Mental Health Related Articles

Take Steps to Reduce Your Nightmares

You can practice steps on your own to take control of your nightmares. Here are some approaches to try:

Tell someone else about them. Sharing your nightmares with a trusted friend in the daytime takes much of the sting out of them.
Walk through your nightmare mentally during the daytime, and as you reach a scary or upsetting part, put your hands out in a stop position and say: “this is just a dream”. Try doing this each night before bedtime.
Write about your nightmare as though it is a fictional story you’re creating and change the ending of the story. Try three or four different plot twists, all with positive endings.
Sit down in a calm moment and think about your nightmare. How would you change the events in the nightmare if you could? What message would you give yourself if you could be a different character in the nightmare? By analyzing the nightmare rationally and calmly, you may be able to rewrite its contents in the future.