According to Swiss researchers, sleep helps weaken emotions connected to memory, such as fear triggered by traumatic experiences.
The expression “restful sleep” has never lived up to its name. A new study, published in the journal Sleep, recalls the therapeutic effect of sleep on the functioning of the brain. Researchers at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) say that sleeping can help prevent post-traumatic stress disorder.
More exactly, this team suggests sleeping within 24 hours of a traumatic experience. This strategy would make it possible to process negative emotions and integrate painful memories more effectively, according to their observations carried out at the University Psychiatric Clinic in Zurich.
The researchers invited 65 healthy women to watch a traumatic film in the laboratory. A first group slept the whole night following the session while a second remained awake. An electroencephalogram (EEG) then measured the participants’ brain activity. The study emphasizes that the nature of stressful video images is similar to those linked to an experienced trauma, with the difference that they disappear after a few days.
Prevention without side effects
All of the participants reported experiencing intrusive and unpleasant memories in the week following watching the film. But the group of “sleepers” was less marked emotionally when they were again confronted with the unpleasant images, unlike those who remained awake, hence the protective effect of sleep according to the researchers.
Sleep would therefore help weaken emotions connected to memory, such as fear triggered by traumatic experiences. It would also allow memories to be better contextualized, processed and then stored in memory. Importantly, the process would still take several nights, according to the researchers. Those who already imagined that their trauma would be relieved in one night will therefore have to be a little patient.
“This approach offers an important alternative to current attempts that try to erase traumatic memories or to treat them with drugs”, analyzes Dr Birgit Kleim. In a press release, the main author of this work even confides that “the use of sleep could become an adequate and natural prevention strategy”.
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