Many phobias start because of a bad experience or panic attack related to a specific object or situation. Sometimes even seeing or hearing about a bad experience can be enough to trigger a phobia. Genetics or learned behavior. There may be a link between your specific phobia and the phobia or anxiety of your parents.
It's not known what causes complex phobias, such as agoraphobia and social phobia. However, it's thought that genetics, brain chemistry and life experiences may all play a part in these type of phobias.
Simple phobias usually develop in early childhood, often between the ages of four and eight. A simple phobia can sometimes be traced to an early childhood experience. For example, if a young child is trapped in a confined space, they may develop a fear of enclosed spaces (claustrophobia) when they are older.
a phobia may be a learned response that a person develops early in life from a parent or sibling (brother or sister) genetics may play a role – there's evidence to suggest that some people are born with a tendency to be more anxious than others.
1. Arachibutyrophobia (Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth) Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. While the phenomenon has happened to everyone at one point or another, people with arachibutyrophobia are extremely afraid of it.
1) Arachnophobia – fear of spiders
Arachnophobia is the most common phobia – sometimes even a picture can induce feelings of panic. And lots of people who aren't phobic as such still avoid spiders if they can.
We are born with only two innate fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud sounds. A 1960 study evaluated depth perception among 6- to14-month-old infants, as well as young animals.
About 19 million Americans have one or more phobias that range from mild to severe. Phobias can happen in early childhood. But they are often first seen between ages 15 and 20. They affect both men and women equally.
As we age, we produce much less adrenaline, which can cause racing hearts and dizziness. This means the intense fears we may have experienced in youth no longer trouble us as much. However, older people often experience a greater sense of vulnerability, so things like heights or big crowds become more of an issue.
Phobias persist for several years or even decades in 10–30% of cases, and are strongly predictive of onset of other anxiety, mood, and substance-use disorders.
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words. Understanding the phobia can help you overcome it and live a fulfilling life. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is one of the longest words in the dictionary, and ironically, it means the fear of long words.
A fear becomes a phobia when you have to change your lifestyle to manage it. A phobia is an extreme or irrational fear or dread aroused by a particular object or circumstance, to the point where it severely restricts your life.
A person may develop a phobia of any type of situation or thing. Because of this, there are hundreds of different phobias that people may experience.
Phobias are among the most common of all mental illnesses, and they are usually the most successfully treated. Phobias are divided into categories according to the cause of the reaction and avoidance.
Fear can be healthy. It is programmed into your nervous system, and gives you the survival instincts you need to keep yourself safe from danger. Fear is unhealthy when it makes you more cautious than you really need to be to stay safe, and when it prevents you from doing things you would otherwise enjoy.
Women develop specific phobias roughly twice as frequently as men. In addition, women tend to predominate in certain phobia categories.
Common fears include fear of the dark, burglary, war, death, separation or divorce of their parents, and supernatural beings (such as ghosts and monsters). Suggestions for helping your child include: Let your child know that you take their fears seriously.
Your phobia may develop from factors in your childhood environment. For example you might have parents or guardians who are very worried or anxious. This may affect how you cope with anxiety in later life. You might develop the same specific phobia as a parent or older sibling.
And yet, living in fear is always a choice. We can choose to live in that invisible force of fear or we can choose a different story line, one of hope, possibility and connection. Whichever choice we make will shape our responses to events and our relationships to each other.
A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder, characterized by an uncontrollable, irrational, and intense fear of a specific situation, object, or activity. The most common phobias include claustrophobia, social phobia, and arachnophobia.
Arachnophobia – Arachnophobia is possibly the most well-known of all phobias. It is the fear of spiders, or arachnids. Estimates put arachnophobia at affecting roughly 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men. Ophidiophobia – Ophidiophobia is the fear of snakes.
Almost everyone has an irrational fear or two—of spiders, for example, or your annual dental checkup. For most people, these fears are minor. But when fears become so severe that they cause tremendous anxiety and interfere with your normal life, they're called phobias.