What’s Everyone So Afraid Of?
Everyone is afraid of something. Even the strongest person you know will get a look of terror in their eyes at some point—whether it’s over something tangible, like a bug, or something intangible, like being alone.
Not everyone has phobias. What differentiates the two is reason.
Fears are usually rational—meaning they have a valid root cause—and sometimes they’re even helpful. If you’re scared of being eaten by a bear, you won’t try to fight one that approaches your tent at night.
Phobias, on the other hand, are often irrational and debilitating. For example, someone who is afraid of water—which doesn’t harm people at reasonable temperatures—may avoid bathing.
Some of the most common phobias include:
Acrophobia, fear of heights.
Agoraphobia, fear of having a panic attack in an unfamiliar place without escape.
Arachnophobia, fear of spiders.
Astraphobia, fear of thunderstorms.
Claustrophobia, fear of closed spaces.
Enochlophobia, fear of crowds.
Glossophobia, fear of public speaking.
Mysophobia, fear of germs or dirt
Necrophobia, fear of death/dead people.
Social Phobia, also known as social anxiety disorder.
One of the most dangerous fears, acrophobia can create such disorientation the sufferer may actually toss himself to the ground from a high place. An acrophobic may avoid all heights—meaning he’ll only live and work on the ground floor of a building.
Several studies have explored Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) as a viable treatment for acrophobia. Patients are often less hesitant to face their fear of heights when they understand they’re immersed in a computer automated virtual environment—a simulation—not an actual experience.
Roughly twice as many women as men deal with this debilitating phobia—which causes them to avoid public places where they’ve previously had a panic attack, having associated those places with their anxiety. In severe cases, agoraphobics refuse to leave their homes because they only feel safe there.
A 2001 study revealed that people with pacemakers are at a higher risk for panic disorder and agoraphobia. Participants felt anxiety about receiving shocks from their pacemakers, and began associating irregular heartbeats with places and situations.
It’s not just a movie from the early 90s—it’s a very common fear. Roughly 50 percent of women and 10 percent of men are abnormally scared of spiders. They often have full-on panic attacks when they encounter even the smallest creepy crawler.
Research shows that women are more susceptible to arachnophobia because they’re born with ingrained maternal character traits. As natural child protectors, women are more likely than men to be cautious of animals like snakes and spiders.
Children often suffer from astraphobia, but it’s by no means isolated to young people. Many grown adults start sweating and crying at the first crack of thunder or flash of lighting. They may even become obsessed with weather forecasts, ever ready to find shelter.
Epidemiological studies show that 3 percent of adults exhibit a storm phobia, with a female to male ratio of 3.6 to 1. There’s no evidence as to what accounts for this disparity—whether it’s to due to biological factors or differences in the ways boys and girls are raised and socialized.
Studies show 2–5 percent of the population struggle with claustrophobia, the fear of being closed in with no escape. Claustrophobics are mostly afraid of being restricted and suffocated, and will panic in small rooms, elevators, and other small spaces.
Some people develop claustrophobia as a result of another condition. For example, someone with irritable bowel syndrome may develop an aversion to closed spaces because they fear being trapped in a room without access to a bathroom.
Sufferers fear contracting a deadly virus, being trampled to death, and getting lost in a massive crowd of people. An enochlophobe may be introverted by nature, or may feel unable to dissociate from all the emotions of people in a crowded space. Whatever the case, she feels most comfortable with a small group of people she knows.
Enochlophobia is common among celebrities, who fear the madness that ensues when fans mob around them. Woody Allen, for example, fears crowds, among a long list of other things including insects, sunshine, dogs, deer, bright colors, children, heights, small rooms, and cancer.
Someone with this phobia may simply refrain from delivering speeches, or could take it to an extreme: avoiding events where a group of people may focus its attention on him. Oddly enough, some glossophobes can dance in front of a crowd of thousands so long as they don’t need to communicate verbally.
Glossophobia ranks just above fear of death as the most common phobia. The comedian Jerry Seinfeld summed it up nicely: “In other words, at a funeral, the average person would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.”
People with obsessive-compulsive disorder often struggle with this phobia, as well. They wash their hands and apply hand sanitizer excessively, and often avoid situations where they could encounter germs. In severe cases, a mysophobe may confine himself to his home to prevent contamination.
One famous mysophobe, Deal or No Deal host Howie Mandel, refuses to shake hands with anyone unless he is wearing latex gloves. He even shaved his head to avoid airborne germs that may land in his hair.
Few people feel comfortable with death and corpses, but necrophobics experience something altogether different. Even a dead squirrel on the road could cause rapid breathing, sweating, nausea and an irregular heartbeat. Sufferers see death around every corner, fearing the unexpected and unknown.
Studies show that atheists have the highest rate of necrophobia since they don’t hold religious beliefs about the afterlife that could give them comfort.
People who deal with this problem experience anxiety about other people’s perceptions and judgments. They generally censor their behavior in front of other people—sometimes to such an extreme they refuse to eat or speak in the presence of others.
People most commonly develop social anxiety disorder between ages 11 and 15, and ages 18 and 25. Roughly 70 percent are women; 66 percent are unwed; and most have social and educational levels that are lower than average.
Whatever your phobia, you don’t have to continue suffering. Those sweaty palms, heart palpitations, and pangs of nausea can all be a thing of the past. Mental health professionals have identified several effective treatments for phobias, including:
Behavioral Therapy
Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP)
Flooding
This treatment involves one-on-one sessions with a therapist who repeatedly and gradually exposes you to the item or experience you fear.
If you are afraid of spiders, for example, you may start by looking at photos of a spider in a web. Your therapist would discuss your feelings with you, helping to decrease your anxiety. On the next session, you may work with a plastic spider.
The prospect of coming face-to-face with the cause of your anxiety might sound less than appealing, but it’s worth the discomfort—as extreme as it may feel. Gradual exposure has proven an effective method of changing a phobic’s thought process and emotional response.
NLP is a technique that helps you alter your ingrained emotional programming.
To help address your phobia, your coach may have you mentally relive a traumatic encounter—but this time, observing it outside yourself from a safe place. For example, she may ask you to visualize yourself in a projector booth, watching the event progress on a movie screen.
The process is far more involved but the end result of this reframing is that you feel a new response to a situation that once evoked overpowering emotions.
By far the scariest treatment, flooding entails one-time, excessive exposure to your deepest fear.
The premise is you can’t stay indefinitely terrified. After roughly 40 minutes of anxiety, your body will move into a more relaxed state. At that time, you’ll realize you survived, you’ll likely survive if it happens again, and there’s no good reason to respond with such fear to the stimulus.
Presumably this is not the most effective technique if you’re afraid of dying. You can’t really simulate that one!
While some professional suggests herbalism and aromatherapy are also viable treatments for phobias, they’re far less likely to yield lasting results. Certain scents can alter your mood, but they won’t change your instinctive response to a stimulus.
The bottom line: you can eliminate a phobia. But you’ll likely have to get a whole lot more scared first.
