We all, one way or another, experience fears in our lives. Everyone has their own fears, but this does not change the essence, because their nature is always the same. But still, what do people fear most? What is the nature of fear and is it possible to fight it?
To answer these questions fully and exhaustively, you will probably have to write more than one three-volume book, because this topic is deep and extensive. But we will still make a small attempt to at least partially clarify these things. And it’s worth starting with the definition of fear as such.
Top 10 most terrible human phobias
- The fear of loneliness is the worst.
- Fear of death is one of the most terrible phobias.
- Social phobia is a fear people have.
- Fear of specific objects - each person has his own worst phobias.
- Fear of intimacy affects the inhabitants of the planet of all ages.
- Fear of madness is the fear of losing a sense of reality.
- Fear of germs and bacteria is a terrible disease of modern man.
- Fear of cowardice is a big phobia for men.
- Fear of poisoning is a phobia of the rich.
- Fear of old age - wrinkles and helplessness.
Fear of loneliness is the biggest phobia
As scientific research has shown, the greatest fear of all people in the world is the fear of loneliness. We are talking about the desire to find family happiness, to meet true love, to give birth to children who bring the proverbial glass of water in old age. More generally, the fear of complete loneliness is expressed in a frightening way: a situation where a person may find himself without support. When no one on earth remembers you, no one will wish you a happy birthday, no one will notice if you die, leave, or get sick.
Since man is a social being, adaptation in society, support, and attention to his own kind play a vital role. The need is reflected in the external way of existence and lies deeply subconsciously. Some of the harshest punishments in prison include solitary confinement and inability to communicate.
Despite loud slogans, even convinced bachelors and feminists admitted during the study that they sometimes feel lonely. Research by psychologists has shown that one of the great anxieties of autistic people who have difficulty socializing is associated with the fear of losing the support of loved ones who shape their shaky, narrow world.
Some tips for dealing with fears
In any situation when you feel that fear is taking over you, under no circumstances should you give in to it or start panicking. You must learn to control your fears, and this is the most important thing in the fight against them.
The second thing to do is to try to analyze the situation: see its scale and seriousness, and also think about whether it is possible to find some kind of help.
The third is purely physiological: if you are afraid, start breathing deeply. First, take a deep breath, then exhale completely. Repeat this at least ten times. This move will help you concentrate, get involved in the situation, activate brain activity and calm your mind. After this, finding a way out of the situation will be much easier.
Fourth is talking to yourself. If you are afraid of something, turn to yourself, say your name, give yourself the command to calm down. Try to understand what is happening, who and what is around you, how you feel, etc. Along with calmness, both blood pressure and heartbeat will normalize, and panic will disappear.
If you can’t get rid of fear, use a trick - get angry at yourself, at what is happening to you, at the circumstances of the situation, at one of the people. Remember that anger will scare away your fear and neutralize it. And instead of fear, there will come a desire to act in order to change the situation and resolve the situation.
If you are overcome by any mental fears, drive them away. Always remember that you are human and fear is normal and that it is temporary. You are worthy of joy, happiness and prosperity - turn your gaze to them, and your fears will go away by themselves.
If anxiety becomes an obsession, it may be your intuition talking, trying to signal something. Think about what your fears are telling you and find the answer to this question. In many cases, fears are pointers to the right path.
And finally: do not forget that when a person overcomes fears, he discovers new opportunities for himself, becomes stronger, expands the boundaries of his personality, improves and moves forward, and also begins to see the world in new colors. Therefore, do not give in to your fears, take them as a new chance and an opportunity to become better. By overcoming your fears, you become a different person.
Go towards what you are afraid of!
We also recommend reading:
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- Typology of fears. The most common fears and phobias
- Interesting and unusual facts about fear
- How to cope with fear: a selection of useful materials
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- Psychology of fear
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Key words:1Psychoregulation
Thanatophobia, or fear of death
Fear of death is the most terrible, deepest phobia of a person, hiding a large number of meanings. In a simple sense, an instinctive sense of self-preservation inherent in nature. For each person it manifests itself differently and is expressed in a number of additional superficial phobias. A great deep-seated fear of dying is hidden behind the fear:
- heights;
- water;
- fly on airplanes;
- be in open spaces/small rooms.
Also, thanatophobia in a person can express fear of the dead, blood, darkness, certain diseases, for example, oncology, AIDS.
If you dig deeper, a terrible phobia implies several large underlying blocks. Globally they can be divided into 3 groups:
- There will be nothing left after you, you will cease to exist.
- Sudden death: you won’t have time to finish your work, do everything you dreamed of.
- Bodily death. Fear of pain, inability to come to terms with the loss of the body.
The first block is most easily overcome, especially by adherents of religions: they replace it with belief in an afterlife, the rebirth of energy. The second phobia can be controlled by establishing a harmonious routine in everyday life: avoiding difficult situations, monitoring health conditions. The third block is the most difficult, since it is difficult for a person to imagine existence without a physical body. Pain is a terrible, unpleasant sensation: not everyone can come to terms with the fact that it will have to be experienced.
Failure
This fear deserves first place because it rules all our actions and decisions. We all do and don't do things to avoid failure. Failure can be anything, the realization that you are not living your life the way you wanted; not succeeding in your plans; find yourself helpless. Failure is a very ambiguous and subjective term, since failure is not at the same level and is not the same for everyone, what is considered failure for one, another will not be able to pass even halfway. For some, mistakes are actually a way to learn lessons and try again, so it's not the end, but a tool for future use. The main fear of failure comes with the feeling of disappointment that follows from the fact that, despite all your efforts, it did not work out as you wanted and, as a result, you may not even want to try again. This is why it is the worst fear of all, fear or failure is very often used as an excuse for procrastination or for not doing anything that could change the situation for the better - “why bother?” and “I’m not good enough.”
The key to knowing yourself is understanding your situation and your fears. Don't be afraid to seek professional help if your fears become too big for you to manage. You can contact me by going to the contact information page .
Social phobia: how not to be afraid of other people
If some people are afraid to be alone, a certain category of the planet's population is afraid of people. The phobia is divided into many large blocks: many of them have touched each person at least once.
The most common fears among social phobes include:
- crowds;
- public speaking;
- to be ridiculed, rejected;
- going out;
- be condemned.
Most have learned to cope with the phobia, but for some inhabitants of the planet it becomes the worst nightmare that interferes with life. In severe cases, it leads to serious disorders: a person begins to avoid people, becomes a recluse, and begins to live in imaginary worlds. Social phobia can be successfully treated, the main thing is to start psychological classes. The mild form is easier to correct: leaving the comfort zone, communicating through strength, overcoming barriers will help isolate fears.
Specific objects: spiders, mirrors, dogs, dolls
When you think about something scary, what first comes to a person’s mind is not the philosophical fears described above, but everyday irritants. Moreover, for each, the most terrible, frightening, leading to hysteria, throwing into panic will be different:
- snakes;
- spiders;
- dogs;
- dolls;
- clowns;
- ghosts;
- darkness.
Thus, one of the most terrible, terrible phobias is mirrors: the fear of seeing a reflection is eisoptrophobia. It is connected with a mysterious halo that has been enveloping the mirror for a long time. Mystically minded people claim that mirrors can show another world and ghosts, that creatures from a parallel universe come to us through the glass, and everything reflected in it remains forever in the memory of the mirror. It’s not for nothing that in the distant past our ancestors used a mirror to tell fortunes about their betrothed during Christmastide, and many films use mirrors to weave the main outline of the plot. Eisoptrophobia is generated due to external pressure from society, cinema, and literature. Under the influence of such information, people think they saw something supernatural in the mirrors. If what he saw made too strong an impression, and the person turned out to be receptive and suggestible, later such an experience turns into paranoia.
Fear of intimacy: platonic relationships only
Intimate relationships in modern society, although greatly liberated in recent decades, continue to be under an unspoken ban. Many people, especially those raised in strict families, consider sex to be a sin. Any thought about physiological contact with the opposite sex causes horror: such sensations are called genophobia.
There are objective reasons for genophobia: they are characteristic, for example, of impotent people. People with sexual dysfunction know that such an experience will be doomed to failure, so they are afraid of situations leading to it. For some, the fear of intimate relationships is associated with unsuccessful, unpleasant, scary previous experiences: violence, laughter, humiliation, dissatisfaction on the part of the previous partner.
Social phobia (fear of public speaking), agoraphobia (fear of open spaces)
One way or another, we are all afraid to varying degrees of showing our feelings and emotions in front of others. However, for some, such fear becomes obsessive and turns into a phobia. And it is mainly people with imaginative and systemic types of thinking who suffer from these fears. If the former are born creative people for whom being in the center of attention is a necessary thing, but only as a result of certain characteristics of perception does this fear of the stage or open spaces appear, then for the latter, it is rather a fear of being incompetent, funny, stupid.
Fear of madness - how to remain yourself and feel reality
The biggest fear of spiritually rich, educated people is going crazy. In search of self or truth, while immersing in spiritual practices, as well as studying complex philosophical or religious topics, there is often a feeling of loss of reality.
Sometimes understanding the world leads to the feeling that the support under your feet is lost, and all the basic things that previously seemed unshakable are called into question. At such moments, it seems to a person that he is going crazy or has already gone crazy, and the world around him is an invention of a sick consciousness. When the basic landmarks return to their place, the fear of losing them again remains one of the greatest of those experienced in personal experience.
What is the harm of fear?
When fear turns out to be far-fetched and has little to do with reality, when the threat turns out to be imaginary and there is simply no basis for it, fear has a destructive effect on a person.
It can cause relative harm - limit a person’s freedom, make him passive, distort and even narrow his perception of what is happening. And if such fear arises again and again, it becomes impossible to live a full life.
And unreasonable fear can cause absolute harm, becoming a serious psychological obstacle in life. We lose the opportunity to realize our potential, to do what we like, want and what is important. And it’s precisely these kinds of fears (by the way, you can read about the types of fears and phobias in a separate article, “Types of Fears”) that you need to learn to fight.
Horror of germs and bacteria: a disorder that interferes with life
Speaking about the phobia of intimacy, it is worth mentioning one more type of it: the fear of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, as well as the fear of bacteria and germs. Scientists call the second option a modern disease: mysophobia - fear of germs. Every day the media informs us about new diseases and viruses, AIDS epidemics, bird or swine flu. They are echoed by numerous and sometimes rather unpleasant commercials:
- your house is full of bacteria, they harm you, kill you, destroy your health;
- on the street everyone sneezes and coughs, there are a lot of viruses there, you can get sick;
- you yourself are infested with bacteria: they make you smell bad, look terrible and feel bad.
It is not surprising that the daily repetition of such mantras causes even less impressionable people to feel great anxiety, and later makes the world around them and their own home their biggest phobia: after all, there are germs everywhere! Mysophobia has become so common that there are even reality shows being made about sufferers. It sounds funny, but it terribly interferes with normal life: in the case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, people clean their mattresses several times a week, wash the entire house with cleaning products every day and do not touch objects with their bare hands.
What is the use of fear?
If we don’t delve into the essence of things, then we end up in a lot of trouble from various fears. This is unpleasant, destroys joy, prevents pleasure, and can also cause diseases of the psyche and nervous system in people. However, this is only at first glance.
Fear can bring certain benefits to a person. To begin with, fear arose during the period of evolutionary development of people, as protection from all kinds of threats in the world of primitive man. With changes in the environment, this reaction had to be changed as it gave certain failures with its consequences.
Read our article “A rosary made of 108 beads: symbolism and practical application.”
The purpose of fear, like pain, is to guard the body, protect it from external harmful influences, and help maintain health and well-being in life. A person needs to be able to benefit from his fears. And it is often useful and can help each of us.
- Fear in a dangerous situation can save a person’s life. For example, we are afraid to swim behind buoys or walk through dark alleys.
- Fear is capable of mobilizing our potential for active work. This is also useful in critical cases.
- It regulates aggressiveness and keeps many citizens within the law, forcing them to fear punishment.
- Thanks to your fears, your memory is activated. For example, a person never forgets the misfortunes that happen to him and tries not to expose himself to the same threat in the future.
- When you are afraid, there is a chance of action with a lack of information and time to think about strategies and decisions. In such a situation, we trust our instincts.
- Fear also sharpens the reaction of all senses, allowing you to notice the causes of the threat and even predict them.
- And finally, fear will always contribute to the improvement of people, pushing them to look for their mistakes, new achievements in their lives, and take responsibility for their future.
Fear of cowardice: boys should not be afraid
Surprisingly, one of the biggest and worst phobias of men is cowardice. From childhood, social attitudes instill in boys to be strong and courageous, not to cry and not to be afraid of anything.
This pressure on a subconscious level causes fear of not being able to cope with fear in a responsible situation and showing oneself as a coward. Especially if, due to his character or physical capabilities, a man is not inclined to show aggression, courage or leadership qualities. Often fear gives positive results: in order to prove his worth to himself, a man becomes more responsible, keeps the surrounding reality under control, and gives security to loved ones.
Unknown
Fear of the unknown is easily explained: the mind tells us that in order to move forward, we must know what awaits us there, because “If I know, then I can control the situation, and if I don’t know, then I am not in control.” " This second part is what scares us the most, because control is the definitions of change that we can use to manipulate the outcome of our actions. And when we don't like something that's different, it's simply because we can't understand it and don't have a plan to control it in advance. This fear has been with us for thousands of years, and it is a large part of what has helped us survive as a species. Many of us, when we were children, were afraid of the dark, mainly because we didn't know what might be lurking there, and in the same way, when we don't know what might be at the end of the corridor, we feel the need to protect ourselves from it. . However, this fear of the unknown often stops our progress and makes it difficult for us to seek and understand new things, leading to aversion and a closed mind.
Fear of Poisoning: A Phobia of the Rich and Famous
5% of the world's population fear poisoning. Most often, the phobia is characteristic of the rich and famous: most of the murders in high society are committed with the help of poisons. Traditionally, in criminology, women are considered poisoners, but mostly men suffer from the phobia of being poisoned.
A striking example of the modern era is Joseph Stalin: for the formidable ruler of the USSR, possible death from poison was on the list of the most terrible. Discarding internal sensations, the problem causes discomfort in everyday life: food and drinks are purchased only in trusted places, trips to catering establishments are canceled, family dinners are a matter of trust and the degree of development of the disorder.
Fear of old age: fear of the inevitable
One of humanity's greatest fears is gerontophobia, or the fear of old age. Most often, it affects women over 30-40 years old and men over 50 with an unfulfilled, aimless, boring life. Women are most often afraid of changes in appearance: for many, beauty is the main wealth, wrinkles on the face seem like a tragedy. Men who have not achieved much by the age of 45-50: money, a good position, position in society, success with women, are afraid of old age because of the feeling that life ends in vain.
For many, the phobia is associated with changes in behavior and deterioration in physical condition. Using the example of relatives or acquaintances, people see that with age, character becomes more bad, and the defining personality traits are erased. Many are afraid of going crazy or getting so sick that they become a burden to their family and friends, or lose their independence and freedom. In addition, fear of old age is closely related to fears of the unknown and death, which represent a large block of phobias.
