Somnifobia what is, symptoms, causes and treatment

¿It once happened to you that you feel fear of sleeping? ¿You thought something terrible could happen to you? The lifestyle that we lead, some unpleasant experience in the past and our state of health can negatively influence when it comes to reconciling sleep.

Possibly it happened to you, or you know someone who has had sleeping problems. This has consequences in our day to day, since the work performance, academic performance and the coping of situations can be harmful to us. When these types of situations happen to us to be afraid of sleeping, we are facing the somnifobia. In this Psychology-online article, we will talk about What is Somnifobia, symptoms, causes and treatment.

1. What is Somnifobia
2. Somnifobia symptoms
3. Causes of Somnifobia
4. SOMNIFOBIA TREATMENT

What is Somnifobia

When we talk about somnifobia, we refer to a sleep disorder that is linked to the Fear that a person can have to fall asleep. Generally, the fear of falling asleep is related to unpleasant thoughts, either to stop breathing, not being able to wake up or die, among others.

It is important to clarify that these ideas generate great states of anxiety even though there is no specific reason in reality that can justify somnifobia. In other words, the person has fear of something catastrophic still knowing that it is irrational.

When a person presents a somnifobia picture, perform a series of actions to avoid falling asleep. It is possible that a permanent and panic alert state is present. In these cases, in this article, you will see how to control an anxiety or panic attack.

Somnifobia symptoms

There are some symptoms that arise in somnifobia. These They will depend on the severity of the disorder and of the characteristics of the person. The most relevant somnifobia symptoms are:

• Anxiety.
• Distress.
• Insomnia.
• Nightmares.
• Difficulty in breathing.
• Nausea, vomiting, dizziness.
• Fear of darkness.
• Fear to loneliness.
• Ideas related to death.
• Palpitations.
• Accelerated heart rate.
• Excessive sweating.
• Muscle tension.
• Headache.
• Loss of attention and concentration.
• Excessive tiredness.
• Irritability.
• Sudden mood changes.

At this point it is important to know that when some symptoms are presented, it does not necessarily mean that we are facing a somnifobia picture. The health professional who treats the person who consults will be in charge of Make an adequate diagnosis to indicate the treatment That you consider appropriate.

Causes of Somnifobia

¿Why am I afraid of the night? Somnifobia disorder can be developed due to different reasons. Next, we will see the main causes of somnifobia:

• Past unpleasant experiences: People who suffer from somnifobia have had unpleasant experiences in the past. Sometimes, this can be the product of an accident that they have had to generate fear and anxiety.
• Traumatic situation: It is possible that the fear of falling asleep has its origin in some situation that has produced a lot of suffering, such as a duel for the death of a loved one. As an example, we can say that someone who is making a duel for the death of a loved one has difficulty in sleep. These problems can also be a consequence by unrealized duels at the time.
• Anxiety and depression disorders: People who suffer from it have a tendency to develop somnifobia. In this article, we tell you how to help a person with depression.

SOMNIFOBIA TREATMENT

Despite the daily problems that Somnifobia can bring, there are treatments that can help those who have this picture. In this section we tell you the somnifobia treatments that have the greatest efficiency.

Psychological therapy

There are several types of therapy that can be useful for treating somnifobia. On the one hand, there are Psychotherapies short duration focused on problem solving. In the sessions the patient talks about his problems and his therapist gives him a series of exercises to gradually overcome the difficulties he can have.

To overcome Somnifobia, in other longer duration therapies, The origin of fears, anguish and anxieties are sought of the person. This allows us to understand that the fear that appears in a current situation is due to a situation of the past that generated a lot of suffering.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming

The neurolinguistic programming approach to treat Somnifobia is to change thoughts through behavioral, perception and communication techniques. The objective of neurolinguistic programming is modify unpleasant thoughts through observing how information about certain topics is neurologically processed.

In the case of somnifobia, the fact of falling asleep represents a danger of death for the person. Neurolinguistic programming works on that thought through modify a person's neuronal connections.

In some cases a Psychiatric medication, Depending on the characteristics of each person's somnifobia.

This article is merely informative, in psychology-online we have no power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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