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Situational Phobias

Fear of Surprises – Xafniasmaphobia

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Decoding Xafniasmaphobia

Do you get shivers at the thought of surprises? Do you wish you’d never be surprised?

Do you dread your next birthday because you worry your friends may organize a surprise party for you? Does the thought of being surprised make you feel nauseous and dizzy?

If so, you may have xafniasmaphobia, a fear of surprises.

People often enjoy surprises, whether it’s a birthday party or a similar occasion. However, some people may not like being startled by an unexpected event or information.

Disliking surprises is natural, but an extreme fear of surprises can interfere with daily activities. It can cause crippling anxiety and avoidance. People with xafniasmaphobia deliberately steer clear of any situation that may involve surprises. They attempt to avoid the circumstances that set it off and, in extreme cases, even the mere thought of surprises.

You can treat this phobia with self-help methods and professional therapy. Continue reading to learn more about the causes of the fear of surprises, its symptoms, and treatment.

Some Things You Need to Know about Xafniasmaphobia

Fear of surprises may not make it to the list of common phobias, but it is quite understandable. Surprise is one of the seven universal emotions.

Sudden sounds and movements can trigger the emotion of surprise. This emotion serves to help us determine whether what is happening is dangerous or not.

Depending on the situation, fear, anger, amusement, relief, disgust, or relief follow the emotion of surprise, which lasts only a few seconds.

In other words, the surprises phobia may not be a fear of the surprise itself but of what follows. The uncertainty that follows a surprise can be uncomfortable and can cause one to develop anxiety.

As xafniasmaphobia is related to emotions, it is also closely associated with other emotional phobias like philophobia (fear of falling in love) and cherophobia (fear of happiness).

Xafniasmaphobia Causes

Many factors may cause a fear of surprises, but there are three main causes:

  • If you grew up around parents or guardians who dreaded surprises, you might also develop the fear.
  • You had a negative experience with surprises in the past, or you might have seen or heard about other people having bad experiences with surprises.
  • It may be hereditary, as the fear of surprises may have helped your ancestors detect danger and survive. They may have passed on these traits to you.

Xafniasmaphobia Symptoms

Now that you know everything about xafniasmaphobia, the next step is understanding its symptoms.

Physical Symptoms

  • Nausea
  • Panic attack
  • Excessive sweating
  • High blood pressure
  • Headache or dizziness
  • Dry mouth
  • Numbness
  • Hyperventilation
  • A choking sensation

Psychological Symptoms

  • Stress
  • Anxiety
  • A diminished sense of reality
  • Feeling out of control
  • Depression
  • Uncontrollable thoughts
  • Panic attacks
  • Constantly worrying about what will happen

Depending on the severity of the phobia, you may notice one or all of the above symptoms.

Xafniasmaphobia Treatment

If your fear of surprises prevents you from going about your daily activities, getting help is the next step.

Although there is no cure for the phobia of surprises, you can try one of several treatment options to ease your symptoms and lead a normal life.

Self-Help

Opening up in front of a stranger, even if the stranger is your doctor or therapist, may make you nervous. So, to begin with, try self-help. As no one knows you better than yourself, self-help can sometimes yield good results.

Self-help can help you get your thoughts straight and reduce your anxiety.

Breathing Techniques

Breathing provides oxygen to the blood cells and removes carbon dioxide. Deep breathing can help relieve anxiety, fatigue, and panic attacks.

The most effective breathing techniques are alternate-nostril breathing, box breathing, belly breathing, and 4-7-8 breathing. Here is a short description of these techniques:

  • Alternate-nostril breathing: As the name suggests, you need to inhale with one nostril and exhale through the other.
  • Belly breathing: Also known as diaphragmatic breathing, this technique involves breathing through the nose and exhaling through slightly pursed lips.
  • Box breathing: Also known as four-square breathing, box breathing involves inhaling, holding, and exhaling, all for four counts.
  • 4-7-8 breathing: This technique involves inhaling for four counts, holding the breath for 7 counts, and exhaling over 8 counts.

Positive Visualization

This technique has been used for decades to prime the mind. You will learn to use your imagination to visualize the desired outcome during the process.

According to research, our brains have trouble telling the difference between what is real and what is imagined. You can overcome your fears with positive visualization techniques as you have previously confronted the object of your fears and visualized positive outcomes.

You will be able to face your fears by doing the mental work beforehand, building your confidence, and pushing past your perceived limits.

When to Seek Professional Help

If your phobia does not affect your daily activities, you can continue leading your life without trouble. But surprise fear is not something you can ignore if it disrupts your life.

If none of your self-help methods succeed, you may need professional help. The sooner you seek help, the better your chances of a successful outcome.

Get professional help immediately if:

  • Your panic attacks have become frequent
  • It has become tough to lead an everyday life
  • You have started avoiding people and socializing less
  • This phobia has been bothering you for the past six months

Professional Help for the Fear of Surprises

Exposure Therapy

As the term suggests, exposure therapy involves gradually exposing yourself to your fear. A qualified therapist will help progressively expose you to your fear in a controlled environment.

People often try to avoid the source of their fear, but doing so for an extended period might worsen things. Exposing ourselves to our fears helps build confidence so we can overcome them.

Hypnotherapy

Hypnosis can be beneficial in conjunction with other techniques for treating your phobia. A hypnotherapist will put you into a relaxed and receptive trance-like state and offer suggestions to help you alter your thought patterns. It can help overcome fears and modify other irrational or unhealthy behavior.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Through cognitive behavioral therapy, people can eliminate destructive feelings and thoughts that could negatively impact their lives in the long run.

Your therapist will work with you to identify and replace irrational thinking patterns with realistic ones. This, in turn, will help modify your fearful behavior.

Learning to Cope with Xafniasmaphobia

There is no guarantee that the above-recommended techniques and methodologies will completely alleviate your fear of surprises. However, they can help you stay in control and ease the symptoms. Managing your anxiety can improve your well-being and prevent the phobia from controlling you.

Wrap-Up

When dealing with a phobia, having a solid support system can help. Your family and friends will be glad to encourage your efforts to heal if they understand your fears.

Until your fear reduces to slight discomfort, try to continuously challenge yourself. And remember to reward yourself even if you see the slightest improvement!

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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