Can Walnuts Cause Nightmares?

Can Walnuts Cause Nightmares? (Helpful Content!)

by
Walnuts themselves are unlikely to cause nightmares. If you eat large quantities of walnuts shortly before bed, this could indirectly cause nightmares by disturbing restful sleep. However, individual food items, especially innocuous walnuts, are unlikely to be the sole cause of nightmares.

 

Many foods have a strong reputation for being the cause of nightmares when eaten before bed.

However, at best this is a tenuous connection and at worst it fails to understand exactly how dreams function.

That said, eating an excessive quantity of just about anything too close to bedtime can be a problem.

Let’s find out more.

Can Walnuts Cause Nightmares?

 

Can walnuts lead to nightmares?

Indirectly, in some cases, walnuts could be a factor leading to nightmares.

However, on their own, they cannot strictly “cause” nightmares in any sense as simple as that.

To understand this better, we need to understand exactly how it is that dreams work in the first place.

Sleeping involves a number of different cycles each night.

The deepest part of our sleeping pattern is called rapid eye movement sleep, or REM sleep.

Dreaming tends to occur mostly during this part of sleep.

If something causes our sleep to be particularly deep or, conversely, particularly restless, then this can make us more aware of our dreams and nightmares.

Thus, we might feel we have had more nightmares on one night when our sleep wasn’t as restful.

If you eat a large quantity of walnuts before going to bed, then your body will be working hard to break it all down.

This will mean that your sleep is not as deep as it could be.

That said, you’d have to eat a fairly large amount and fairly close to bedtime in order for it to have a real effect.

Walnuts are fairly simple, and while tough, mostly fibrous.

This makes them relatively easy to digest.

So, they’re unlikely to be even a peripheral cause of nightmares.

Nightmares as such usually reflect some level of stress that you’re experiencing in your waking life, too.

Restless sleep doesn’t always lead to nightmares—it may just lead to extremely vivid and strange dreams.

If it seems to be causing nightmares, then there is likely something more going on.

The short answer is that walnuts cannot really lead to nightmares in any useful sense.

Eating before bed is the culprit, and while eating anything in the right quantities could have this effect, some foods are worse than others.

 

Can what you eat affect your dreams?

In an indirect way, what you eat can indeed affect your dreams.

Something like walnuts, as I’ve said, is actually relatively benign, and unlikely to be a big problem.

Again, in large enough quantities, anything will have this effect.

Your body is working hard to break it down while your brain is trying to sleep.

There are many foods with a reputation for causing nightmares.

Cheese, doubtless, is the most famous.

Other foods that can cause dreams are chicken, salmon, eggs, milk and white rice.

There is a scientific, neurological basis for these claims.

They all contain an amino acid called tryptophan, which is taken through vitamin B6 and converted into serotonin.

Serotonin can indeed lead to increased intensity in dreams and nightmares.

However, again, it still takes rather a large quantity to see any measurable difference in people.

As long as you don’t eat massive amounts of these foods right before bed, you are unlikely to suffer any major issues.

Try to be done with eating at least three hours before bed.

What else can be done to curb nightmares?

 

What can I do to stop nightmares?

The best thing you can do, broadly speaking, to curb nightmares is to give yourself the best possible chance of a restful night’s sleep.

Don’t eat shortly before bed, but make sure that you eat well enough when you do that you aren’t going to bed hungry.

Striking this balance can be challenging, but it’s essential.

Stay hydrated throughout the day and try to exercise regularly.

This will make your body more ready for sleep when it eventually comes.

Ultimately, nightmares themselves are often related to form of external stress in our lives.

Addressing that is going to be your best chance of stopping the nightmares in the long term.

Obviously, the difficulty of that task is going to be different for everyone—but it will need to be done.

 

Can walnuts cause night terrors?

Walnuts are almost certainly not going to be the direct cause of night terrors.

Indeed, you’re very unlikely to suddenly suffer from night terrors if you weren’t already susceptible to them.

They are not very common at all in adults.

That said, the same does apply in the sense that if you eat large quantities of walnuts before bed, and you have problems with night terrors, then this may well make the problem worse.

But there is not really any sense in which walnuts are going to cause night terrors directly.

 

The blame should not be squared directly at walnuts, then.

Walnuts themselves are innocent.

It’s the habits of how you eat them that are to blame.

No matter what the food is, you don’t want to eat too much of something before bed.

Ideally, you should try not eating anything at all for a few hours before bed.

Walnuts are no exception, although they are probably one of the more innocuous things you could eat before bed.

 

More in nightmares

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

Leave a Comment