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Body Phobias

Geumophobia – The Fear of Taste

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Decoding Geumaphobia: The Fear of Taste

Do you get overly anxious just at the thought of tasting food? Or maybe you feel deep discomfort at the mere prospect of eating. You’re always scared of the unpleasant flavor food might leave in your mouth

If this is the case with you, you might be suffering from geumaphobia. Geumaphobia is a rare food phobia which involves the idea of flavor rather than the taste itself.

Is Geumaphobia a Phobia of Fear or Disgust?

Although it’s uncommon to encounter someone who dislikes food, this phobia does exist. Let’s look more into the reasons why people develop this fear and how to deal with it.

Everything You Need to Know about Geumaphobia

Geumaphobia Meaning

What is geumaphobia? Geumaphobia is a phobia or fear of taste. Also known as geumophobia, it is derived from the Greek words geuma for “taste'”and phobos for “fear.” Even though it’s rare, some people do suffer from this inconvenient phobia. People are often perplexed by this fear since they may question how taste can be threatening or disgusting. Is it simply a phobia of unpleasant taste? No, geumophobia is the fear of any taste or flavor.

Do I Have a Fear of Taste?

You may have geumophobia if certain tastes or flavors in your food lead you to the point of feeling anxious. This fear can hamper your lifestyle, especially if you have to eat meals regularly cooked by others, such as at canteens or in dormitory cafeterias. This pathological dread of flavors is accompanied by a range of symptoms that are difficult to miss, especially because it concerns an essential aspect of our life: food and nourishment.

Geumaphobia Causes

A majority of phobias can be traced back to a traumatic incident that triggered the phobia. In the case of geumophobia, for example, we might presume that the person was overfed a certain food, sweet or salty, during hospitalization or a traumatic incident in their life.

Or maybe it’s a learned response. A learned reaction or response is one that a person has acquired from their environment. Have you ever lived with someone who despised salty food? If yes, then this might have been the cause of your geumophobia. Furthermore, a negative reaction by friends and strangers to a geumaphobic’s anxiety and apprehensions can make them feel even more tense and hostile toward their phobia stimuli.

The third cause of geumophobia is genetics. Genetics tend to play a significant part in the development of phobias. Research shows that genetic and hereditary variables are to blame for many phobias we aquire.

Symptoms of Geumophobia

Geumophobia can manifest itself in several ways, both mentally and physically. Food or other edibles each have their own flavor, and we normally encounter food multiple times a day. As a result, you may experience symptoms multiple times a day as well.

In severe situations, the symptoms may manifest as anxiety or panic attacks. Note that different people have different symptoms; some may have severe symptoms, while others show only mild symptoms.

Mental/Emotional Symptoms

  • Uncontrollable and obsessive thoughts about food
  • The constant fear of tastes in foods
  • Fear & anxiety
  • Feeling detached
  • Stress
  • Avoiding street foods or food cooked by someone else
  • Inability to sleep
  • Anger, irritability & mood swings
  • Social withdrawal
  • Panic attacks

Physical Symptoms

  • Trembling
  • Cold/hot flashes
  • Excessive sweating
  • Dizziness & headaches
  • Nausea or diarrhea
  • Dry mouth
  • Muscle tension
  • Shortness of breath

How Do You Deal with Geumophobia?

When it comes to treatment, there are various options and steps you can take to prepare for confronting your fear, alleviating symptoms, and hopefully getting rid of the phobia altogether.

Self-Help: What Can You Do to Help Yourself?

Consider self-help and cost-effective methods to help combat geumophobia before turning to a medical expert. Phobias are primarily centered in our minds. Tastes and flavors do not endanger your life, and these measures may help you understand that, allowing you to manage your anxiety.

Lifestyle Changes

There are some lifestyle changes you can make that can help tremendously. These changes can sometimes reduce tension and anxiety, which can increase the intensity of the phobia. Start by getting adequate sleep. If you sleep fewer than eight hours each day, work toward making changes to achieve that goal.

Healthy meals are the second most essential lifestyle change you can make. This is where you may struggle. Finding the proper meals may be difficult, but try to invest time in healthy alternatives that won’t trigger your fear but will provide your body with the nutrients it requires. Also, remember to reduce the intake of stimulants and depressants, such as caffeine and alcohol.

Meditation, Exercise, and Yoga

Exercise and other physical activities are the most effective methods to improve mental and physical health. Meditation is also an excellent tool for developing mindfulness and reducing anxiety. Whenever you’re about to encounter food, meditate for a few minutes. Yoga is another excellent approach for decreasing stress and aiding in sleep for those who are kept awake by their anxieties and thoughts. Practicing yoga poses that focus on breathing and relaxation techniques can also help manage your symptoms.

Self-Help Groups and Social Therapy

Consider joining online or offline self-help or therapy groups for geumaphobia treatment. Interact with and get advice from individuals who have gone through similar experiences as you. Sometimes, finding people who will listen and understand you can be far more beneficial than being surrounded by those who don’t understand your fear.

Professional Help for the Fear of Flavor: The Options Available

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most effective techniques for managing phobias. It’s a therapy technique aimed at improving your mental well-being by attempting to change the way you think. It also helps you understand why you believe or react the way you do when exposed to foods. The goal of treatment is to determine the root of your fear and reduced the symptoms.

Exposure therapy is another treatment offered under the guidance of a mental health professional who will encourage you to confront your phobia. This is why it’s called exposure therapy. In the case of geumophobia, the therapist may ask that you taste foods or flavors that you have an aversion to. The more you’re exposed to it over time, the less severe the symptoms will be.

Learning to Cope with Geumophobia

Treatment methods may not guarantee a cure for your phobia. They will, however, assist in managing symptoms without causing harm to one’s health. Certain therapies may work effectively for some, while others may not. If you have a loved one who suffers from geumophobia, offer your love and support. Don’t mock them and never play a joke on them by exposing them to foods they fear. If you have the phobia, seek support from a person who is close to you and whom you can confide in.

Wrapping It Up

No matter how irrational others make it seem, your fears are real. The truth is they do affect you. However, keep in mind that if it’s impacting your daily life, you may need to convince yourself that you need therapy. Do what it takes to come to terms with your phobia. That is half the battle won.

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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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