Giving phobias a rest
Exposure therapy for irrational fear of spiders seems to be more effective if it is followed by sleep, according to a recent study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research. The results have implications for treatment of phobias, social anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychotherapy for fear, the research suggests, should be coupled with healthy sleep. Our brains seem to use sleep, perhaps REM sleep specifically, to lay down new emotional memories. Sixty-six young women took part in the study of arachnophobia and sleep. The research, led by Edward Pace-Schott, clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), in collaboration with Rebecca M.C. Spencer at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, focused on sleep’s role in reducing fear of spiders in undergraduate women. The goal was to see how “fear extinction” is affected by sleep, wakefulness, and time of day. Fear extinction is an active process of building a new emotional memory; in...