Latest news with #ToreNielsen
Fox News
08-07-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Eating these common foods before bed could trigger sweet dreams or night terrors
Can your diet influence whether you experience sweet dreams or nightmares? Researchers say yes – and their findings could give late-night snackers something to think about. Tore Nielsen, director of the University of Montreal's Dreams and Nightmares Laboratory, recently published his new findings in the journal Frontiers in Psychology on June 30. The study suggests that not only does eating certain foods before bed influence how well you sleep, it also influences the nature of your dreams and whether they're pleasant, bizarre or unsettling. Nielsen told Fox News Digital there were clear patterns in how certain food groups correlated with the quality and emotional tone of participants' dreams. The culprits that worsened sleep included desserts, spicy foods and dairy foods. Nearly 23% of the participants experienced negative dreams after consuming sweet foods, while 19.5% had nightmares after eating spicy fare. Dairy choices, meanwhile, accounted for 15.7% of the bad dreams. In terms of improving sleep, analysts found that those who ate "clean" before bedtime experienced better sleep at night. Nearly 18% reported improved sleep after consuming fruit, while 13.4% reported better sleep after drinking herbal tea. Some 12% of study participants also saw positive effects after consuming vegetables. Nielsen's research also differentiated between disturbing dreams and bizarre dreams. "People who develop nightmares might also take a look at the effects of medications, recreational drugs or alcohol that they're consuming." "Of the participants who stated that they thought food affected their dreams, the top culprits blamed for disturbing dreams were desserts/sweets (31%), dairy (22%) and meat (16%)," Neilsen said. "The top culprits blamed for bizarre dreams were again desserts/sweets (38%) and dairy (27%) — meat was a distant third (8%)." The research also found that three significant habits contribute to poor sleep: eating dairy products despite being lactose intolerant, eating close to bedtime, and not following internal cues about when to stop eating. "These results and the results from our previous study both also suggest that eating a healthier diet in general might reduce nightmares and the overall negativity of dreams," Nielsen observed. While there's more research to be done, the Canadian psychologist said that the findings suggest that people with both severe nightmares and food allergies should be tested and change their diet accordingly. "[If people test] positive for lactose intolerance or other food allergies, [they could] carefully dose the ingestion of the culprit foods to minimize their symptoms – especially at night," he said. Nielsen also cautioned that food sensitivities and diet are "only two possible sources of nightmares." "People who develop nightmares might also take a look at the effects of medications, recreational drugs or alcohol that they're consuming," the expert advised. "Or sometimes withdrawal from substances such as cannabis can induce nightmares for some weeks afterward," he said.
News.com.au
06-07-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Common food might be why you sleep so badly
A new study has found that eating too much dairy could disrupt your sleep – and might even give you nightmares. Researchers have found a strong link between lactose intolerance and restless nights, possibly because gastrointestinal discomfort during sleep can influence how people experience their dreams. 'Nightmare severity is robustly associated with lactose intolerance and other food allergies,' said Dr Tore Nielsen of University de Montreal, the lead author of the article in Frontiers in Psychology. 'These new findings imply that changing eating habits for people with some food sensitivities could alleviate nightmares. They could also explain why people so often blame dairy for bad dreams!' Study links eating cheese to poor sleep To investigate, the study surveyed over 1000 people about sleep time and quality, dreams and nightmares, and any perceived connections between different foods and dreams. They also considered participants' mental and physical health, along with their relationship with food. About a third of respondents reported experiencing nightmares regularly, with women more affected than men. Around 40 per cent of participants believed that eating late could impact their sleep, and about a quarter thought specific foods worsened their sleep. Participants with poorer diets tended to report more negative and bizarre dreams, along with weaker dream recall. Interestingly, while only 5.5 per cent thought food affected the tone of their dreams, many blamed sweets, spicy foods, or dairy for making dreams more unsettling or strange. When analysing the data, researchers found a link between lactose intolerance, nightmares, gastrointestinal issues, and poor sleep quality. 'Nightmares are worse for lactose intolerant people who suffer severe gastrointestinal symptoms and whose sleep is disrupted,' said Dr Nielsen. 'This makes sense, because we know that other bodily sensations can affect dreaming. Nightmares can be very disruptive, especially if they occur often, because they tend to awaken people from sleep in a dysphoric state … (which) can rob you of restful sleep.' The gut-sleep connection While the connection between diet and sleep isn't fully understood, Rachel Beard, Sleep Wellness Manager at A.H. Beard, not involved in the study, told that the link is 'undeniable'. 'What we eat affects how well we sleep, and in turn, how well we sleep can influence our food choices,' she said. 'Certain foods are known to promote better sleep, while others hinder it, so making smart choices for dinner and dessert is crucial. It's also about timing. We usually recommend avoiding food at least three hours before bed so your body can focus on restorative processes instead of digestion.' She mentioned that with cheese, varieties like Swiss, Parmesan, Cheddar, and Camembert can be especially problematic before sleep. 'These cheeses are high in saturated fat, which makes them hard to digest. This keeps your digestive system active and working hard, preventing your body from relaxing and entering a restful, healing state. 'Rather than having a cheese platter before bed, consider eating it earlier, perhaps at lunchtime with friends, to avoid disturbing your sleep.' Interestingly, she adds that not all cheeses are equal when it comes to bedtime. 'An unlikely but beneficial pairing for sleep is kiwi and cottage cheese. Melatonin-rich kiwi has been shown to aid sleep, and the calcium in cottage cheese helps produce melatonin,' she said.
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Snacking on cheese late at night may haunt your dreams, Canadian study finds
A new Canadian study has found that a late-night cheese snack could lead to nightmares. The study, published in psychology journal Frontiers on June 30, looked at the link between food, sleep quality and dreams. It revealed that just over 40 per cent of participants said eating certain foods affected their sleep, with nearly a quarter saying some foods worsened sleep. A small group of participants, 5.5 per cent of them, said food even affected their dreams. The culprit for both pleasant and disturbing dreams? Dairy. It was most frequently identified as the food category with the most influence. When it came to nightmares, researchers found that a contributing factor was lactose intolerance. That could explain why munching on cheese before catching some Zs led to bizarre, disturbing dreams for some. According to the study, it's possible that gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms increase nightmares by 'increasing symptoms of anxiety and depression,' which can also impact sleep quality. As well as dairy, other types of foods linked to nightmares were sweets, meat and spicy foods. The belief that food can affect dreams goes back centuries, based on old tales and anecdotal evidence, the study explained. One such example, cited in the study, is a cartoon by artist Winsor McCay, showing a character that blames eating cheese before bed for bizarre dreams and nightmares. We certainly weren't expecting to see the relationship to nightmares to be so robust Tore Nielsen 'Although we had predicted that lactose intolerance might be related to dreaming… we were a bit skeptical and we certainly weren't expecting to see the relationship to nightmares to be so robust,' the study's lead author Dr. Tore Nielsen told National Post over email on Wednesday. Nielsen said, in a Frontiers news release, that it makes sense for lactose intolerant people who suffer from GI symptoms and disrupted sleep to have worse nightmares 'because we know that other bodily sensations can affect dreaming.' 'Nightmares can be very disruptive,' he said, 'especially if they occur often, because they tend to awaken people from sleep in a dysphoric state. They might also produce sleep avoidance behaviours. Both symptoms can rob you of restful sleep.' Nielsen, a University of Montreal psychiatry professor and director of the Dreams and Nightmares Laboratory, told National Post that researchers also didn't expect to see a link between food allergies and nightmares. Participants with food allergies and gluten Intolerance were more likely to report that food affects dreaming, while those with lactose intolerance were more likely to report that food causes worse sleep, per the study. Those with food allergies may be 'more sensitive and attuned to what they eat,' the authors wrote, making them more likely to attribute dream changes to diet. Meanwhile, having pleasant dreams was linked to eating fruits and vegetables and drinking herbal tea, as well as desserts and dairy. Researchers linked an unhealthy diet, in general, to nightmares. 'An unhealthy diet included eating in the evening before bed and not paying attention to internal cues about being hungry or full in deciding when or how much to eat,' Nielsen told National Post. 'It is possible that people with nightmares could find some relief not only by checking on their lactose intolerance and food allergy status and dosing their intake of the problematic foods accordingly, but by following a healthier diet.' Although the study's authors said that they still 'lack substantive evidence that these participant observations for food and dreaming are, in fact, accurate, there is some suggestive evidence for their accuracy.' The study's findings show how diet could inform interventions for sleep disturbances that don't rely on medication. Although the latest findings uncovered some answers, there is still a need for more research, including studies to find out if people can truly detect the effects of specific foods on dreams, Nielsen said in a Frontiers news release. There were 1,082 participants in the study, who were all undergraduate students at MacEwan University. The data was collected online from January to April 2023. The study's authors noted that those who took part could have been biased due to having academic exposure to related topics that influenced how they interpreted or reported the perceived effects of food on sleep and dreaming. One study published in 2022 in the International Journal of Dream Research observed whether or not substances and foods had any effects on dreams and lucid dreams (the person is aware they are dreaming). It found that eating fruits correlated to dream recall, while eating fish correlated with the frequency of lucid dreams. However, it determined that research on the topic is 'scarce' and more testing is needed. In 2005, the British Cheese Board said that different kinds of cheese can influence dreams based on the group's own research. In an interview with NPR, the board's secretary Nigel White said that although some people had 'wacky' dreams, none of the volunteers who took part in the survey had nightmares. As well as Nielsen, researchers from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton co-authored the study. What drinking 3 cups of coffee daily did to a study group of more than 170,000 people Want stronger coffee with fewer beans? Pour from high up, study says
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Cheese May Actually Fuel Nightmares, Surprising Study Confirms
Weird dreams and vivid nightmares following late-night consumption of cheese products are surprisingly common complaints, but scientific evidence linking the two has been lacking. A new study investigating the relationships between food, sleep, and dreams confirms a number of foods you eat before bed may indeed have a very real impact on the night ahead. Dream neuroscientist Tore Nielsen of the University of Montreal, who led the study, is often asked whether food affects dreaming, and has published research on the topic before. In the new study, he and his team recruited 1,082 psychology students from Canadian MacEwan University to undertake an online survey that probed their food habits, sleep time and quality, dreams, and nightmares. It also assessed their perception of how certain kinds of food, and time of eating, impacted their sleep and dreams, if at all. Related: "These new findings imply that changing eating habits for people with some food sensitivities could alleviate nightmares. They could also explain why people so often blame dairy for bad dreams," says Nielsen. Only 5.5 percent of respondents believed the type of food being eaten and the timing of its consumption before sleep affected their dreams, but most people in this group blamed either dairy or sweet foods for changes. This was especially true of disturbing or bizarre dreams: 31 percent blamed these on desserts or sweets, while 22 percent blamed dairy. The researchers also found a strong association between lactose intolerances and food allergies and nightmares and poor sleep, perhaps because gas and stomach pains interrupted sleep in ways that increased the chances of experiencing and recalling dreams. This suggests that treating food intolerances and allergies with dietary changes may improve people's sleep, as well as their gastrointestinal comfort. "Nightmares are worse for lactose-intolerant people who suffer severe gastrointestinal symptoms and whose sleep is disrupted," says Nielsen. "This makes sense, because we know that other bodily sensations can affect dreaming. Nightmares can be very disruptive, especially if they occur often, because they tend to awaken people from sleep in a dysphoric state. They might also produce sleep avoidance behaviors. Both symptoms can rob you of restful sleep." The study also found that people who eat healthier (better food, more intuitive eating, and less food in the evening) report better dream recall, while people who ate less healthily (more junk food, less reliance on hunger and satiety, eating more food in the evening) tended to have more severe nightmares, or dreams with a more negative tone, and (perhaps thankfully) lower dream recall. Because the study is based on self-reported data from university students, it's not necessarily representative of the broader population. And it can only tell us about people's perception of the relationship between food and dreams, not the actual mechanisms that could cause such a phenomenon. "We need to study more people of different ages, from different walks of life, and with different dietary habits to determine if our results are truly generalizable to the larger population," Nielsen says. "Experimental studies are also needed to determine if people can truly detect the effects of specific foods on dreams. We would like to run a study in which we ask people to ingest cheese products versus some control food before sleep to see if this alters their sleep or dreams." We're sure it won't be difficult to find volunteers. The research was published in Frontiers in Psychology. New Weight-Loss Drugs Under Scrutiny Amid Pancreas Concerns Common Motion Sickness Drug Being Used to Turn People Into Zombies Your Food Packaging Is Shedding Microplastics Into Every Meal, Study Reveals
Courier-Mail
03-07-2025
- Health
- Courier-Mail
Waking from weird nightmares? You might need to cut this from your diet
Don't miss out on the headlines from Lifestyle. Followed categories will be added to My News. The theories about food's impact on our sleep are never-ending, but new research suggests this snack could be fueling your nightmares. If you're constantly waking up surprised by how bizarre your nightmares are, shocking your friends with perfectly dramatised voicenotes of your night running through a hellscape, or have been told more than once that your subconscious' nighttime escapades could make for a great blockbuster movie, you may want to look at your diet. Researchers in Canada have done a deep dive on the causes of weird dreams, and sadly, one of our favourite snacks is listed as a possible culprit. You may need to leave the cheese in the fridge before bed if you want to sleep soundly. X SUBSCRIBER ONLY How does cheese impact your dreams? 1082 people participated in the study to try to assess how food affects people's dreams. While you'd be hard pressed to find them as listed symptoms of food intolerances, the article tied worse perceived sleep to lactose intolerance. Studies and wivestales have linked cheese to poor sleep before, with the researchers referencing a 20th-century cartoon series where characters blamed their bizarre dreams on 'having eaten Welsh rarebit — a spicy melted cheese toast — or other cheese dishes prior to sleep.'' In a previous study, the team had seen people 'blaming cheese all the time for their bad dreams'. Image: Pexels In a previous study, the team had seen people 'blaming cheese all the time for their bad dreams', but co-author Tore Nielsen told NBC News, 'I think we got some better answers in the study for that.' 21 per cent of participants reported changes to their dreams after eating dairy, and 22 per cent said their dreams were more disturbing after consuming the milk-based products. And after measuring the frequency, level of distress and impact on daily life of their nightmares, the team determined that those who had severe gastrointestinal symptoms from lactose intolerance had more intense nightmares. According to the study, food allergies and gluten intolerance could also play a part in our bad dreams. Image: iStock Nielsen suggested that the anxiety that comes with symptoms could contribute to the frequency of nightmares, while associate professor of neurology at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, Patrick McNamara said people with lactose intolerance who eat triggering foods could have their sleep disturbed by 'micro-arousals', which could contribute to worse nightmares. Other foods that could bring on bad dreams It's not just cheese, milk and ice cream triggering your most insane, hard-to-follow nightmares either. According to the study, food allergies and gluten intolerance could also play a part in our bad dreams. Dairy, gluten and sweets were linked to nightmares. Image: iStock More than a quarter of participants noted that eating desserts or sweets triggered dreams and a worse night's sleep too. The research team concluded that ''the frequency of dream recall was associated with indicators of healthy eating, i.e., higher scores on a subscale of the Intuitive Eating Scale-2 and less frequent eating in the evening'. 'While both negative emotional tone of dreams and (measured) nightmare severity… were associated with unhealthy indicators, i.e., combinations of Lactose Intolerance, GI symptoms, less reliance on hunger and satiety cues, and a tendency to eat in the evening.' Originally published as Waking from weird nightmares? You might need to cut this from your diet
