Phobia - the disease is extremely unpleasant, even painful. Uncontrollable fear can cause anything from insects, stray dogs, confined spaces, descent to the metro. The paralyzing sense, panic accompanied by sweating, palpitations and involuntary trembling of the hands and feet. Scientists offer a revolutionary method of treatment of phobias: to get rid of them will sleep. Simple Sandman significantly reduces fear, and the most effective sleep in combination with aromatherapy.

Conscious control phobia not be: it is useless to persuade people that cockroaches are not dangerous, and in the subway every day down thousands of people, and with them, nothing happens. According to estimations by doctors from various phobias suffer more than ten million people around the world. Because many prefer to tolerate or to avoid provoking fear situations, without recourse, to establish the exact number of such sufferers difficult.

Doctors say that the most obsessive fears appear in late adolescence or young adulthood after the occurrence of any traumatic situation. However, phobias may appear in Mature people. The most common today, the treatment of phobias is the so-called systematic desensitization - reduction of the patient's fear of an object or situation. For example, if a person is afraid of water, it gradually accustom to water: first, only to walk along the shore, then gradually teach to go in the water, and so on. However, to use this technique, it is possible only after the process of psychotherapy is installed and worked out the main cause of fear.

This technique costs to patients is quite expensive - both financially and emotionally. In the process "addiction" to the object of our phobia man at first have to overcome panic. This year scientists have discovered a mechanism that will greatly facilitate the lives of people who suffer from phobias. Effective adjunct to psychotherapy and other methods were... normal sleep!

Scientists from Harvard University in the USA has decided to conduct a series of experiments that show that sleep can improve the efficiency of traditional treatment of phobias. The fact that the attenuation of obsessive fears is the result of alterations in the emotional memory. It is known that this alteration, connected with analysis and digestion of emotions that happens during sleep. By connecting these two facts, researchers thought that the NAP can greatly improve the effect "therapy addiction".

They were not mistaken. To verify the hypothesis, the scientists invited several dozens of women volunteers who suffer from arachnophobia - fear of spiders. Each of them over ten times in a row showed minute video showing a live spiders. One group of women watched this movie first night, and then in the morning after twelve hours of sleep. The other group of participants of the video showed utrom evening of the same day, the interval between screenings in their case lasted several hours.

The level of fear researchers defined as according to them, women, and with the help of instruments defining the heart rate, the tonus of face muscles and sweating degree. The scientists noted that those parties that between ' sessions" managed to sleep, fear and aversion to spiders became much less. Even after the new rolls, which was even more spiders and their species, popavshie participants reacted much calmer. If between shows, videos no sleep, fear of insects, on the contrary, increased. Friends" spiders women were afraid as well, as new even more.

The result scientists from Harvard explain the fact that during sleep the activation and restructuring the system of emotional memory. With a combination of psychotherapy and full of sleep people much better able to deal with phobias, they argue.

However, there is one problem: many people in the evening increases anxiety. Therefore unnecessary display of items of their phobias in the second half of the day can lead to severe fright and subsequent insomnia. So sensitive patients, doctors advise to carry out the necessary procedures in the first half of the day, and after that to make time for sleep.

Researchers from northwestern University in Illinois (USA) went further. They found that sleep can not only to consolidate the success of the treatment phobia, but also to serve as a method of therapy in itself. For this purpose, suffering from panic man caught in a dream smell associated with his fear. If no specific smell with the subject phobia is associated not, this relationship can be created artificially: to show people pictures or videos frightening to its subject matter, thus spreading the vicinity of some flavor.

During the study, the volunteers were shown images of persons and demonstrate each gave to smell any fragrance, a new for every new image. In the demonstration, one of the photos of the participants were subjected to a small blow current. The level of fear scientists evaluated using devices, recording the conductivity of the skin. After the first stage of the experiment of the participants were sent to bed. During sleep around them spread the smell that was accompanied by a demonstration of one of the photos and shock. The next day the test was repeated.

As in the experiment with spiders, participants who slept after the first stage, felt less discomfort during the demonstration of the image. Moreover, the brighter expressed smells during sleep, the less was the fear. And those volunteers who smelled only in the period of wakefulness in the next phase of the experiment reacted to "dangerous" picture even more. To explain the reason of this effect scientists still find it difficult. However, the very possibility of curing phobias during sleep, including through such "aromatherapy"seems to be very promising.