Why Work Stress Invades Your Dreams
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Here's your Money Briefing for Friday, October 22nd. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. It may feel hard enough handling the stress of your job when you're awake, but for a lot of people, work stress follows them into their sleep.
Every time anything came up in this dream, the individuals pop up almost like Star Trek style. So my contractor pops up and he tells me all of the things that I'm missing or that I need to do and inspections and deadlines.
So what triggers stressful work dreams and what can we do to prevent them? Coming up, we'll hear from two people who've had recurring work dreams and how to work through the stress to get rid of them. That's after the break.
This podcast is brought to you by ReliaQuest. Cyber criminals are constantly attacking. They want your data. They want your identity. They want your innovation. ReliaQuest fortifies your business with agentic defense, AI that detects, contains, and eliminates cyber threats in minutes. It helps your security team move faster at the work that matters most to protect the business now and delivers insights to help them predict what's next. ReliaQuest, agentic defense for the enterprise. Learn more at ReliaQuest.com. That's R-E-L-I-A-Q-U-E-S-T.com.
Missing deadlines, old bosses making surprise appearances, standing up to give a presentation in your boxers.
What question does the episode introduce about work stress and dreams?
Work dreams are often the stuff of nightmares. But why do we have those kinds of dreams? And how can we train our minds not to have them? WSJ Work and Life columnist Rachel Feinzig has been looking into how the stresses of the workday linger long after we turn off the lights and get into bed. Rachel, thank you very much for coming on the show.
Thanks so much for having me.
So, you know, Rachel, having stressful dreams about work isn't unusual, but what typically triggers these kinds of dreams?
A lot of it is about our own insecurities, like places we think we're falling short. And I saw this from people in all sorts of jobs. I mean, I talked to a waitress who dreams about like dropping a tray or she'll dream about the one bottle of ketchup she forgot to bring to a table earlier in the day. She'll wake up shouting like ketchup to table 43. So it's just fascinating to me. We see it, like I said, in all kinds of careers, but so much of it is about like, I'm not good enough.
So what's the relationship between our nighttime dreams and what we do during the day?
You know, one expert told me that dreaming is kind of just thinking in a different brain state or brain space. I mean, the idea is that whatever is kind of bugging you during the day is going to show up in your dreams. And there's also evidence that we kind of process things. We kind of take some of the emotional sting out of events that happen during the day by dreaming about them at night.
What examples illustrate how work stress shows up in people's dreams?
So you've spoken with experts who've studied people's sleep and their dreams during the pandemic. How do they say the pandemic has worked its way into how people dream?
This stuff was so weird. I mean, the general idea is just more anxiety in our dreams, whether they're about work or not. But some of the work dreams, it's like you go back to the office and your company has installed a brand new carpet, but it is dirty and wet and they make you take off your shoes and walk across it. or all your coworkers are coughing on you, or your company has installed plexiglass, but instead of separating your desk, it is encircling everyone all together in this like diseased fest.
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