Research by Get Laid Beds has discovered that the most common nightmare is around teeth falling out.
There are, on average, 2,000 Google searches every month for the term “dreams about teeth falling out” in the UK.
While some people can go straight back to sleep after having a nightmare, many of us are laying in bed tossing and turning worrying about it, creating a bad-quality sleep.
Sleep expert, Dr Deborah Lee, sleep expert from Doctor Fox working with Get Laid Beds, discusses five tips on coping with nightmares:
4-7-8 Method
“This is a really common tactic for managing stress and anxiety and works by counteracting the stress response that has been triggered by your bad dream.
First, you need to breathe in for four seconds. Then, hold your breath for seven seconds. Once the first two steps are done, exhale for eight seconds.
Do this once or twice and it should help activate the parasympathetic nervous system and calm you down.”

Somatic Testing
“If you have nightmares quite frequently, then you should practive somatic testing everyday, which takes just two minutes.
This is a mindful activity which will also help calm the nervous system by directing your attention to what your body is experiencing, without judgment and supression.
This includes everything that might come from a nightmare including thoughts, movements, signals and emotions coming to the surface.”
Avoid Looking at Your Phone
“Looking at your phone, or any sort of blue-light is a big no-no whether you’ve had a nightmare or not. However, even if its just to check the time, try and avoid looking at your phone full-stop.
You will get tempted to doom-scroll, flooding your mind with other distractions from sleeping and it’ll be much harder to get back to sleep, especially after a nightmare.”
Distract Your Mind
“While picking up your phone is a no-no, you might want to try and relax your mind by focussing on something else.
A study by Get Laid Beds has previously revealed that the best thing to do before drifting off and to get the best quality sleep is to read a book.
Read something relaxing, that isn’t a thriller or a horror as that could trigger your anxiety, or get out of bed, or maybe play some white noise as you drift off to take your mind off your nightmare.”
Keep a Journal
“By keeping a journal, you may be able to find out what’s triggering your nightmares and help put this to an end.
Writing a daily journal or your thoughts, feeling, food and alcohol intake will help you spot patterns that’re leading towards bad dreams.
Writing down feelings of stress, for example, might correlate to what you dream about that night. If you find a pattern, you know this could be something you have to work on throughout the day to aid a better sleep.”