CLINOPHOBIA: SYMPTOMS, CAUSES AND TREATMENTS - ARTE - 2024

The clinofobia is an abnormal fear, unjustified and persistent sleep or go to sleep. Fear can appear as a specific response to lying in bed or in general, to falling asleep in any situation.

Although it is common to find the denomination of "somniphobia" or "oneirophobia" referred to this problem, the correct term to refer to this condition would be the one of clinofobia. It derives from the Greek "klinein" (bed / bed) and "phobos" (phobia, fear).

Although clinophobia is not particularly well known, it is a surprisingly common phobia, affecting women and men of all ages around the world.

As with the rest of phobias, people who suffer from clinophobia are mostly aware of the irrationality or excessiveness of the anxiety they suffer. However, they are not able to control the psychological and physiological reactions that occur in their body in response to fear.

If the phobia and the anxiety and fear reactions are maintained in the long term; The affected person could have real problems in their general physical and psychological functioning, which can greatly reduce the perception of their quality of life.

Causes of clinophobia

As with other fears and phobias, clinophobia has its origin in the person's learning history. We understand as a learning history all those interactions that a subject makes with the environment throughout life.

When a person interacts with his environment, he is constantly learning. The associations or results that these interactions between the person and their environment produce give rise to their learning history.

In this sense, clinophobia can occur when there is an association between the behavior of sleeping and some event or consequence with a negative charge, which produces fear and / or anxiety for the person.

For example, a child who wets the bed could develop clinophobia from the association between these unpleasant events and the fact of being in bed and going to sleep.

Similarly, an adult could develop this phobia as a result of other sleep-related problems. For example, restless legs syndrome, nightmares, etc.

Despite all of the above, the most common cause of clinophobia is associated with severe insomnia problems. Explained from the previous point of view, the association that occurs between the fact of going to bed and not being able to sleep, would in this case cause the state of activation or anxiety in the face of said behavior and therefore its avoidance.

Symptoms

Symptoms related to clinophobia usually occur when going to bed and trying to sleep. However, sometimes, even the idea of ​​sleeping or trying to sleep can cause the effects of the phobia in the person.

Although the association of fear with sleeping may be specific to a particular situation or event, the phobia may emerge in the face of stimuli that are harmless in principle, but that somehow represent the initial fear.

The pattern of symptoms exhibited by clinophobia differs greatly from one person to another, often depending on the degree of severity of the phobia itself. A person may only feel nervous, uncomfortable, or agitated before going to sleep; while other people with more severe cases, may suffer panic and / or anxiety attacks.

Although there are few cases, some people have stated that during crises not only unpleasant symptoms occur, but are sometimes accompanied by a heightening of their senses, even claiming to have reached altered states of consciousness or a greater sense of reality.

The symptoms that occur in clinophobia come from two different routes. On the one hand, there are the symptoms that are directly related to phobia, the feeling of fear and anxiety.

They may include muscle tension, nausea or dizziness, agitation, tremors, hyperventilation, increased heart rate, feeling flushed, dry mouth, vertigo, excessive sweating, inability to speak or think clearly. In the most severe cases, the person suffering from clinophobia may have a fear of going crazy, losing control, and even dying in their sleep.

The person with clinophobia also presents symptoms not directly related to the suffering of fear, but to the decrease in the quantity and / or quality of sleep that the phobia ends up producing.

In this sense, insomnia problems are the most common result of this phobia. The reduction in the quantity and / or quality of sleep, ends up causing in these people constant tiredness and fatigue, irritability, lack of concentration, bad mood, apathy and a decrease in physical and psychological health in general.

It should be noted at this point that insomnia can then be both the origin of the problem and a consequence of it.

Treatment

Cinophobia is a condition in which there are a large number of symptoms, which may also be associated with both fear and the consequences it produces on the quality and / or quantity of sleep.

For this reason, the approaches and treatments cover different fields of action. Below are some of the tools that are most commonly used in the treatment of clinophobia.

Psychoeducation

It is essential for the person to understand what is happening to him. In this sense, psychoeducation can show the patient how the relationship between fear and its manifestations works.

The patient will be able to understand where the origin of the problem is, how it has developed, what is maintaining it and what can be done to control and improve it. For this, the person must receive all relevant information related to the phobia, its causes, symptoms, treatments, etc.

Techniques for managing anxiety

At present there are numerous relaxation techniques that generate excellent results in the control of anxiety, such as diaphragmatic breathing, training in self-instructions or Jacobson's progressive muscle relaxation.

In his research, Jacobson confirmed that the state of anxiety that accompanies phobic fear produces a great muscle contraction. The objective of this technique is to achieve a state of general relaxation through muscle contraction and subsequent relaxation.

Thus, it allows us to generate, through progressive muscle relaxation, a response (relaxation) that is incompatible with the state of activation and stress caused by fear. The state of relaxation that is achieved through this practice not only affects the musculoskeletal system, but also allows the relaxation of both the central and autonomic nervous system.

Training in this technique also makes it easier for the person to be able to discriminate signals of tension in their own body, in order to control them later.

Systematic desensitization

Systematic desensitization is one of the techniques most used in the treatment of specific phobias, since it combines relaxation techniques with the progressive approach to the object of the phobia.

When the person has learned to control their activation states (through relaxation techniques) and also knows the way in which phobias develop and maintain (through psychoeducation), this technique allows them to learn to respond without anxiety to stimuli that initially they elicited fear responses.

The goal of systematic desensitization is gradual exposure to the object of phobia, combined with the use of relaxation techniques. Therefore, it is intended that the fear response decreases using an incompatible behavior such as relaxation.

As it is not possible to be anxious and relaxed at the same time, training in this technique allows the person to face threatening situations gradually. This is your procedure:

1- A list of situations that produce anxiety is drawn up

First, a list of situations that are related to fear is drawn up, such as “putting on pajamas” or “brushing teeth”, “getting up from the sofa to go to sleep” or “locking the door”.

2- A hierarchy is made with the list

After this, the different behaviors are ordered hierarchically, from the situation that produces the least anxiety to the one that produces the most, assigning scores from 0 to 10 according to the degree of anxiety and activation that the situation causes the person.

3- Exposure is combined with relaxation techniques

Once this is done, work will begin from the situation that produces the least anxiety and activation. From that moment on, exposure to the anxiety situation can begin to be combined with previously learned relaxation techniques.

Imagine, for example, that the situation that generates the least anxiety for the person is "getting up from the sofa to go to the bedroom. The session will begin using the relaxation techniques learned.

When the person is relaxed, the therapist will ask them to imagine the situation of “getting up from the couch to go to sleep” in the most vivid and detailed way possible. After a few seconds, the patient must indicate the new degree of anxiety that the situation produces from 0 to 10.

Whenever the score is greater than 0, it will be necessary to relax and expose yourself to the situation again. When the situation is assessed with a degree of anxiety 0 by the patient on two or more occasions, the following situation is carried out; and so on until the list is completed.

We already mentioned previously that systematic desensitization as a technique for the control and extinction of phobias, has currently positioned itself as the most effective tool with the best results.

However, we have also found that people who suffer from clinophobia can also present a large number of problems related to sleep; Since the phobia can be a cause, but also a consequence of a poor quality or quantity of sleep.

For this reason, it is essential to accompany any treatment for clinnophobia with correct sleep hygiene guidelines, which facilitate the restoration of its quality and / or quantity.

Tips to have proper sleep hygiene

Below is the decalogue of tips to establish proper sleep hygiene.

1. Get up and go to bed every day around the same time, or at least no more than an hour apart.
2. Avoid naps as much as possible during the day. In any case, its duration should never exceed 30 minutes.
3. Establish a consistent "pre-sleep" routine.
4. Take care of the environmental conditions of the room: light, temperature, ventilation, noise, etc.
5. Avoid large dinners before bed.
6. Avoid the consumption of tobacco, caffeine and alcohol, especially in the previous 4-5 hours.
7. Avoid tasks that are activators in the late hours of the day.
8. Use the bedroom only for sleeping. Avoid work and play in the bedroom.
9. Avoid using televisions, computers, tablets, mobile phones, etc. in the room.
10. Spend some time outside every day.
11. Be physically active in the morning or afternoon, but never in the hours before sleep.