Fears are naturally instilled in you for protective purposes, but occasionally, something may happen in your life, creating a permanent anxiety which can impair some activities. But when the anxiety becomes an exaggerated phobia—you have no idea of your mind grabbing onto it and causing an irrational response. Other times, even though you are aware of when it began, you can’t get your head around the reality of its seeming ridiculousness. These anxieties, no matter how silly or intense, tend to eventually interfere with life, impacting home, work, or school, which in turn can cause debilitating actions and additional mental stress. Approximately 12.5% of adults have experienced at least one severe phobia in their lifetime. It isn’t so rare.

 

Out of hundreds of fears and phobias contributing to anxiety, fall under five distinct categories:

 

Animals or Zoophobic: Typically, a negative experience, a learned behavior, fear processing (some people are more anxious than others), or even genetics can create fears of a specific animal. These animals range from elephants to hamsters and every wild or domestic animal in between--even puppies and kittens.

 

Environmental: Lightning, storms, heights, dark, sea, sun, wind or air, and water are extreme phobias and cause remarkable deficits in living a fulfilling life. Imagine being fearful of lightning the rain pours on your windshield in the supermarket parking lot--lightning and thunder crashing--your heart in your throat.

 

Medical: Intense fear of visiting a doctor’s office, much less a hospital; a fear of blood, needles, dentist, getting ill, or even sometimes getting better. Some people would rather take their chances of dying than get help.

 

Situational: Blushing, vomiting, getting ill, tunnels, flying, small spaces, heights, tunnels, and events that are bound to cross everyone’s life at some point. (Not including “nomophobia,” which is a fear of being without a cell phone or computer.) Hard to imagine this situation, but how many of us have even tried to go without a phone for more than an hour. Could you do it? Or would you have an overwhelming feeling that you will miss an important message when someone you care about tries to call?

 

And non-specific: Fears of anything and everything you could ever imagine—and some you may not. Look around you now. Chances are, your eyes have crossed something that will strike fear in someone's heart.