Your chronic pain condition can feel like a real-life nightmare, but could the physical condition actually increase your risk of having bad dreams at night? According to a recent study, there appears to be a strong correlation between chronic pain and bad dreams. So if we want to put an end to these nightmares, we may need to get serious about treating chronic pain.

Chronic Pain And Bad Dreams

As you might imagine, it’s not easy to thoroughly study bad dreams and the processes that go into why a person has a nightmare. With that being said, bad dreams have typically been associated with:

• Stress
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Psychiatric and Emotional Disorders

Some of the side effects associated with a chronic pain condition are, as you might have guessed, stress, anxiety, depression and psychiatric and emotional disorders. In other words, the same emotions that you may be feeling because of your chronic pain condition could put you at a heightened risk for bad dreams.

To test that hypothesis, researchers took a look at the frequency of self-reported bad dreams between two patient groups. One group had chronic musculoskeletal pain, while the control group did not. Over the course of one month, 44 percent of the 191 participants in the pain group reported bad dreams compared to 7.3 percent of the 191 participants in the control group.

That’s not to say that you’ll never have a bad dream again if you take care of your chronic pain condition, but for many chronic pain sufferers, their condition is the biggest source of stress and anxiety in their life, and these sensations can manifest in the form of a bad dream. Working to correct the pain condition or simply educate yourself about the best practices for controlling pain can go a long way in reducing these negative emotions that can contribute to bad dreams.

So while bad dreams are probably pretty low on your list of reasons why you want to put an end to your chronic pain condition, the fact of the matter is that nightmares aren’t an enjoyable experience and they can compound already heightened feelings of stress and anxiety. If you work with a pain management specialist to help alleviate or reduce your chronic pain condition, there’s a good chance your bad dreams will also become less frequent. Even if you can’t fully rid yourself of pain, staying educated and working to control the modifiable factors can put you in a better head space and help reduce the affects of your chronic pain condition, including the frequency of bad dreams.

So if you’re constantly worried, anxious or depressed in part because of your chronic pain condition, let Dr. Cohn and his team find a solution for your mental and physical health.