How can i help myself?
if you would like to read more about how you can help yourself please click here. Useful self-help strategies for managing phobias include:
exercise: regular exercise, particularly aerobic exercise, combats stress and releases tension. It also encourages the brain to release a chemical called serotonin, which improves mood. Aim to do at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week.
Moderate exercise is when you feel slightly out of breath and tired. A good example is going for a brisk walk. Relaxation: learning how to relax and unwind is important. Relaxation and breathing exercises help, as well as activities such as as yoga or pilates.
It is often difficult to say what causes a phobia, as each case is unique. Simple phobias often trace back to a particular event or trauma, or in some cases are learnt from influential figures in the patient’s childhood, such as parents or siblings. It is thought that genetics play a role in anxiety disorders, meaning some people may be born with a predisposition for developing phobias.
Phobias are a form of anxiety disorder, in which your anxiety gets attached to a specific object or situation. Phobias most often start in your childhood or twenties but can develop at any age, particularly after a traumatic experience. Most phobias are more common in women. Phobias are not harmful in themselves, but avoiding what you fear can have a negative impact on your life. This is particularly true for social phobia and agoraphobia. Some phobias can last for many years or even your whole life unless you get help with them. But the good news is that if you get help, most people recover from or learn to manage their phobia much better.
See, Play and Learn
Much is still unknown about the actual cause of specific phobias.
Causes may include:
negative experiences: many phobias develop as a result of having a negative experience or panic attack related to a specific object or situation. Genetics and environment: there may be a link between your own specific phobia and the phobia or anxiety of your parents — this could be due to genetics or learned behavior. Brain function: changes in brain functioning also may play a role in developing specific phobias. What are the risk factors of developing specific phobia?
these factors may increase your risk of specific phobias:
your age: specific phobias can first appear in childhood, usually by age 10, but can occur later in life.
Symptoms of a phobia
Has the phobia been learned or picked up from another person? it is important to consider whether a family member is helping maintain a phobia by their own fear, or by their fear of the child's anxiety or discomfort. Has the child/adolescent had a direct experience that has scared them? this type of phobia can also develop because they have witnessed or heard something. Is the child/adolescent stressed and experiencing anxiety symptoms? (e. G. From exams, parental separation). They may incorrectly connect feelings of anxiety with an object or situation that they are in. Is embarrassment or fear of getting into a panic increasing their avoidance behaviour?.
Take their phobia seriously you may not understand it and you may not even understand how someone could have that phobia, but remember that it is very real to them. Let them know that their feelings are valid. Ask them what they find triggering for some people with a phobia, even talking about the thing they are afraid of can cause them to feel anxious, fearful or overwhelmed. If you ask them what they find triggering, you can be careful when talking about it. Encourage them but don’t pressure them it can be helpful to have someone to encourage you to face your fear, but it can also be harmful if to pressure someone to do something they aren’t comfortable with.
Young children often rely on adults to protect them from immediate threat or danger more so than older children and teens. As a result, when young children are faced with a specific phobia they may cry, tantrum, cling, freeze, or want to be picked up. Young children are more likely to be afraid of concrete and immediate situations such as storms, insects, animals, and clowns among others. In contrast, when faced with a feared item or situation, older youth are more likely to express feared thoughts or predictions such as “it will bite me,” or “i’m going to die.
Katherina k. Hauner, a postdoctoral fellow at the northwestern university feinberg school of medicine, answers: under normal circumstances, fear triggers a natural fight-or-flight response that allows animals to react quickly to threats in their environment. Irrational and excessive fear, however, is typically a maladaptive response. In humans, an unwarranted, persistent fear of a certain situation or object, known as specific phobia, can cause overwhelming distress and interfere with daily life. Specific phobia is among the more prevalent anxiety disorders, affecting an estimated 9 percent of americans within their lifetime. Common subtypes include fear of small animals, insects, flying, enclosed spaces, blood and needles.