by Norman Munro

Created on: August 10, 2009   Last Updated: August 11, 2009

Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Let's look at what phobias are, and how they affect us

There is a range of symptoms that phobics may go through. They may have only one or two symptoms, but they are all common to the flight or fight response.

- Breathing - rapid, shallow

- Heart - pounding, pumping, about to jump out of chest

- Legs & Arms - turn to jelly, wobbly, shaking

- Nausea & churning stomach - urgent need for the toilet, diarrhoea, vomiting.

- Paleness

- Sweating

When the feared object is perceived (whether it's actually there or not is immaterial) the brain releases a signal which activates the fight or flight response in the sympathetic nervous system, thus allowing the body to respond quickly by running or fighting. This releases adrenaline into the system which in turn causes the rest of the reactions. We breathe more rapidly to get more oxygen into the system to feed the muscles ready for exercise.

The heart needs to pump harder to get the new oxygenated blood around to all the muscles, therefore the legs are `all pumped up' and ready to run. However, if we are `controlled' and do not run, all that energy is still there and causes the legs to turn to jelly and gives us the shakes. As the blood is diverted to the legs any undigested food is an unnecessary burden on the system and therefore needs eliminating either by vomiting or excreting.

The bowels may become loose and there is an urgent need to defecate. This also `lightens the load', enabling faster sprinting from danger. We turn pale because the blood has been diverted elsewhere and we sweat as another way of excreting unwanted excess.

There are three main types of phobia:

Specific simple phobia - like social and agoraphobia

Specific Object Phobia - animals (snakes, spiders and mice being the most common),

Situational Phobia - fear of heights or water, claustrophobia, flying, dentist, tunnels, bridges etc.

Anxiety is the primary symptom of phobia, and can be completely disabling.

It involves a complex blend of emotions and cognitions - negative mood, worry about possible future threat or danger, self pre-occupation and sense of being unable to predict the future threat or control if it occurs. Phobics go to great lengths to avoid situations or even harmless reminders such as pictures.

Just for fun, here are the names of a few common phobias!

Agoraphobia- Fear of open spaces or of being in crowded, public places like markets.

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