A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder. It is a strong, irrational fear of something that poses little or no real danger. Or on the other hand maybe a lot of danger! There are many specific phobias. There is a phobia for almost everything actually! Check some… fearful facts out below!
1. Psychologists have identified more than 400 distinct phobias.
2. The word phobia comes from the Greek: φόβος (phóbos), meaning “aversion”, “fear”, or “morbid fear”. In popular culture, it is common for specific phobias to be given a name based on a Greek word for the object of the fear, plus the suffix -phobia.
3. A common theory regarding the origins of one’s phobia is genetic predisposition or genetic susceptibility. That’s an increased likelihood of developing a particular disease based on a person’s geneticmakeup.
4. Another widely known theory is that of misinformation. Since the media often uses fear to grab attention, many people are often unnecessarily afraid.
5. The more scared you feel, the scarier things will seem. When you are primed for fear, even harmless events seem scary.
6. Anatidaephobia is the persistent, unwarranted fear that one is being watched by a duck.
7. What did Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Mussolini and Hitler have in common? They all suffered from Ailurophobia, the crippling fear of cats.
8. Another strange phobia is the fear of having peanut butter sticking on the roof of your mouth. It’s called Arachibutyrophobia.
9. Coimetrophobia, a rather… morbid fear of cemeteries.
10. Fear of bananas or bananaphobia does actually exist.
11. Suspendavestiphobia is a fear of coat hangers.
12. Phonophobia is the fear of noises or voices or one’s own voice.
13. Caligeynephobia is a fear of beautiful women.
14. A stimuli that can cause you fear, triggers a signal in your brain that travels to the amygdala (a region near the base of the brain) and there, fires a brain chemical called glutamate out into two other regions of the brain.
15. The first region makes us freeze or involuntarily jump. These reactions are so automatic because the signal is sent deep into the base of the brain to an area that we have little to no control over.
16. There is a fear of beards. It’s called Pogonophobia.
17. Although some people with chaetophobia only fear loose or detached hair, others can be terrified by the hairs on their very own bodies.
18. One of the weirdest phobia is Panphobia which is a fear of everything. Some patients also describe it as an ever present fear of some unknown evil. It is also known as Omniphobia.
19. Dutchphobia actually exists and, you guessed it, it’s a paralyzing fear of the Dutch.
20. You can be scared of rectums. It’s called Rectophobia.
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