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Rare Phobias

Acousticophobia – Fear of Sounds (Including Voice)

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Acousticophobia Can Be Controlled with the Right Information

Do you find yourself avoiding social places out of fear of noise, voices, or even simple sounds? Or do you fear hearing specific sounds, including your own voice, do say to yourself, “I am afraid of my own voice”?

Does thinking about the sounds of yelling, whistling, guns, or your own voice cause you anxiety?

This morbid fear of sounds, including your own voice, is commonly known as acousticophobia.

But don’t worry, there’s help out there. With support from family and friends, some self-help, and perhaps professional guidance, you can learn how to overcome the debilitating effects of this phobia.

In this article, we outline the details of acousticophobia and share ways to manage it. Let’s jump right in!

What Causes the Fear of Sounds?

Acousticophobia causes typically include a combination of factors along with the occurrence of traumatic events at an early age.

The factors may include genetic predispositions, environment, brain chemistry, and mental illnesses. It can also stem from a traumatic event—any kind of event in the past concerning the subject of the fear, in this case sounds.

Acousticophobia may also be associated with other physical conditions that can make a person sensitive to noises. Some common ones include adrenal insufficiency, misophonia, hyperacusis, or autism.

 

Some Things You Need to Know about Acousticophobia

Acousticophobia is a fear-based phobia that centers around irrational and excessive thoughts or feelings towards noises and voices, including one’s own voice.

Acousticophobia is also called ligyrophobia, phonophobia, and sonophobia. Most of these phobias are used interchangeably and refer to the same fears.

Phonophobia refers to a fear of sound and is the closest to acousticophobia. A fear of loud noises is called either ligyrophobia or sonophobia.

If you often find yourself jumping at the sound of firecrackers or loud horns, you might think you have a phobia of loud noises. But that’s unlikely.

While each person might have some fear of loud noises, it doesn’t easily develop into a full-blown phobia.

 

Symptoms of Acousticophobia

Someone with acousticophobia might experience symptoms that range from mild to severe which impact the person’s body or mind.

Symptoms of acousticophobia are likely to occur when a person comes into contact with a trigger. These triggers can be thoughts, actions, objects, or events. While the triggers can differ for each person, the symptoms are typically debilitating.

Here’s a checklist of physical and psychological symptoms to watch for:

Physical Symptoms

  • Increased heart rate
  • Muscle tension
  • Trembling, shaking, or palpitations
  • Shortness of breath
  • Dry mouth
  • Excessive sweating
  • Nausea
  • Inability to articulate sentences or words

Psychological Symptoms

  • Anxiety
  • Mood swings or irritability
  • Feelings of dread
  • Panic attacks
  • Feelings of dread
  • Fear of dying
  • Guilt, shame, or self-blame
  • Withdrawing from others
  • Confusion and difficulty concentrating
  • Depression

 

How Do You Deal with Acousticophobia?

While many find relief from the fear by keeping their distance from physical triggers and thoughts, it’s hardly a useful form of acousticophobia treatment.

A well-defined plan that addresses your irrational thought patterns and reduces symptoms and stress is crucial.

Read on for two main ways you can deal with acousticophobia.

Self-Help: Strategies to Help Yourself

If the thoughts of treatment overwhelm you, self-help may prove ideal.

Self-help is discrete and incorporates lifestyle changes, so you don’t need to feel self-conscious. Self-help can also reduce stress which helps you lead a more normal lifestyle even during treatment. Self-help strategies may also prove useful in managing anxiety-related phobias.

The following self-help strategies are easy to implement and require little to no equipment.

  • Eat nutritious food
  • Get 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night
  • Include some exercise in your daily routine
  • Practice relaxation strategies or meditation

Along with adding these beneficial activities to your daily routine, try also to avoid unhealthy habits. Avoid alcohol and caffeine, stop smoking, and reduce other stress-inducing behaviors.

Acousticophobia Treatment: Professional Help for Acousticophobia

Due to the irrational nature of this phobia of sounds, it is common to treat it with help from a professional.

A mental health professional will help patients learn the root cause of their fear and teach coping strategies.

Here are some types of acousticophobia treatment your doctor may consider:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a popular therapy that’s useful in the treatment of a long list of fears and phobias. It uses introspective strategies to help patients understand and rationalize their fear and fear responses.

Exposure Therapy

Exposure therapy uses desensitization strategies to help with acousticophobia treatment.

It involves gradually exposing the person to the trigger in a safe environment to help them overcome the fear. However, exposure therapy often requires assistance from an experienced professional.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

DBT is a useful treatment that helps with the regulation of emotions surrounding fear or anxiety. Such therapies often involve encouraging the person with the phobia to think about the subject of fear and develop improved responses to it.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

In an NLP-based acousticophobia treatment plan, a therapist will observe the words, phrases, facial expressions, and body movements of the patient. This is to help them understand the flaws in perception that may be causing the phobia and to accordingly develop a treatment plan.

Hypnoanalysis or Hypnotherapy

Hypnoanalysis involves accessing the patient’s subconscious mind to understand the root causes of fears and suggest helpful ideas.

Although no treatment strategy guarantees successful acousticophobia treatment, the phobia is treatable.

Often, a combination of professional treatment along with self-help strategies makes the most impact.

Consistency is important with both self-help and professional treatments. Learning how to better cope with those everyday stressful moments will provide relief.

 

Learning to Cope with Acousticophobia

In addition to self-help activities and professional therapy, you’ll need coping mechanisms to maintain a normal lifestyle while receiving treatment. Simple tips like these below might help:

  • Keep an optimistic outlook
  • Learn more about acousticophobia
  • Attend discussions
  • Meet support groups
  • Surround yourself with supportive people

 

The Bottom Line

Overcoming acousticophobia is no simple feat, but it is possible.

And now that you’ve taken the first step here, you’re set to make a powerful start in your journey toward recovery!

 

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Your Fear Goes Up and Down

Are you someone who would rather climb the stairs than take the elevator? You call it squeezing in a workout after being sedentary the whole morning. Or perhaps you claim it's a faster route. These are both typical, normal, and acceptable reasons. But what if you need to be in the conference room on the eleventh floor in five minutes, and you're wearing your business suit and wingtips? Would you still prefer to take the stairs? If your answer is yes, then maybe it's time to take a closer look at your reasons for avoiding elevators. Elevators stir all sorts of emotions in passengers. From the discomfort of closeness to strangers to the sensations in our gut, elevators can be a source of the heebie-jeebies for many, but for some, they can also be a source of terror. Let's dig a little deeper into the latter, and see what this terror is all about and what can be done to manage it. To begin with, does being inside an elevator give you chills or the sweats? Or does it trigger an unpleasant memory? Perhaps you remember movies you've watched where something terrible happens inside an elevator. From Silence of the Lambs, The Shining, Final Destination 2, or the king of all elevator horror films, 2010’s Devil, the elevator becomes witness to something sinister and horrible. And you want nothing to do with any of it. You know that you're not claustrophobic. You can deal with heights just fine, too. And you know that you're not going to be trapped inside. All of these contribute to a fear of elevators—but they don't apply to you. Yet being inside one does something to you. It's hard to explain.

What is the Fear of Elevators Called?

What you have is a fear of elevators, which is called elevatophobia. It is most commonly triggered by an experience of getting stuck inside either due to a power outage or technical maintenance. Hearing about other people's experiences or watching a movie about similar circumstances can prompt a fear of elevators getting stuck with you inside. Usually, claustrophobics and agoraphobics may also develop elevatophobia because the triggers and objects of these fears are related. Claustrophobia is the fear of closed and cramped spaces, while agoraphobia is the fear of being trapped without any means of escape. Put the two together, and the elevator becomes the perfect combination of both phobias. The space is limited and closed, with only one means of entry and exit. You can add another point of access if you consider climbing the cables like they do in the movies, but that certainly isn't ideal.

Symptoms of Elevatophobia

If for some reason an elevator stops due to an outage or some technical difficulty, passengers with elevatophobia may go into full panic mode. Even if the maintenance team advises that it will just be a matter of minutes, by then, the person's mind has become irrational with the fear of the elevator falling, being stuck for hours, or other unpleasant thoughts. You would expect a person to exhibit the following physical symptoms: Additionally, you would be filled with that overwhelming anxiety where you feel that you have zero control over the situation. You start fearing the unknown and are filled with negative thoughts about death and imminent doom. You become irrational and unresponsive.

Possible Complications of Elevatophobia

When the panic sets in, the possibility of emergencies related to pre-existing conditions may make themselves known. This might include serious health crises like heart attacks or asthma attacks. When this happens, fear becomes a medical emergency. Elevator rides do not last long; it's just a matter of minutes or even less. But the fact that a person can escalate from panic to a near fatal medical situation classifies the fear of elevators as a 'hard phobia.'

Trying Some Self-Help Methods

Your fear of elevators can likely interfere with your social and work life and relationships. Not everyone understands that elevatophobia, like most phobias, can be crippling. But don't be disheartened. Depending on the level of your fear and level of control, you can gradually face and manage your phobia. Here are some recommendations you can try:
  1. Make a List of Everything that Entails Riding in an Elevator This is a systematic approach to getting over your anxiety. By following a step-by-step process, you can identify where the fear kicks in at its strongest. You can write a list of steps like pressing the topmost button and waiting to arrive on that floor, watching as the door closes and opens, being alone inside the elevator, or having delays with the doors opening. Now try doing the opposite. For example, face away from the door or occupy yourself with your phone so that you are distracted.
  2. Create Your Fear Ladder Although the name says fear of elevators, it is not the whole process that scares you. There are just phases and parts of the elevator riding experience that cause you to panic. So go back to the list you initially created and label the fear level you feel. You can do it numerically, too, like ten being 'really scary,' six, 'manageable scary,' and one, 'not scary at all.' You can put the corresponding fear levels so you can focus more time and effort into activities that are more scary to you.
  3. Face Your Fear By now, you have identified what scares you the most. You can try repetitive action to minimize your fear and increase your sense of ‘normalcy’. Remember that the longer you expose yourself to your fear, the better you get at handling your emotions. If you are feeling overwhelmed, stop. Pushing yourself too fast and too soon can backfire. Modify your pace and go slower instead.
  4. Talk About Your Fear People by nature, unfortunately, are not quick to offer understanding and support. You need to tell them what's wrong before they can empathize. Talk to someone who you trust and ask for their support, especially in the initial phase of overcoming your fear. If you are too afraid to ride the elevator alone, you can ask them to go with you, and before you realize it, you are on your floor, and there was no indication of panic.
  5. Learn To Be Patient Be patient with yourself and your predicament. This is, after all, your fight against fear. It might take hundreds of elevator ride practices before the fear gets under control. Even then, there might be some hesitations and episodes of nervousness. These are acceptable and expected, so cut yourself some slack and congratulate yourself for every progress.

Seeking Professional Help

Along with self-help, you can always enlist a medical professional's aid to support you with your elevatophobia. Talking to someone who has experience with similar cases can be comforting, because you know that you are not alone, and this situation can get better. Talk to your doctor about the severity of your fears and the symptoms that you experience. Explain how you deal with it in an attempt to control it. An exam and a health history are made to ensure that there are no unrelated or underlying problems that your symptoms might mask. Usually, phobias like this are approached with a combination of psychotherapy and medication. Your doctor will talk about these options with you, and it's entirely up to you, with your doctor's recommendation, what you want to pursue. For psychotherapy, the most common type is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which aims to help you find different ways of behaving, thinking, and reacting when about to step inside an elevator or when already inside it. With medications, there are beta blockers and benzodiazepines, but note that these can have side effects. Whatever these side effects are, you should promptly share it with your doctor.

Simple Tips to Overcome Elevatophobia

Elevators are not perfect, but their likelihood to malfunction, fall, or get stuck is very low. If you are not fully confident with this information, you can help overcome your elevatophobia by learning common elevator safety tips and basic elevator operations. These should help curb your mild fear until you become more self-assured. In addition to that, here are some of the things that you can do to gradually overcome your fear of elevators—both in getting on and riding one.

Conclusion

Yes, elevatophobia can be a challenge in today's world, but don't allow the elevator to win. Don't let it stop you from taking a job on the top floor or attending a social gathering on the rooftop. Sure, you can take the stairs if you insist and arrive winded and sweaty, with the party about to wrap up. But is this the quality of life you seek? Elevators are designed to make life easier. There are guaranteed ways to help you overcome elevatophobia. Take the first step and seek help. Soon, you’ll see yourself breezing through the floors with those arduous stair climbs little more than a memory.
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