Do you find yourself around the breakfast table on various mornings having people tell you stories about what you have been saying throughout the night? Do you ever wonder what causes you to do this and query why it only ever happens to you and no one else in your family? Well I’m glad to tell you that you’re looking in the right place!

Firstly, one of the main things that you wonder is exactly what you were saying. Normally the people who hear you only hear parts of what you say or have forgotten exactly what you said by the morning. One of the best ways to find out what you have been saying is to get a sleep recorder app so that when you talk, your phone starts recording. As a result, when you wake up you can listen back to the individual voice recordings and listen to what you have said through the duration of the night. Very often this can be a very humorous experience in the morning.

Sleep talking can occur through any part of your sleeping phases and it’s a reasonably common thing to do. There are many reasons for this and can occur from such things as taking medication, fevers, emotional stress or substance abuse, they are just a few of many different symptoms which can cause sleep talking.

Now we have looked into why it happens and the time it happens I’m sure many of you want to learn how to stop talking in your sleep to save yourself the embarrassment in the morning or just to stop disrupting your significant other many times throughout the night. The answer is that actually, it’s a perfectly healthy thing to do but if it does increase and you actually end up shouting or screaming in your sleep it can lead to symptoms from a more serious sleeping disorder. This is called “REM behaviour disorder”. If you have any symptoms whatsoever, we recommend that you consult your local GP immediately.