Dementia: Regular Nightmare in Middle-age can Seriously Affect Your Mental Health|Study

Last updated on July 13th, 2023 at 11:14 am

Frequent nightmares or bad dreams increase the risk of dementia, finds a recent study. If you are not aware, dementia is a condition that affects memory, thinking and social abilities that severely affects your daily life. This very important research was conducted by a doctor and published online in The Lancet. The result was worrying, it says that frequent nightmares in middle-aged people have a bad effect on the brain, they have increased chances of developing dementia later in life.

The research was carried out by Dr Abidemi Otaiku who is a clinical fellow in neurology at the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Human Brain Health, in the United Kingdom. Let us learn more about this research.

Nightmare and Parkinson’s disease

Scientists already knew that frequent distressing dreams have an ill effect on the brain of people suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease affects the nervous system and the sufferer has difficulty speaking, tremor in the hands makes their daily activity difficult and slowly it affects their walking leading to getting bed rid. It is known to science that in such cases frequent nightmares affect their cognitive abilities leading eventually to dementia. 

However, bad dreams and nightmares are common in the general population as well. Approximately 5% of adults experience nightmares weekly, with a further 12–40% experiencing them monthly¹. Dr Otaiku at Birmingham’s Centre for Human Brain Health, in the United Kingdom, was curious whether distressing dreams can negatively affect a normal middle-aged person’s brain.

For this, the researcher shortlisted 1016 middle-aged participants. They all were given a questionnaire regarding distressing dreams. The questionnaire includes:

1. During the past month, how often have you had trouble sleeping because you have bad dreams?”.
2. No definition of bad dreams was provided.

The options included:

• (0) “not during the past month,
• (1) “Less than once a week”,
• (2) “once or twice a week” and
• (3) “three or more times a week”.

Based on the questionnaire the doctor recruited 605 middle-aged adults (35–64 years) in the United States who had no previous history of dementia. The data was collected between the year 2002 to 2012 and was carefully analysed.

Frequent nightmare negatively affects our brain

We all experience bad dreams and nightmares in our life. But frequent distressing dreams are not at all good for our health. The study confirms that frequent distressing dreams cause a decline in brain cognitive function not only in Parkinson’s disease but in normal individuals as well. Result says that a middle-aged person with nightmares once a week is at high risk of developing dementia later in life.

The research also revealed that distressing dreams were more frequent amongst women in the middle-aged group of participants, but were more frequent amongst men in the older participants. Overall, men were found to have a higher risk of developing dementia due to frequent distressing dreams.

Low mood, anxiety, and stress can be the cause of frequent bad dreams. This is why we should take a break from work and also take steps to make our life stress-free. There’s another study that says that socialising with family and friends reduces the risk of dementia.

Keep Reading: A little-understood sleep disorder affects millions and has clear links to dementia – 4 questions answered