Table of contents:
- What is the relationship between frequent dreams and the risk of senility?
- The REM phase causes you to have frequent dreams in your sleep
- Why frequent dreams can prevent dementia?
Good news for those of you who often dream in your sleep. The reason is, dreams in sleep can predict whether you are at risk of developing dementia at the end of your age. Dementia is a dementia disease that usually affects the elderly (elderly people). This disease is characterized by decreased memory, frequent confusion, and changes in behavior. If you rarely dream, experts suspect you are at risk of developing dementia later in life. How can this happen?
What is the relationship between frequent dreams and the risk of senility?
Dementia is a disease caused by damage to cells in the brain, thus affecting the ability to remember (dementia), communicate, and think. However, if you often dream while sleeping, then you will have a smaller risk of developing this dementia disease.
This fact was revealed from a study published in a journal Neurology that was quoted from the National Center for Biotechnology Information. From this study, experts state that dreams can protect a person from the risk of dementia when he enters old age.
This study involved 312 participants aged over 60 years. In this study, participants were followed and examined about their sleep patterns and the frequency of their dreams for approximately 12 years. Then, at the end of the study it was found that there were 32 people who had dementia, who were known to rarely dream in their sleep.
Meanwhile, the group that did not experience dementia often had dreams every night when they slept. Therefore, researchers concluded that, every time you don't dream, it will increase the risk of dementia in old age by as much as 9%.
The REM phase causes you to have frequent dreams in your sleep
So, actually when you sleep, you will go through several stages in sleep. In this stage, the non-REM phase occurs (Rapid Eye Movement) which is where you begin to drift into your sleep slowly and deeply.
After that, there is REM phase, the phase in which you dream in your sleep. At that time, the brain will be more active, the heart rate fast, and the eyes move fast even though you are asleep. Usually, in one sleep, you will experience many REM phases that make you dream a lot. The REM phase usually occurs for 1.5 to 2 hours in one sleep.
Why frequent dreams can prevent dementia?
Now, people who have Alzheimer's or dementia in this study are known to have less REM phase than people who do not have the disease. Less REM phase can be caused by various things. Experts reveal that conditions of stress and depression can cause a person not to dream or not experience REM phases in his sleep.
In addition, people who have sleep disorders such as insomnia or breathing problems during sleep can also prevent this REM phase from occurring, which makes you dream less often. All these things, can also automatically increase the risk of dementia. So, it's better from now on you have to improve your sleep pattern, so you can dream often and ultimately reduce the risk of dementia in old age.
Experts also mention that people who often dream, make the brain more active at night - because of the REM phase at sleep - which then can prevent damage to nerve cells in the future. So, dreams turn out to be very useful for protecting the brain. May you have a sweet dream tonight, yes.
