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How to Overcome Your Phobia

Living with phobias can be frustrating because you miss out on normal things in life. Having no control over your phobia despite doing everything you can is the worst feeling.

There are a number of different therapies available to help you overcome your phobia, but two have shown a great deal of promise. They are online talk therapy and hypnosis therapy

Due to their convenience and effectiveness, these therapies are becoming increasingly popular among people suffering from phobias.

However, do they really work, and what benefits do these therapies provide? More importantly, how are they better than traditional therapies?

The following information may help answer some of these questions.

Online Talk Therapy

In today’s fast-paced world, work and family commitments take up a great deal of your time. So, even if you’re thinking about getting therapy, you might not be able to find the time. This is where online talk therapy comes in to assist you.

Your therapist will be available for remote sessions during online therapy through your preferred medium. This could be in the form of a video call, chat, email, messaging, or a call session.

This ensures that your phobia therapy sessions remain consistent and uninterrupted. Maintaining consistency is crucial to getting over your fears.

Due to its convenience, privacy, and affordability, online therapy is becoming more popular.

Benefits of Online Talk Therapy

Online therapy has become the standard practice these days for depression, anxiety, and stress. However, those who are always busy and lack time to see a therapist will benefit most from online therapy.

Here are some of the benefits of online therapy:

Accessibility

One of the most significant benefits of online therapy is that it is accessible to everyone, regardless of age, gender, or where they live. People with disabilities who cannot travel to a therapist to treat their phobia can undergo treatment from the comfort of their homes.

Privacy

People who are uncomfortable seeking therapy can reduce their social stigma by getting treatment online. With an online counselor, they can talk privately about stress, life experiences, and problems without visiting a counselor’s office.

The patient is relieved of social embarrassment, as they know no one is watching him. Hundreds of people widely use and accept online therapy. Patients can receive the best treatment without hesitation due to these factors.

Cost-Effectiveness

People often think that online therapy is expensive, but the fact is it brings convenience to you as well as your therapist. So if you are concerned about the expense, online therapy will cost you way less than traditional therapy.

In addition to the lower costs, you may even discover channels that offer free healthcare services. For example, therapists may even offer free trial sessions. After the trial session, you may choose to continue with a fee-for-service arrangement if the therapy meets your needs.

Hypnosis Therapy or Hypnotherapy

People with phobias are often told that convincing themselves that their phobias are not dangerous will help them. Sometimes, it works, but not always.

Since phobias work on a subconscious level, not everyone will benefit from this method. Sometimes, the intensity of the phobia may be beyond reasoning and logic.

No matter how much you try to convince yourself that the phobia is not life-threatening, it still plagues you in these cases.

This is where hypnosis therapy comes in. The goal of this therapy is to communicate with your subconscious mind and change the way you react to and feel about the object of your fear.

Using hypnosis, a person can achieve a higher degree of relaxation and focus than they can through regular meditation. This is because, in the hypnosis phase, the person will not be aware of their surroundings. They will instead be able to focus on their trigger spots.

The hypnotherapist will gradually expose you to the source of your fear while you are in a calm state during the hypnosis process. The number of hypnosis sessions depends on the severity of your phobia.

If you want to overcome any phobia, you need to delve deeper and identify its cause. Once you have identified its point of emergence, it becomes easier to resolve the deeper issue and overcome your phobia. Hypnosis is a great way to do this.

Benefits of Hypnosis Therapy

A 2011 research review found that hypnotherapy can increase the effectiveness of therapy for phobias and help a person deal with them more effectively. Some people use hypnosis for therapeutic benefits, while some use it to cope with their fears and anxiety.

Here are some ways hypnosis can help you:

Improve Your Sleep Cycle

If you have a phobia, you know how difficult it is to fall asleep. Many people nowadays opt for sleep hypnosis, which is hypnotherapy to treat sleeping issues. The purpose of this is not to help you fall asleep but to help you fight negative sleep thoughts and patterns. This, in turn, will improve your sleep cycle.

Mental Health Conditions

The use of hypnosis can benefit patients who struggle with anxiety and depression. It can also help those who want to break free from other learned behaviors, such as smoking and drinking.

A recent study on the Meta-Analysis of Hypnotic Intervention for Depression Symptoms suggests that hypnosis is as effective at treating depression as other therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy.

Supports Your Weight Loss Efforts

Often, people deal with phobias by developing other bad habits, like excessive eating. Hypnosis can help you overcome such problems. By pinpointing the source of these bad habits, hypnosis motivates you to take appropriate steps and eat more thoughtfully.

Reinforce Self-Confidence

A person’s self-esteem can suffer when they struggle with anxiety and phobias. With the help of hypnosis, you can cultivate self-confidence and self-love. You can listen to audio affirmations or chant a few yourself when you are in a state of hypnosis.

You Can Get Help Now

Regardless of which therapy you choose, there is a possibility that it may help you better cope with your fears. However, not everyone will benefit from the same type of therapy, so don’t be discouraged if one form of treatment isn’t successful. Keep trying.

While many people are familiar and comfortable with online therapy, they are hesitant about hypnosis therapy. This is because of the image that media and entertainment channels have created about hypnosis.

However, in contrast to its image, hypnosis has successfully improved patients’ anxiety levels, depression levels, and other psychological problems.

 

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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