So you’re still up at midnight and you’re all alone in the house. The lights are turned off and it’s eerily silent. You remember the last thing that you watched and it was a horror movie. You remember the darkness, the suspense, the twisted thrill, the gore, and simply, the horror. It runs through your mind and echoes throughout your consciousness. You have this nagging feeling that there’s something under your bed but you’re too scared to check. Then you hear a noise. You wrap yourself in your blanket and envision yourself as one of the victims of those horror movies. It’s over. No it’s not — you just look like an idiot who’s curled up and holding on to the pillows. IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD.
Every one goes to bed hoping to get a good night’s rest. No one climbs into bed wishing to spend the time on it being paranoid, shaking, and trembling with fear and anxiety. Watching horror movies before sleeping can severely affect the quality and quantity of your sleep.
Potential Paranoia: Imagination is a very powerful part of the human mind. A simple suggestion can grow like a tiny seed into a redwood giant that is epic in proportions. When you watch a horror movie, you receive more than a suggested thought. You get the whole idea. So everything is there, detailed in picture form and audio. What’s more is that your imagination will grow branches off of this planted stalk and will eventually add scenes and applications from the movie towards you. Eventually, you start thinking, what if that happens to me? What if there’s one under my bed right now? What if the monster’s outside my window right NOW?!Obviously, this isn’t a good idea.
Stress, anxiety, and physiological effects: It’s inevitable that you get stress from this. You won’t be able to sleep and this may even cause insomnia. Anxiety keeps you “over the edge” in a bad way. You get nervous, your blood pressure will rise, and you have to be quite careful especially if you have heart problems. Everyone goes to bed to flee from the stress and anxiety that our day-to-day lives bring us, however watching horror movies before sleeping is just like running into the problem at full-speed.
Not to mention nightmares: What you tend to think of constantly will seep into your subconscious, and what lies under the carpet of the human consciousness is the gateway of the realm we call dreams. I’m sure the horror-movies-to-nightmare ratio is not always constant, but there are more chances of it happening if you fill your mind with such movies.
Lastly yet most importantly… You won’t be able to sleep. That’s it. If you’ll watch a horror movie, don’t do it just before you sleep.
It all begins with the mind. If you saturate your mind with things you don’t want to think about, you’re not helping yourself. Think good thoughts, only allow praiseworthy things to dwell in your mind, and you’ll be mentally fit for a relaxing sleep and a great day ahead.
