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Maladaptive daydreaming can have an effect on a person's personal and professional life. When someone has frequent, disruptive daydreams, they are referred to as maladaptive dreams. They can end up interfering with obligations and chores of daily life. According to experts, this type of daydreaming may be a coping mechanism for trauma, abuse or loneliness.
The individual could start ignoring others, their work or their studies. Daydreaming for extended periods, talking or making facial gestures is a further sign of maladaptive daydreaming.
Maladaptive daydreaming: What is it?
Maladaptive daydreaming is a disorder where people experience vivid daydreams that can keep them from concentrating on their daily activities.
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These daydreams can prevent you from completing crucial duties and obligations, both emotionally and professionally. Maladaptive daydreaming, according to specialists, may be used as a coping strategy for trauma, loneliness or abuse.
Daydreams offer a different, happier reality from a person's actual situation. Maladaptive daydreams can be sparked by certain situations and stimuli, including discussions, movies, news items, sounds and odors.
Maladaptive daydreaming has no known cause, but experts speculate that it can be a coping mechanism for loneliness or past trauma. Nonetheless, the person is aware that their daydreams are unreal. Daydreams that are not useful can be sparked by certain events or circumstances.
These situations and stimuli may arouse unfavorable feelings and ideas, which may lead the person to turn to vivid daydreaming as a means of dissociation. This disorder is not an addiction but rather a neuronal chemical imbalance.
Symptoms of maladaptive daydreaming
Is this daydreaming harmful? Yes, it can have a negative impact on your personal life, work, academic performance, and sleep hygiene.
The scenario created by maladaptive daydreaming allows the person to disconnect from reality. They could be less likely to engage in social interactions with family and friends, struggle to concentrate at work or in school, and many people with this disease sleep worse at night.
Here are some recognizable signs:
- It can make it difficult to focus at work, in class or to accomplish other self-imposed goals
- Individuals frequently feel guilty about engaging in it, especially when it causes disruptions in other areas of their lives
- They have elaborate fantasies with detailed narratives, characters and settings. Complicated and vivid daydreams
- Real-world events and stimuli can cause daydreams to occur. For example, certain movies and music can cause these daydreams
- Chatting, hushing, expressing emotions with the face or performing repeated motions while daydreaming. They may have vocal and physical symptoms that correspond to the narrative
- The daydreams may persist for several hours
Treatment of maladaptive daydreaming
The following is a list of methods that can help you gain more control:
1) Recognize your symptoms
You must first be aware of the signs to assist in treating maladaptive daydreaming. If you're concerned about your daydreams, look for further warning signals such as how they affect your relationships with others and at work, how strongly you want to carry on with them, and how vivid and detailed they are. Maladaptive daydreamers could also notice a decline in the quality of their sleep.
2) Get more energy
Lowering daytime fatigue should improve your concentration, which can lower risk of having unhelpful daydreams. Enhancing the quality of sleep helps reduce daytime weariness. Exercise, exposure to sunlight, listening to happy music, getting up to take a stroll and having a quick nap are additional methods to combat daytime fatigue.
3) Improve sleep
Enhancing the quality of your sleep should improve your emotional well-being, which could aid in controlling maladaptive daydreaming. A healthy mind and body depends on getting enough rest, which is measured by your sleep quality.
By adopting healthy sleep behaviors like maintaining a regular sleep schedule, avoiding using gadgets immediately before bed, managing stress, quitting smoking and drinking, exercising frequently and avoiding consuming large meals late at night, you can improve the quality of your sleep.
4) Seek therapy
While this is not a recognized mental health disorder, doctors believe it may be caused by traumatic experiences and unfavorable feelings like loneliness. A therapist can guide you through underlying trauma and unfavorable feelings, which can help you deal with unhealthy daydreaming. If these daydreams are affecting your individual and professional life, it's extremely crucial to seek professional assistance.
Maladaptive daydreaming is a behavior in which a person daydreams excessively and frequently loses themselves in their imagination.
When someone has a mental health condition, such as anxiety, this behavior is typically used as a coping method. The best thing you can do if you experience maladaptive daydreaming is to speak with your healthcare professional.
Janvi Kapur is a counselor with a Master's degree in applied psychology with a specialization in clinical psychology.
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