Fears and Phobias

Fear is a feeling experienced in anticipation of pain or threat.  Everyone gets scared once in a while.  They feel nervous or anxious about something that they find scary.  When people get scared their hearts beat faster, blood pressure rises, pupils dilate, or they start to sweat.  These are all defensive reactions.  The body is preparing and the reaction is called the “fight or flight” response.  A person prepares to stand and fight their fears or run from them.  Your heart pumps blood faster into your brain and muscles for a faster response and your lungs quickly supply your body with oxygen.  Pupils dilate to let in more light so you can see what going on around you and even your digestive system slows down so your body can focus on more significant things, such as survival.

            Fear is a survival instinct.  People feel afraid when hey thing they are in danger or unsure about something.  Phobias are an intensified version of fears and the fears are blown out of proportion because the negative feelings towards them are so strong.  Phobias interfere with real life activities because they control how a person perceives certain things.  If a person has a phobia of cats they will be afraid to go to a friend’s house because they might have cat, or they will be afraid to cross the street because they saw a cat there a week ago.  Most phobias are caused by bad encounters.  With a cat phobia, a person would have had a bad encounter with a cat, and seeing a cat triggers negative feelings to come back.

            There are so many fears and phobias out there that it’s impossible to count all of them, but here’s the top ten phobias:

1. Arachnophobia- the fear or spiders

2. Social Phobia- Social Anxiety Disorder

3. Aerophobia- the fear of flying

4. Agoraphobia- Fear of wide open spaces

5. Claustrophobia- Fear of being trapped in small spaces

6. Acrophobia- Fear of heights

7. Nyctophobia- Fear of the dark

8.  Brontophobia- Fear of thunder and lightening

9. Necrophobia- Fear of death or dead things

10. Aquaphobia- Fear of water

            If fear is so intense and makes people feel weak and helpless why do we ride roller coasters, watch scary movies, and read horror stories?  People like the rush and the exhilaration they get from the experience.  It’s stimulating and people want to see what it’s like and have some excitement while still knowing deep down that they will be okay in the end. 

Why do movies and books scare people just as much or even more then haunted trails and houses?  Haunted trails and houses seem like reality because people could reach out and touch the creepy effects.  But aren’t movies and books even further from reality?  No.  The books and movies make people think, and feel as if they are trapped in the house with the killer.  You put yourself in the characters shoes and you start to think.  Sometimes the movies that play mind games with you and movies you can relate to are more terrifying then the typical killer outside trying to come in and get you movies.  People’s minds make books scary, people imagine everything in their mind and it scares them.  When they read Stephen King’s Carrie, they put themselves in the gymnasium at the prom and imagine everything happening to them and around them.  You might be able to feel the props at a haunted house or trail but the fact that you can’t touch the things in the books and movies and they scare you just as much or even more, makes them more intense. 

Haunted houses, haunted trails, horror stories and scary movies have many things in common.  One similarity in particular is there's always a way to escape the fear.  In haunted houses and haunted trails there’s always an exit, you can always close a book when it gets to scary, and you can always hit stop on the DVD player when you can’t take it anymore.  But when real life comes into play it’s different.  People can’t close the book and they can’t hit stop.  There’s only one end and that’s what most people are truly afraid of.

For more information on fears and phobias go to Being Afraid, Fears and Phobias, and Discovery Health.