Levenstein 1
Common Phobias and How to Control them
What might somebody do when they have a phobia, scream, cry, run away….
Phobias can have major effects, they might just cause aches and extra stress, or worse, they might cause seizures, or even death. My project also focuses on one phobia and the origins of it. That phobia is acrophobia, which is also known as heights phobia. Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon Cooper on “The Big Bang Theory” informed us on the show, “Fear of heights is irrational. Fear of falling, however, is prudent and evolutionary.”
Somebody who could have a phobia on anything, it could be food it could be just a hole, it might even be just hanging out with somebody. Most phobias result from a previous experience, but are treatable.
Acrophobia, which is heights phobia, is one of the most common types of phobias. There are many situations where people who have the phobia become afraid like going through a bridge, climbing up a ladder, going up high stairs. It can cause going on airplanes hard or even impossible. It is the same thing with going up on an elevator. Luckily, acrophobia is a specific phobia and they are one of the most simple psychological issues to treat, so there are ways to cure the phobia. One way it can be cured is by writing where the person is and write down places where he/she is afraid to go. Also, scheduling three to four hour practice sessions is a great and useful idea. Even if the phobia disappears and is gone with, it might return. There are multiple ways it might return. The ways are is avoiding the situation, stopping
vulnerabilities following getting to the goals, doing less vulnerabilities during therapy, having a disturbing experience, having daily life anxiety, and having a twisted corporal reaction in a scared situation.
There is obviously more phobias and not just this one. Unfortunately,
sometimes some of these phobias can last from birth and then take decades or longer until it is cured. The amygdala, which is one of the most important functions of the brain is in charge of causing these phobias. Researchers must study this more so they can help themselves and others understand these types of disorders better. The top five phobias are tons of people who are afraid of these objects or ideas. They are the fear of dogs, which is cynophobia, the fear of open and crowded spaces, which is, agoraphobia, acrophobia, the fear of snakes, which is ophidiophobia, and the fear of spiders, which is arachnophobia. Phobias might also be severe as they might be the reason of having relationship problems, having failed in school, and have been unable to keep that person’s employment. There are other phobias that we have heard before which are astraphobia, which is the fear of thunder and lightning, mysophobia which is the fear of germs, aerophobia, which is the fear of flying, and riyophobia which are the fear of holes. Besides, the normal phobias, there are also the strange ones. Some of them are nomophobia, which is the fear of being without a mobile phone, ombrophobia, which is the fear of rain, papaphobia, which is the fear of the pope, uranophobia, which is the fear of heaven, and pogonophobia which is the fear of beards.
There are also phobias that are not considered phobias. Some of these unsure named phobia are extremely ridiculous fears. Some of them are the fear of glaciers, the fear of lists, the fear of feet, the fear of salespeople, and the fear of talking animals. Xenophobia, which is the dislike of people from other countries is another unsure names popular fake phobia or not. There is an even a possible Islamophobia, which is the fear of Islam and Muslims because of the conflicts in the Middle East. The unfortunate part about that is some people make stereotypes that all Muslims are cruel and just then turn it into phobia and basically just prove that these group of people are scared of this religion and it is not fair for the Muslims who do behave. People say all phobias are fake. We do not know if they are phobias or not and it will take many researchers to find out. Some people also say there is no such thing as a fake or fictional phobia. If the person has an unrealistic phobia, they should get treatment as quickly as possible.
There are phobias around the world and country. They affect three percent of the world population. Here in the US, as of August 2012, 6.3 million people have been diagnosed with a phobia. 23 percent of phobics try to get treatment. That is a surprising amount because everybody who has a phobia should get treatment on how to cure it because that is part of how life become more successful for his/her. Eighty percent of people with phobias get relief from medicine and (CBT) which is cognitive behavior therapy. Twenty percent of those people with phobia who go out and get treatment, twenty of that twenty-three percent go out and get treatment recover completely. That is an unexpecting number because I thought there would be most people would try to get treatment but not completely cure their phobia. I did think there would be a small percentage that would be completely cured, and I thought about two to three percent of people who got treatment would be cured. In addition, forty percent of phobics have the phobia before the age of ten and 95 percent get the phobia before the age of twenty. Moreover, there is also a small percentage of people in the US with specific phobias. 8.7 percent of Americans that are least eighteen years old got one specific phobia minimum.
Doctors can also do many things about it. They give anxiety types of medicine like Lexapro, Zoloft, and others. The types of doctors who can help to try to cure these nasty phobias are internists and pediatricians. They will ask when the doctor has the conversation with his/her in their appointment, “What bothers you? What afraids you,”
They will ask these types of questions so they can figure out what the person is specifically afraid of and what medicine he/she should take to help them feel more relaxed about their phobia in general. I think they can help cure phobias because all doctors are smart and they know what anxiety feels like and acts like the best and they are taking care of him/her once in awhile for once every three months to a year. The odds of curing it just like the odds for something to happen in sports, are four to one in my opinion.
Researchers play a key role in phobias and their circumstances. Researchers put things on websites they get from other websites to learn about it more. Furthermore, some researchers are scientists. Scientists can do experiments and conduct researches about phobias so they can positively affect the future of fear so there is fear no more and also help cure the phobias. With this research, now instead of going to the doctor, which could be far for some people, they can just look online for a period of time and get great advice on how to get these phobias cured. I think they help in trying to cure them because without these researchers, there would be less people getting cured and possibly more people becoming afraid of objects, socializing, and along with other items. In a way, pharmacists also have a job that to do with phobias because they have to give prescriptions to people and some of those prescriptions are for phobia killers medicine, which are in pharmacies. For us, we are still in our adolescence and some of us take these anxiety medicines and I think our parents also contribute to the help because they are responsible for giving some of us this medicine every single day.
Phobias can have many effects. The first type of effects are the positive.
For example, if the person is calm for a long period of time, that means their recovery towards getting the phobia cured is going in the right direction. Another way to cure the phobia the best is examining the evidence about the phobia and asking to themselves, “What is your phobia? Why are you afraid of it?, How long have you been afraid of it?”
They will lead to positive effects this way. Another way of getting positive effects and thoughts out of the phobia is challenging fatal thoughts and turning them into positive thoughts or even facing the fear, whenever the person is ready to. Staying positive in fear always works out because it shows themselves that they can get it cured, that they can do it and believe it. Also just like for acrophobia, keeping a journal to specify what the person is fearful and why and along with the locations for other phobias helps. It reminds him or herself and their family members what afraid them and notify that person they need to talk with a family member to take action for it.
Unfortunately, along with positive effects, there is negative ones. Moreover, they can cause panic attacks that involve seizures and trips to the hospital. Not just that they could have long-term effects. Part of those panic attacks might lead to people isolating themselves and then leading to problems starting in regular daily life. It might be so bad socially it might lead to the person getting imaginary illnesses or believing death is coming close when it is not. Tragically, real death might be possible caused by phobias. Panic attacks that have to do with phobias, could increase the chances for heart disease for men and women. Phobias might also cause relationship problems, failure in school, and getting fired from their job and keeping unemployment. Some people are even afraid to leave their home because of these phobias. The effects are worse for alcoholics. They are ten times more likely to get a phobia and are twice more likely to get alcoholism or another addiction for those who never have had a phobia. The reason they could get worse because of the phobia itself and the fact that potentially that they have never shared their phobia information with anybody and have kept it secret the whole time.
There are common phobias, there are lesser-known phobias, and there are many ways to control them. Some of the top known phobias are arachnophobia, which is the fear of spiders, and acrophobia, which is the fear of heights. Doctors, researchers, scientists, along with other people help to try to cure them. They are widespread around the US and world. The effects to it are great like getting it cured, or awful like heart disease. There are some famous people who have phobias too. Johnny Depp, an actor has arachnophobia along with Justin Timberlake. Eric Berry, an All-Pro safety on the Kansas City Chiefs, has equinophobia, which is the fear of horses. During games, he will not run out of the tunnel until the organization’s mascot, Warpaint, has passed. He pulls out of the defensive huddle whenever the mascot and it’s riders are near him.