If You Love Cheese, This New Study Is An Absolute Nightmare

"We were particularly interested in whether cheese might be indicated as one such food as it is often identified in various folklore traditions as resulting in bizarre dreams or nightmares," said Russ Powell, a professor emeritus in the department of psychology at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.You may want to put that mini Babybel you eat before bedtime down: A new study suggests that consuming cheese before you drift off may help fuel nightmares.It’s long been suggested that eating certain foods can cause nightmares, or at least some pretty strange dreams, but up until recently, that belief was largely anecdotal.That is till about 12 years ago, when dream neuroscientist Tore Nielsen of the University of Montreal and Russ Powell, a professor emeritus in the department of psychology at MacEwan University in Canada decided to conduct some good, hard research on the topic. “We were particularly interested in whether cheese might be indicated as one such food as it is often identified in various folklore traditions as resulting in bizarre dreams or nightmares,” Powell told HuffPost.The results revealed that it was dairy in general, not just cheese, that was the food group most often identified by students as affecting their dreams.In the new correlational study ― published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology in June ― the researchers dug a little deeper into why that is. Namely, Powell and Nielson wanted to see if lactose intolerance and the resultant gastrointestinal distress might be at the heart of those disturbing, post-cheese eating dreams.Yep, there is a correlation between lactose intolerance and nightmare severity.To conduct the study, they recruited 1,082 psychology students from MacEwan University and asked them to complete an online survey that examined their food habits, sleep time and quality, dreams and nightmares. They also probed the students’ perception of how certain kinds of food, and time of eating, impacted their sleep and dreams, if at all.As in the original study, the results revealed that eating dairy-rich foods was associated with disturbing dreams. And lo and behold, yep, there was a correlation between lactose intolerance, gastrointestinal symptoms and nightmare severity.That makes sense, the researchers said, because it’s known that other bodily sensations can affect dreaming: Our brains can sometimes incorporate external sensory stimuli (sounds, smells or physical sensations) into the content and plot points of our dreams, either directly or indirectly. For example, grinding your teeth can lead to dreams about your teeth falling out, one 2018 study found.Cheese wasn’t the only nightmare culprit in this study, though. Whereas the first study found that dairy was the food type most strongly associated with disturbing dreams, this one found that it was desserts and sweets that are most strongly associated with messed-up dreams. “Dairy placed second,” Powell said. “We don’t know why there is a difference from the first study, but it may be that the culture in general is becoming increasingly concerned about the unhealthy effects of ‘junk food,’ and students are therefore more inclined to attribute negative outcomes to such foods.”A new study found that eating dairy-rich foods was associated with disturbing dreams.Powell’s advice for those who are loath to give up cheese past a certain hour? Try eating hard cheeses that are relatively low in the amount of lactose they contain, such as Swiss, cheddar and Monterey Jack, or lactose-free cheeses in which the lactose has been artificially removed. “It may be that even some lactose tolerant individuals might still need to avoid cheese, since we also found that food allergies and sensitivities were associated with nightmares, though to a lesser extent than lactose intolerance.”When it comes to quality sleep, though, some may actually benefit from a little Cheddar or Brie. A study published in December found that eating cheese may reduce the risk of sleep apnea, a common sleep disorder where breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. The authors of that study suggested that essential nutrients found in cheese, including calcium, protein and vitamins, could influence metabolic and cardiovascular health, which are both factors associated with sleep apnea.To turn our attention back to dreams, the researchers here also found those who eat healthy tend to have calmer dreams and better dream recall in the morning. (Though if you’re having cheese-induced nightmares, it’s probably a good thing if your recall is a little off.) “We found that people who engage in healthy eating patterns, which includes not only eating healthy foods but also eating mostly in response to internal feelings of hunger and not eating late in the evening, are less likely to have disturbing dreams,” Powell said. Good for those people, we guess, but we’ll take our nighttime cheese and the consequences.Related...Does Cheese Cause Nightmares? It Might If You Have This ConditionI Tried Nigella Lawson's 'Embarrassingly Easy' Nutella Cheesecake, And It Feels Like CheatingUK Gardeners Urged To Put Grated Cheese In Their Gardens For This 1 Reason

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If You Love Cheese, This New Study Is An Absolute Nightmare

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