Nightmares linked to faster biological ageing and early death

Having nightmares on a weekly basis seems to accelerate aging – and could even triple the risk of early death.

“People who have more frequent nightmares are growing faster and die earlier,” said Abidemi Otaiku at Imperial College in London.

With his colleagues, Otaiku analyzed more than 183,000 adults, aged 26 to 86, who had participated in several studies. At first, adults declared the frequency to which they made nightmares, then were followed for as little as 1.5 years up to 19 years.

The researchers found that those who declared that they had nightmares on a weekly basis were more than three times more likely to die before they were 70 years old than those who said that they had never or rarely had nightmares.

There is a clear association, explains Otaiku, whose team also found that the nightmarish frequency was a stronger predictor of premature death than smoking, obesity, poor diet or lack of physical activity. He will present the results at the European Academy of the 2025 Neurology Congress in Helsinki, Finland, June 23.

The team also evaluated the biological age of the participants by measuring the duration of their telomeres, which are small DNA sequences at the end of the chromosomes which shorten each time a cell divides, the shortest being linked to premature aging. This part of the study also included data of around 2,400 children, aged 8 to 10, whose frequency of the nightmare was reported by their parents. Adults had their biological age also evaluated via molecular markers called epigenetic clocks.

Otaiku says that the team has found a coherent association between frequent nightmares and accelerated aging at all ages, sexes and ethnic groups. “Even in childhood, people who have more frequent nightmares have short telomeres, indicating faster cellular aging,” he said. Among adults, faster organic aging has represented around 40% of their increased risk of mortality.

As for why this association occurs, Otaiku says that it could come from two factors. The first is that nightmares cause high prolonged levels of the cortisol of the stress hormone, which has been linked to faster cell aging. “The nightmares often wake us up with our hearts that beat, in a more intense stress reaction than anything we live when it is awake,” he says.

The second factor is a disturbed sleep, which upsets the cellular repair processes of the body’s night. The sleep disturbance was linked to an increase in the risk of various medical conditions, including heart disease.

If people want to avoid regular nightmares, there are often easy ways to do so, says Otaiku, especially by not watching scary films and looking for treatment for mental health problems like anxiety.

“It is an interesting discovery and there is a lot of biological plausibility,” explains Guy Leschziner at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. However, he said, more research is necessary to establish a causal link. Nightmares can be associated with a range of medical conditions and drugs that people may have getting older, which could confuse the results, he said.