you can do without them medically, it is definitely best to avoid them.

 

Steroids are a controversial topic, but it’s always important to remember that they have many more uses than in bodybuilding or competitive sports of any kind.

There are obviously countless medical applications for steroids, but they all come with side effects.

If you are making a choice to take steroids and it is affecting your sleep, then the simplest solution is simply to stop taking them as soon as you can.

 

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