The mind is so complicated that many times it surprises us with unsuspected phobias. There are more common phobias and rare phobias; there are phobias that are better understood and phobias for which you cannot find any explanation, but all of them must be made visible because it is an important emotional disorder. On this occasion we talk about the dangers of clinophobia or the fear of sleeping.
What is clinophobia?
Clinophobia is the fear of going to sleep, sleeping or staying asleep. It is also called oenophobia or somniphobia and can affect men and women of all ages. The person suffering from clinophobia responds with high anxiety when bedtime arrives.
The fear of falling asleep has some variants, because it is not only the fear of getting into bed, closing and falling asleep, but you may also fear falling asleep in circumstances that do not require it, such as at work, on the bus or at a gathering of friends.
Causes of clinophobia
The causes that produce this phobia are varied. It may be due to a traumatic experience while you were sleeping or associating the dream moments with unpleasant situations. It is an irrational fear that something bad will happen to you during sleep, usually death or that something terrible will happen without the person being aware.
Clinophobia is also closely related to sleep disorders and sometimes a season of insomnia can cause that same fear of sleep. It seems contradictory and illogical, but logic does not appear when it comes to phobias.
Symptoms of clinophobia
The symptoms begin when it is time to go to sleep, in the late afternoon or when the working day ends with the prospect of having to go to bed. These are the classic symptoms with nervousness, tachycardia, excessive sweating, shortness of breath and sometimes even a panic attack.
Psychic symptoms such as distortion of reality, obsessive thoughts or the feeling of losing control also appear. All this surrounded by fear and, often, the paralysis that an act as necessary as sleeping entails.
The symptoms and the phobia of sleep itself have serious health consequences and are the same as in the case of insomnia. As the quality decreases, the quality of life also decreases and people who suffer from clinophobia are prone to also suffer from other diseases in addition to fatigue, irritation or mood swings.
Treatment of clinophobia
A problem like clinophobia that affects an area as important in life as night rest must be treated by a professional and psychological help must be sought as soon as the first symptoms are noticed.
In the case of clinophobia, relaxation is of great help, but first you have to know well when the symptoms of the phobia manifest and what degree of anxiety they produce. If the anxiety appears after dinner, when brushing your teeth or just when you go to bed.
Psychological therapy helps the person who suffers from clinophobia to reduce the anxiety of each moment and to stop associating the dream with a moment of fear or danger. Generally it is systematic desensitization combining relaxation with exposure to the stimulus that causes fear.