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Animal Phobias

Tonitrophobia – The Fear of Thunder and Lightning

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Tonitrophobia, Also Known as the Fear of Thunder and Lightning

Did you know that a lightning strike can carry 15 million volts? That’s a lot of electricity!

Lightning is also associated with claps of thunder, which can reach a deafening 200 decibels.

Given these facts, it’s not surprising that many people are afraid of thunder, lightning, and thunderstorms.

Taken to extremes, this natural fear can develop into tonitrophobia. Good thing it’s not necessary to live with this phobia forever. All you have to do is acknowledge the fear and aim to overcome it with small steps. Let’s take a closer look.

What Is Tonitrophobia?

Tonitrophobia is the fear of thunder and lightning. Also called astrapobhia and keraunophobia, this irrational fear is fairly commonplace. What’s not normal is the severity and persistence of this fear.

Does the sound of thunder frighten you? Do you panic during stormy weather? Do you cancel your plans due to news of an impending storm? If you answered yes, you may have tonitrophobia. You probably prefer to stay home when the weather isn’t in your favor—even if it’s just remotely windy or cloudy.

If you reside somewhere that has frequent thunderstorms, this phobia can make life a misery. You may seek to avoid anything that is associated with storms. Your fear of storms and tornadoes may also bring with it the fear of rain, lightning, floods, and wind. When unaccompanied by lightning, thunder seems harmless for most people. It’s merely a loud sound in the background. But for a tonitrophobia sufferer, the reverberating thunder above may seem paralyzing.

What Causes the Fear of Thunder and Lightning?

Anything could have triggered your fear of thunder and lightning. You may have been stuck in a dreadful hurricane in your childhood that stayed with you. Perhaps a family member also has this condition. Whatever the cause, many people suffer jolts of anxiety during storms. You may go through painstaking fear when you hear a distant clap of thunder or see a bolt of lightning. Let’s look at the two most possible tonitrophobia causes.

Genetics

If someone in the family has a mental illness, you are more likely to develop this irrational fear. If you have such a genetic predisposition, it only takes one traumatic incident to initiate the phobia.

Trauma

Did you experience a terrible storm as a child? This may have triggered the phobia. Anything you experience after that incident that relates to a storm will take you back to those intense emotions you went through then. Identifying the cause will help you get to the root of your phobia. The better you understand your fear, the easier it gets to treat it.

Symptoms of Tonitrophobia

What is the most basic sign that you have tonitrophobia? You find stormy weather excruciating. It’s not just garden-variety uneasiness. You tremble whenever you hear rumbling thunder, no matter how mild. Terror may flash in your eyes at the mere news of a storm coming. One can experience a panic attack either during a storm or before it. Other symptoms are:

Physical Symptoms

  • Trembling
  • Sweating
  • Chest pain
  • Numbness
  • Nausea
  • Heart palpitations
  • Trouble breathing
  • Sweaty palms
  • Racing pulse

Mental/Emotional Symptoms

  • Anxiety at mere thoughts of thunder
  • Anxiety when hearing rumbling sounds of thunder
  • Fight or flight response to thunder
  • Panic attacks

Tonitrophobia symptoms can be triggered by a weather forecast, conversation, or news article. You may want to run away and hide at the first hint of thunder or lightning. Even though a person is aware that the fear is exaggerated and irrational, tuning it down may seem impossible. You may even start exaggerating the impact a storm will have on your life and the environment. You may start avoiding your fear or decide to stay indoors permanently. If you do so, you are altering your routine based on your fear. How can you get your mental health and life back on track?

Self-Help Guide to Tonitrophobia

Do you find yourself asking, “How do I overcome my fear of thunderstorms?”  Although there is no definite tonitrophobia treatment, one can learn to better cope with it through self-help techniques by seeking professional help. Are you aware of your irrational fear and are you ready to fight it? You can help yourself cope by taking baby steps towards recovery. Below is a guide to help you get started.

Caffeine Reduction

If you’re already anxious, gulping down coffee throughout the day will only worsen it. Our heart beats faster when we consume a lot of caffeine and we become tense, forcing our body to go into a “flight or fight” state. This increases the chances of having a panic attack. Cutting down on coffee or anything containing caffeine like tea or energy drinks will help you reduce your everyday anxiety. Although this won’t rid you of the phobia, it will help tone down the symptoms.

Meditation

Mindfulness meditation will help your mind enter a calm state and distract you from the fear. It will allow your mind to focus on something that doesn’t make you sweat. Mindfulness helps you direct your attention to something like breathing when you’re in the middle of a panic attack. It refocuses your mind and eases the anguish you’re going through.

Cardio Workouts

Cardio relieves stress and releases feel-good hormones like endorphins. Exercise will make your body used to stressful situations by putting it under strenuous exercise. Then it becomes easier for you to cope with anxiety and stress.

Yoga

The meditative, focused state-of-mind that yoga tends to emit relieves the stress and anxiety associated with tonitrophobia. It will redirect your energy and attention to something productive.

Seeking Professional Treatment for Tonitrophobia

You should seek professional help to overcome your phobia when the fear has lasted for six months or more. If tonitrophobia is interfering with your daily life, your doctor’s diagnosis can help you decide on a treatment method. Certain forms of psychotherapy and exposure therapy have proven to be advantageous. Exposure therapy is a common treatment for many phobias. The patient is slowly exposed to the fear over time. Here, the exposure may be of the sounds of thunder and desensitize the patient gradually. Other forms of treatment are:

  • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
  • Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT)
  • Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)

If you show any of the symptoms related to tonitrophobia, talk to your doctor to get it treated properly.

How to Avoid Tonitrophobia Altogether

No phobia can be treated instantly. Your recovery starts the day you acknowledge your fear and aim to treat it instead of adopting safety behaviors. When you start normalizing these behaviors, you make your phobia worse. They create temporary safe havens for you and the phobia continues to remain deep within you. You cannot always run away from your fears, but you can make your life easier by learning to live with your triggers. Adopt stress management techniques to eliminate the anxiety related to phobia. This will help you manage your phobia in the long term.

Summing Up

Your intense fear of thunder may seem mortifying right now. But with time and adequate effort, you can desensitize yourself and learn to cope with the anxiety. With proper treatment, it’s possible to beat tonitrophobia. You don’t have to overhaul your life in an attempt to avoid thunder. It is high time you start your journey towards fighting it.

Stories Submitted by Our Readers

Fear of Thunder and Lightning

I’m glad to learn that others have the same fear. When I was young, I was accidentally locked out of the house during a thunderstorm. My parents gave me a key to use after school, but I forgot it at home. Well, by the time my mom got home, I was shaking and crying. My fear of thunder and lightning is extreme. I asked my boss if I could leave early on days when storms were expected. He thinks it is because I don’t like to drive in storms, and I left it at that. I cannot even watch the weather during storms as they want to show the photos of the storm chasers and it scares me to death. I just sit there in silence and shake.

Asia

I am glad I found this website. I feel better knowing I’m not alone. When I was little, I was locked out of the house accidentally during a thunderstorm. Since then I have been very scared of storms. I am scared of both thunder and lightning. I have even left work early on days that storms were looming overhead. I can’t watch TV during when storms are in the area as the news talks about the storms nonstop. My poor dog hides under the bed. I hope that is not my fault. I wish I could get over this fear, it would make life easier.

Soraya

SUBMIT YOUR STORY

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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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