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Rare Phobias

Barophobia – The Fear of Gravity

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Fear of Gravity: Don’t Fall for It

Imagine being frightened of getting crushed by gravity’s pull. You’re convinced that gravity is a real threat, and you’re terrified of it. Think about being worried that gravity will disappear, leaving all of mankind to float off into space until they die. You’re so scared of the thought, that just seeing a balloon float away may trigger a severe reaction.

Or, you might be convinced that the concept of gravity makes no sense at all. If you’ve had serious concerns about that invisible force of attraction pulling objects toward each other, you may be suffering from barophobia, or fear-of-gravity phobia.

As unusual as it may sound, such a condition does exist. Let’s take a closer look into the subject.

What Is Barophobia, the Fear of Gravity?

Barophobia is an irrational and intense aversion to gravity. It is the fear that gravity may suddenly malfunction, leaving us helpless and turning our universe upside down. People with barophobia are convinced that such a scenario is a real and imminent possibility, hence they live in fear of gravity every day. The mere thought of gravity and what it is capable of doing causes anxiety in people with barophobia. As a result, they avoid talking about it at all.

Like most phobias, barophobia could be triggered by a single, major event which left lifelong scars. Another probable trigger in certain individuals is an inherent, increased risk of developing an anxiety disorder.

Barophobia can be so extreme that the individual may avoid leaving their home. With the force of gravity all around, those suffering from barophobia think the only recourse they have is to try and stay in one place as much as possible.

Barophobia Symptoms

The fear of gravity manifests in a variety of symptoms, most of which are highly debilitating to the phobia sufferer’s health.

Physical symptoms include:

  • Sweating profusely
  • Loss of reality
  • Fainting
  • Nausea
  • Fever
  • Diarrhea
  • Hot or cold flashes
  • Panic attack
  • Hyperventilation

Psychological symptoms include:

  • Hallucination
  • Hysteria
  • Depression
  • Anxiety disorder
  • Anticipatory anxiety

Self-help for Overcoming the Fear of Gravity

Your first line of defense for combatting barophobia is to educate yourself about the condition. Become familiar with the causes of barophobia and its associated symptoms. Reading up on the force of gravity may also help. Dispelling myths helps to avoid overthinking or imagining far-fetched scenarios.

Meditation

Meditating has been proven effective in dealing with anxiety and depression. Practicing meditation techniques consistently could provide you the tools you need to deal with your triggers as they arise, ultimately quelling your extreme mental reactions. Meditation teaches you how to take your mind off the trigger and instead focus on positive, calming thoughts.

Exercise

Exercise is another effective way to reduce anxiety disorders, panic attacks, and depression. Physical activity releases the body’s feel-good hormones (endorphins), thereby helping put an individual in the right state of mind. Anxiety patients are encouraged to engage in regular exercise, as they are beneficial for their condition.

Healthy Diet

Maintaining a healthy diet can also help ease barophobia symptoms. “You are what you eat” is a phrase often used because it is true in every sense. Several elements in a diet can either be harmful or beneficial in dealing with phobias or anxiety disorders.

For example, a high caffeine intake can induce symptoms that mimic anxiety, such as nervousness, restlessness, and a rapid heart rate. Phobia sufferers are therefore advised against too much caffeine.

Although sufferers can employ various self-help strategies such as meditation, exercise, and diet, phobias are delicate medical conditions that sometimes require expert help to fully treat. If you’ve tried self-help techniques and are still struggling, it may be time to seek professional help from a reliable medical provider.

Professional Help for Barophobia

Seeking professional help is a huge step toward recovery for a person suffering from phobia. Thankfully, a range of barophobia treatments are available. Options include:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

This procedure helps phobia sufferers challenge unhelpful thoughts, so they can change their behavior and develop strategies to manage their symptoms effectively. CBT is considered to be one of the most effective ways of treating phobic conditions and mental disorders.

Talk Therapy

With this approach, people with the phobia talk out their challenges with a qualified counselor or therapist. Speaking about their fears helps phobia sufferers deal with their emotional distress. This treatment aims to help sufferers understand and resolve the factors that caused the phobia.

Medication

Doctors may also recommend or provide prescription medication for phobia, especially in severe or debilitating cases. The medication aims to manage symptoms in the short term, or until the effects of the therapy take hold.

Exposure Therapy

The psychotherapist may also help patients by gradually introducing them to their phobia’s triggers. The theory is that by exposing the patient to triggers little by little, over time, the patient may overcome their fear.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

A popular procedure for treating personality disorders, dialectical behavior therapy has also proven effective in helping barophobia sufferers. This treatment, which typically takes six months, empowers patients to develop coping skills for their excessive symptoms.

A popular intervention associated with this type of therapy is the ‘half-smile’ technique. The half-smile is an ‘outside-in’ approach, meaning it focuses on concrete actions to cause a change in internal processes, such as thoughts and feelings. For instance, in a session, patients may be asked to do a half-smile as they think about their triggers — in this case, gravity. This simple practice aims to teach patients to be in control of their reactions.

Other interventions from this treatment include, but are not limited to: mindfulness, distress tolerance skills, and reality acceptance skills.

Going for Treatment

If you’re suffering from phobia and will be seeing a medical professional for the first time, it’s good to arrive at the appointment prepared. Your therapist will seek information to fully grasp your condition and identify the most appropriate course of action for you.

Some of the questions your therapist may ask include:

  • What prompted you to seek therapy?
  • At what point in your life did you start panicking over the thought of gravity?
  • When are your symptoms likely to flare? What thoughts go through your mind before your symptoms occur?
  • Have you ever distracted yourself to avoid thinking about your trigger?
  • Do you notice things that make your symptoms seem better or worse?
  • How are your symptoms affecting you and the people around you?
  • How have you been coping with the symptoms that brought you into therapy? What have you tried so far?
  • Do you have (or have you had) any medical condition for which you are taking (or had taken) prescribed medication?

In Conclusion

The first step in addressing the fear of gravity is to face it head-on. No more hiding at home. Even if the process takes time, make the commitment and stick to the therapy plan. With proper care, people with barophobia will see their symptoms ease and their quality of life improve.

FearAZ.com is looking for personal stories of any 'fear of' or phobia. If you have an interesting story you'd like to share, we welcome your submission. If the story fits with our content and guidelines, we'll add it to our site.
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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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