How do you read it? A group of Swedish researchers has successfully tested a kind of ‘shock therapy’ against social anxiety, consisting of exposing patients to other people’s sweat to become familiar with their presence. It may sound like a joke, but it is not at all. In reality, it is “very interesting research” that opens the doors to a new way of treating the most common phobias that humans suffer from, according to the psychiatrist Narcís Cardoner, from the Santa Creu and Sant Pau hospital, in Barcelona. The fear that blocks all of us the most is exposing ourselves in public. The results of the therapies available to address it are also very limited.
The Catalan specialist, member of the Spanish Society of Psychiatry and Mental Health, explains it very well. Social anxiety, a new name for what was once called social phobia, is by far the most widespread fear among the population. Also the most difficult to treat.
The fear of snakes or spiders, “for example”, is easily “treatable”. By not exposing yourself to them, test passed. But avoiding people is more complex. «Even doctors, who prepare us to speak in public, have a hard time getting on stage to present a job. Social anxiety – alerts the specialist – also has its degrees. There are those who have difficulties to start a conversation and who block it to the point of ending up locked up at home ».
chemosignals
A group of researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm tried to organize a mindfulness therapy with a group of patients, in which the participants were exposed to the smell of sweat from third parties. The therapists who sign the work, presented at the recent European Congress of Psychiatry in Paris and endorsed by the European association of the specialty, speak of a kind of “human chemotherapy.”
Like tears, the composition of the exudate varies depending on the person’s mood.
Narcis Cardoner
Psychiatrist at the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Barcelona
According to what they say, our mental state means that “through sweat we produce molecules, ‘chemosignals’, which inform our interlocutor of our emotional state and, at the same time, produce a specific response in him.” The work shows that the results obtained against social anxiety with this new form of therapy are much better than if one tries to mitigate its impact only with mindfulness.
“It has its logic.” Human evolution, details Narcís Cardoner, has favored a greater development of some senses to the detriment of others. The impulse that people have given to rationality has allowed a greater growth of sight at the expense of, for example, intuition or smell. The smell among animals, “and we people are”, informs the state of mind in which one is.
dogs that sniff each other
It is often said, recalls the expert, that fear is smelled. That expression sums up the importance of sweat in relationships between species. When two dogs cross paths, the first thing they do is sniff each other. It’s not just a game. With such a bestial gesture, they seek to identify molecules linked to sweat, still unknown to humans, which inform the state of mind of the animal in front of them. There may be fear, but also respect, complicity, dedication, desire… Although they are still not well known, it is known that the components of sweat change drastically depending on the moment and the situation that is being experienced.
With tears, more studied, exactly the same thing happens. Each drop of tears contains more than 1,500 different proteins, the function of which in many cases is unknown. It has long been known that the composition of each of these tears varies radically when it is a cry of sadness, joy or simply of a mechanical refreshment of the eye. “Why isn’t it going to happen with sweat?” the Catalan psychiatrist wonders.
There are other investigations that have also shown the power of tears among humans. The crying of a woman generates an automatic decrease in sexual interest, even in the aggressiveness of the man, not because of its emotional impact, but as a natural response of the human body. «Has it ever happened to you that a specific aroma transports you directly to a childhood afternoon making cupcakes with her grandmother? Well, it is very possible that the smells come to serve us as therapy, ”says the expert.
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