Featured

pages

Fear of Heights Phobia - Acrophobia

What
is Acrophobia?

 Acrophobia, the fear of heights is an abnormally persistent fear of high places. Abnormal because in most cases, while everyone else would feel safe looking down a skyscraper from the inside, a person with acrophobia would already be perhaps shaking while barely taking a peep even though risks of falling off are almost impossible from that angle. I have a friend who's over 6 feet and yet he is acrophobic, so now I wonder how he's not scared of looking down with his own massive height lol.
 Height phobia to some extent is a good and somewhat normal and protective type of phobia because a lot of us have some tendency of acrophobia and in most cases, it prevents us from doing stupid things like throwing a back flip off the 5th floor of a building without proper safety measures. However, cases where height phobia becomes a really disturbing feeling makes it beyond just normal thus making one avoid many things relating to elevated surfaces and some of which include avoiding tall companies to work in, the common house maintenance practices like fixing a light bulbs or climbing tall staircases or even simply relaxing on the roof top enjoying the evening view.



One man's poison is another man's meat they say, while many suffer the phobia of heights, others are performing dangerous stunts and flints whilst climbing or atop seriously tall buildings and structures. A good example is Mustang.
Ukraine's Mustang Wanted
  


Symptoms of Acrophobia
  Symptoms of acrophobia are easily identified as they are triggered when a situation associated with high places is involved. The more popular symptoms of acrophobia include:
- grasping for air
- sweating
- shaking
- dizziness
- shock
- blurred vision
mild cases of acrophobia is often just associated with fear of falling off the building and blurred or shaky vision when looking down the building. It should be noted that for average people not having acrophobia, it is still advisable not to look down a tall building for a lot of reasons too.
 All the above symptoms of acrophobia are caused generally by the person's fear of falling and getting hurt, breaking a leg, a spine or worse, dying!

Causes of Acrophobia

The causes of acrophobia like many other phobias are largely debated. Studies show acrophobia may be hereditary, which means one might be having acrophobia because a family member is having to too, perhaps the parents or grandparents or even further downwards, other suggestions are that it might arise from past experience of psychological trauma associated with heights which has been proven to be true for so many other types of phobia too. The causes of acrophobia is generally agreed to be triggered by different causes from person to person. Perhaps the person has fallen from a tall structure in the past or has witnessed it firsthand, it could even be because they have been watching and or hearing too many stories of people falling and dying or sustaining injuries or there about. Another acceptable cause of acrophobia is that the fear of heights phobia might be a survival instinct. Research has shown, being a type of phobia belonging to a category of specific phobias called space and motion discomfort, many mammals show similar repulsive behaviours when brought to higher grounds - an attribute similar to cats' rejection to moving near water bodies like lakes and streams. this is one of the most acceptable causes of acrophobia along with the psychological trauma, causing a scar in the mind.

How to Overcome Acrophobia
Treatments for the fear of heights are luckily available and very easy to follow too, so getting rid of acrophobia is not as difficult as the phobia may pose to be on its own, there are professionals online that can help overcome acrophobia gradually with consistency and tests. A similar way is the common Cognitive-behavioural therapy which is without doubt one of the best suggested options anyone can give but if you feel you're not up for such, you might as well overcome acrophobia at your pace by yourself. I created an article earlier on how to overcome the fear of heights and other phobias by yourself, click HERE to view it.
 So, good luck fighting your fear of heights!

DID YOU LIKE THIS POST? SHOW US YOUR GRATITUDE IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!
author

Author Name

Author Description!

Get Free Email Updates to your Inbox!

Post a Comment

Powered by Blogger.
Copyright © Phobia Pro | Designed By Code Nirvana