Help for bad dreams and anxiety that strikes as soon as you wake up

This week we’re responding to a question about calming bad dreams and anxiety that strikes as soon as you wake up and before you even open your eyes. 

Points covered in this episode include:

Watch what you watch!

Be attentive to what drama you let into your mind. Movies, News, TV, social media, video games all affect our thoughts, and for sensitive people our dreams too. What we repeatedly view comes out in our dreams at night - even if we don't directly dream about it it will stir up our thoughts and influence the mood of our dreams.

We talked about this in-depth in our recent podcast: Do you need a media break?

Be Mindful of Stimulants

Alcohol and caffeine can both really unsettle sleep and raise anxiety levels in general. We once received a letter from a man who was suffering from anxiety and, after listening to one of our podcasts, decided to drop all caffeine. He later wrote in to let us know that his anxiety gone!

Try grounding exercise

Take a daily walk, the more we move our feet, the less we suffer with our heads.

Try a daily breathing practice or guided meditation

Resonance: Grounding Techniques for Anxiety Relief

Our collection of grounding techniques for Anxiety Relief has been carefully created to guide you through a set of experiences that you can use anywhere and any time you choose to help you reconnect with your body and draw your mind away from anxious thinking into a state of feeling more calm and in control.  

Resonance is available on Amazon and the iTunes music store 

For peaceful sleep and calmer dreams

Massage your feet with oil before bed find out more on massaging your feet here 

Use calming scents: either in an oil burner, or diffuser, or mixed with a carrier oil and used for massage: rose, sandalwood, lavender are all good for calming anxiety

Warm milk and nutmeg: Ending your day with a cup of hot milk (cow’s milk or almond milk) with a pinch of nutmeg will help to settle your mind and nourish your nervous system for a peaceful night's sleep. Milk helps you get to sleep and nutmeg aids a deeper more peaceful sleep.

Calming Flower Essences: Bach Flower’s Night time rescue remedy is available from Nelsons and Amazon. It helps calm anxiety and unwanted thoughts, which makes it useful for relief from bad dreams.