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Fear of great heights or acrophobia: how to overcome fear. How to get rid of fear of heights? Three effective ways

Most people are wary of heights - this is a normal reaction to potentially dangerous situation. However, when mild apprehension turns into extreme and irrational fear, it can become a serious problem. Approximately every twentieth person on Earth suffers from acrophobia. Acrophobia is psychiatric term, describing a fear of heights. It comes from the Greek words akros, meaning “summit”, and phobos, meaning “fear”.

Acrophobia and visual height intolerance

People suffering from acrophobia will do their best to stay away from high heights, which include tall buildings, high stadium seats, balconies and bridges, and if they have to face similar situations, they may begin to panic and show extreme anxiety. More more people suffer from a phenomenon called visual height intolerance. In this phenomenon, visual stimuli from high places can cause discomfort, such as fear, loss of orientation in space, which can also even lead to a fall. This phenomenon is also called high-altitude vertigo and is a less recognized and less researched condition that can vary in severity. High-altitude vertigo most often occurs when a person looks down from a great height, and for some people it can even occur when they are looking up at a tall building or structure.

Unpleasant consequences

It's not surprising that height problems like this can interfere with a person's ability to live and function on a daily basis. Some people have serious difficulty even with such mundane tasks as washing windows or hanging curtains.

Research and its results

In a study conducted in Germany, approximately one in three people reported experiencing symptoms of visual height intolerance, with the phenomenon most common among people in their twenties and thirties. It was also more often seen in women and in people whose relatives and ancestors suffered from it. In addition, the phenomenon was more often observed in people suffering from migraines, anxiety disorders or with a tendency to seasickness and motion sickness. Most often, this phenomenon manifested itself (according to the participants in the experiment) while climbing stairs, walking in the mountains, when crossing a high bridge, or when looking out of a high-story window. As a result, people felt dizziness, lightheadedness, increased sweating, loss of balance, trembling limbs, and an unpleasant feeling in the stomach. Many also reported feeling as if someone was dragging them into an abyss.

Forms and symptoms

Visual height intolerance and acrophobia can have the most various shapes, their symptoms can range from mild anxiety to panic and severe phobia. Although both conditions are usually caused by the same triggers, the difference is that visual height intolerance does not meet the criteria specific phobia, as opposed to acrophobia.

History of acrophobia

You might think that the modern world with its skyscrapers, huge bridges, elevators and airplanes is to blame for the emergence of acrophobia. However, according to German scientists, who are far from conducting the first study on this topic, both fear of heights and visual intolerance to heights date back at least to ancient Greek times. In one of his accounts, a famous Athenian was unable to cross a bridge without experiencing physical symptoms such as anxiety, blurred vision, and the feeling that all his muscles could no longer contract. Also, these phenomena were described in their own words in ancient Chinese medical books, ancient Roman historical texts, as well as in ancient Roman mythology. For example, the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses described how Phaethon (the mortal son of the sun god Phoebus) turns pale and begins to tremble when he looks down at the Earth while in his father's celestial chariot; he is immediately enveloped in darkness, despite the brightness of the sun itself. Scholars suggest that this description may be a projection of Ovid's own fear of heights. IN modern world many famous people, from Goethe to Woody Allen, have suffered and continue to suffer from acrophobia.

Need for treatment

Acrophobia requires psychological treatment, although people suffering from visual height intolerance can also benefit from appropriate treatment or at least moral support if they notice that their problem is preventing them from living normally and enjoying the activities in which they are now limited. Treatment may vary depending on the causes, which may include vestibular dysfunction, anxiety disorder, cognitive problems, or a combination of all of these. Without appropriate treatment, both acrophobia and visual height intolerance persist throughout life, significantly increasing the risk of a variety of height-related incidents. Here are some options to combat this problem.

Overcoming acrophobia

Make your position firmer and more stable to minimize symptoms of visual height intolerance. For example, lean on or hold on to something, and sit down if possible. Don't bow your head so that your vestibular system, which controls balance, remained stable. Also try to keep stable objects in your peripheral vision and avoid looking at clouds and other moving objects. This will give you a greater sense of stability. Exposure therapy involves exposing people to stimuli associated with high altitudes under controlled conditions until the fear of heights decreases or completely disappears. Most often it is carried out under the supervision of a therapist, who takes the patient to various high places. Such sessions are also accompanied various techniques relaxation, including exercises for proper breathing.

Therapy virtual reality is one of the most effective and modern types exposure therapy, which uses a generated 3D world in which a person is placed to face their fear of heights. Cognitive therapy involves helping the patient interpret perceived stimuli as less frightening. Drug therapy for acrophobia, this may include anti-anxiety medications, antidepressants, and beta blockers. However, they all have side effects and do not cure the phobia.

Fear of heights or acrophobia is inherent a large number people. 10% of the entire population of the planet has some degree of phobia. If its manifestations are weak, overcoming fear is possible on your own, but if fear turns into a panic state, you cannot do without qualified help.

Acrophobia is a fear of heights, an obsessive fear of them. This phobia causes not just fear in the human body, but panic and a feeling of horror. A person with such a disease (and this is precisely a disease) due to his illness is forced to deprive himself of a lot.

It is important to distinguish between simple fear and phobia. When a person is afraid, this is a completely normal reaction of the brain to possible danger, from which he must protect himself. A person may get goosebumps when he looks from the balcony of the 10th floor, however, this does not interfere with his life. It’s another matter when even a 2-meter height inspires horror.

Acrophobia does not allow its carrier to live fully:

  • a person with acrophobia will never go to the mountains;
  • he is afraid to go up to a floor if it is higher than the third;
  • bridges scare him - he cannot drive across them or walk on them.

A person suffering from such a phobia constantly thinks that the balcony on which he goes out will definitely collapse; the insurance that will protect him when climbing the mountain will break; the bridge he crosses will collapse. And now imagine with what horror such a person lives.

People with acrophobia often say that when they are on a hill, the thought of jumping down comes into their heads. However, none of them have suicidal tendencies.

Aerophobia

Acrophobia is often combined with aerophobia - the fear of flying in an airplane. But with this phobia, the person is afraid of the plane, of the fact that it might crash. This effect is also enhanced by altitude. So we can say that acrophobia is more benign than aerophobia.

However, on an airplane you don’t feel the altitude at all. If a person clearly senses heights, this may be one of the manifestations of fear, even if it is not accompanied by rapid heartbeat, sweating and dizziness.

Some argue that it is free time, which appears during flight, negatively affects emotional state person. He willy-nilly listens to all sounds that instill fear. What to do in in this case?

With fear of heights in the mountains, it’s even easier - even climbers don’t feel very comfortable when climbing a mountain. People suffering from acrophobia should not go near cliffs or on rock formations.

It should be clarified that often all problems come from the subconscious, and external physical manifestations are nothing more than psychosomatics.

Symptoms

The main symptoms are:

  1. Sudden dizziness and profuse sweating, V in rare cases Nausea may occur.
  2. Being at a height, a person tries to kneel down or get on all fours in order to be closer to the ground and somehow protect himself.
  3. He is looking for an object that he could cling to and hold on to, since he no longer trusts either himself or his own balance.
  4. Sometimes he is overcome by numbness - he simply cannot get out of this position, even after several hours, and this will continue until other people help him. Panic fear can paralyze not only physically, but also psychologically.
  5. Possible hysteria. A person suffering from acrophobia begins to scream, cry, he does not understand what is happening, loses the ability to think and speak clearly, his arms and legs are shaking. At the same time, he may say something incoherently, but the words will definitely relate to the fear of heights.

Why is it important to treat acrophobia? Because it can lead to psychosis. Symptoms such as a basic fear of sleeping on a bed or sitting in a chair are the first signs of psychosis, and in this case you should consult a doctor immediately.

Reasons

Some time ago it was stated that only those people who grew up at heights suffer from acrophobia. However, this claim was quickly refuted. Acrophobia affects those who grew up, figuratively speaking, on the ground, and those who have never fallen from a height before, and even those who have never risen to a significant height.

It is believed that people of an emotional type are most susceptible to this disease. As a rule, their imagination is very developed. Often fear of heights and other phobias appear in people with creative abilities.

Psychologists are trying to find out whether all mammals are susceptible to panic fear of heights, or whether only humans are capable of experiencing this. Even a cat does not risk stepping on the glass floor, located at a height - but only for the first time. But she does not experience the panic fear that a person has.

How to overcome your fear of heights

One of the most effective ways to get rid of the fear of heights and any other phobias is the ability to relax, no matter how strange and ridiculous it may sound.

There are several techniques for this:

  • meditation;
  • auto-training;
  • breathing practice.

Having mastered one of them, you can learn not only to stop incipient panic, but also to get rid of the phobia forever. It is advisable to conduct classes daily, this will help to relax nervous system, which in turn will lead to an understanding of the problem and increase stress resistance in any situation.

Quite often in their practice, psychologists use the visualization method, which allows them to realize the insignificance of the problem and move on to active actions. It is recommended to recreate as accurately as possible the picture of a person with acrophobia conquering mountain peaks, standing on the roof of a high-rise building, or jumping with a parachute.

Using this technique, everything should be presented in great detail. This is excellent training that allows you to focus on the situation and external elements, rather than on internal experiences and emotions.

Treatment and therapy

Acrophobia requires medical intervention. You shouldn’t deny it, hope that “maybe” and that everything will go away on its own. You can overcome your fear of heights, including unfounded ones, by to the fullest, a professional psychologist will help with this.

Any disease requires identifying the reason why it develops, also with acrophobia. As a rule, the psychologist identifies it in the first conversations.

In some cases, talking with a psychologist is enough to get rid of fear; in others, doctors resort to drug treatment. It can be as simple as sedatives, and potent - depending on the patient’s condition.

In adults

Psychology has several options for treating the disease. The patient is advised to overcome his fear on his own, but gradually, step by step. For example, today he rises to a three-meter height, and next time he will try to overcome his fear of a four-meter height.

Drugs prescribed to the patient during drug treatment:

  1. Antidepressants (long course of treatment).
  2. Tranquilizers (short course of treatment).
  3. Medicines to stimulate blood circulation in brain tissue.
  4. Vitamins as aids in drug treatment.

Psychotherapists often use:

  • cognitive behavioral therapy– a technique is used that relaxes the muscles and reduces anxiety: the patient is gradually brought closer to the object of his fear until he gets used to it and begins to perceive heights normally;
  • gestalt therapy– the patient must experiment and observe the phenomena occurring during this process;
  • NLP– neurolinguistic programming, “Changing Personal History” technique: a person must return to the past, to the moment when he experienced a strong fear of heights, remember when this happened for the first time – this therapy designed to transform negative emotions to positive;
  • psychotherapy.

In children

When treating acrophobia in children, the use of medications is possible only in difficult cases. The psychologist identifies the cause of the fear - often acrophobia appears due to injuries received from a fall from a height - and then begins therapy.

Many parents, without hesitation, themselves become the initiators of such fears in their children. You shouldn’t scare him and constantly tell him that “standing on this chair is dangerous, you might fall.” So you yourself, with your own words, instill in him fear, which in the future can develop into acrophobia.

Fear of heights, even in its most advanced form, can be overcome. Unfortunately, many people prefer drug treatment, which gives only a short-term effect.

By turning to an experienced psychotherapist and making every effort on your part, you can forever get rid of the fear that has negative impact on quality of life.

Video: Acrophobia - obsessive fear of heights

Most contemporaries do not attach special significance to what altitude they are at. They are able to climb to the top floor of a skyscraper, boldly look down from the roof of a high-rise building, or make a parachute jump. However, there is a group of people for whom the prospect or immediate presence at high altitudes causes an attack of panic fear. Their hands tremble, their legs give way, their breath catches, their heart jumps out of their chest, and they feel a lump in their throat.
A condition in which a person has an irrational, obsessive and uncontrollable fear of heights. scientific name acrophobia. An illogical and uncontrollable fear of heights does not reflect the existing situation. It is not related to a real threat to human life and well-being. At the same time, acrophobia manifests itself with specific and diverse somatic, vegetative, psychological and behavioral symptoms.

Causes of acrophobia
Most scientists agree that obsessive fear is a transformed natural ancestral reaction called “fight-flight.” Primitive people had two options for action when faced with danger: attack and engage in battle, or run away as quickly and as far as possible. In critical events, the body mobilized all its efforts, which ensured a powerful release of the hormone adrenaline into the blood.
Over time, methods of resolving difficulties and objects of danger have changed, but a way of responding to stress has been deposited in a person’s subconscious. Fixation of attention on any frightening moments or a collision with an object of anxiety in a contemporary is accompanied by a primitive reaction of fear.
However, the existing need for relaxation in a person who is terrified of heights does not find satisfaction. Adrenaline unrealized in the physical aspect makes the nervous system, heart, and organs work harder digestive tract And respiratory system. Such rapid waste of the body's resources leads to physical and mental weakness, which can give rise to various anxiety disorders.

It should be noted that for most people suffering from acrophobia, the causes of the disorder go back to early childhood. For example, parental horror stories about naughty children being taken away on her mortar by the terrible and evil Baba Yaga can act as fertile ground for the formation obsessive fear. The child's vivid imagination vividly paints a frightening picture of him being carried away by a mischievous old woman, and his native places floating beneath him. Very often, a global fear of heights occurs in people who, in childhood, experienced a painful fall from stairs, trees, or were injured after playing on the roofs of houses. The child’s psyche tenaciously records the painful sensations and forms a program, the essence of which is: it is necessary to avoid being at heights with all one’s might.
The basis for the emergence of abnormal fear of heights is a unique psychasthenic personality constitution. Most patients with acrophobia are suspicious, impressionable, vulnerable and anxious people. They are timid and shy. At the same time, such persons very carefully examine their internal states and panic due to the appearance of the slightest malfunctions in the body.

Symptoms of acrophobia
A pathological fear of heights takes over a person’s mind and does not allow one to behave adequately to the situation. Patients with acrophobia are unable to understand, logically explain and control their groundless anxiety. To avoid experiencing extremely painful symptoms panic attack, the person tries with all his might to avoid situations involving being at altitude.
According to patients who have been diagnosed with acrophobia, during a crisis they are unable to control their actions. Most patients feel that they will definitely fall down and get serious damage. Some people may experience obsessive and irresistible desire Jump down on your own. Patients describe their condition as if “someone is deliberately pulling them down from the roof or pushing them to jump out of an open window.”

The peculiarity of acrophobia is the occurrence unpleasant symptoms not only when the subject is in high areas, but also when the person anticipates being at a height. An individual with acrophobia is haunted by panic fear, forcing the avoidance of any activities involving potential ascent to high areas.
A patient with acrophobia refuses to visit friends who live on the upper floors of high-rise buildings. He is incapable of shopping in a high-rise shopping center. He won't go to hiking trip to the mountains. A person suffering from a fear of heights will not climb a tree. Such a person never travels by air and does not imagine it possible to make a parachute jump.

Unpleasant sensations arise in a person when he observes the actions of other people performed at heights. He breaks out in a cold sweat as he sees the builder sealing the interpanel seams on the building. He watches in horror as another subject rides a Ferris wheel.
If a patient with acrophobia still rises to the occasion, he experiences the excruciating symptoms of a panic attack. The crisis manifests itself by the appearance of shortness of breath and a feeling of lack of air. A person's heart rate increases and blood pressure. The person complains about strong headache, dizziness and difficulty maintaining balance. Skin takes pale bluish tint. Sweating increases and the urge to urinate becomes more frequent. The person describes that she is exhausted by severe chills, which are replaced by hot flashes. Nausea and stomach pain may occur.

Common symptoms of acrophobia include a variety of sleep problems. An obsessive fear of heights prevents a person from falling asleep on time and rewards him with an early awakening. Abnormal fear gives the person nightmares, the plot of which is about troubles that arise at altitude.
Psychological and behavioral symptoms acrophobia. A person who is afraid of heights becomes nervous and irritable. He is extremely aggressive towards others. He is distinguished by his fussiness and chaotic actions. Difficulties arise with concentrating, which prevents you from performing your job duties efficiently. An obsessive fear of heights does not allow a person to undertake exciting activities and does not provide the opportunity to enjoy life.
Often, acrophobia leads to the fact that a person is isolated from society, becoming a voluntary outcast. The patient’s attention is fixed on the anticipation of imminent danger and his own unpleasant sensations, which often leads to the development depressive states and completely deprives a person of the meaning of life.

How to overcome acrophobia: methods for eliminating fear
Fortunately, the pathological fear of heights in the majority of people suffering from mild forms of acrophobia can be overcome completely and forever. The main condition for getting rid of an obsessive fear of heights is a person’s awareness that he has a problem, a sincere desire for transformation and a willingness to work hard on himself to free himself from the phobia. To overcome acrophobia, you need to be patient, since the fear of heights takes root in the deep depths of the psyche, access to which is possible only with consistent, competent and patient work.
How to overcome acrophobia? The main emphasis in the treatment of illogical fear of heights is on the use of a variety of psychotherapeutic techniques. The main task of a psychotherapist is to help the client understand the irrationality and groundlessness of the existing problem. During psychotherapy sessions, it is possible to identify the destructive elements of the subject’s thinking and motivate the person to transform them into a functional and adequate thinking style.

The psychotherapist explains to the patient that his fear of heights has no objective basis and takes possession of a person’s consciousness like a foreign, disturbing, obsessive feeling. Genuine psychological knowledge about the nature and characteristics of the course of acrophobia help a person get rid of the feeling of his own mental inferiority and more calmly perceive the symptoms of panic crises.
Another psychotherapeutic measure is to search for the cause that gave rise to an abnormal fear of heights. The importance of identifying the instigator of the disorder lies in the fact that by finding and uprooting a poisonous plant, a person has the opportunity to overcome the obsessive fear of heights once and for all. Once a person identifies the factor that gave rise to acrophobia, he becomes morally ready to consciously work to overcome his unnatural fear of heights.

Step 1
What practical exercises exist to overcome abnormal fear of heights? The first way is to visualize in your imagination a situation where we are at the top. We can imagine ourselves on the roof of a skyscraper or in our thoughts gradually conquering mountain peaks. We should create a very colorful image and carefully “examine” the surrounding landscape.
If the exercise is performed correctly, autonomic symptoms of acrophobia should appear, for example: rapid heartbeat. You should not try to get the painted panorama out of your head. To minimize discomfort, we perform breathing exercises. To get rid of painful symptoms, muscle relaxation techniques help a lot. With maximum amplitude, we tense all the muscles of the body, hold the muscles tense for ten seconds, after which we completely relax.

Step 2
How to get rid of acrophobia for sure? Method two - look fear in the eye. Those who are determined to make a strong-willed effort and are ready to experience some discomfort must be guided by the rule: they knock out a wedge with a wedge. Gradually accustoming yourself to being in frightening situations can overcome your fear of heights. Of course, you should not engage in shock therapy and immediately arrange a parachute jump. We begin to overcome our fear from small heights, then it rises higher and higher.
An ordinary one is quite suitable for this. multi-storey building. We go up the stairs to the floor where we feel comfortable. We stop for a while and admire the opening landscape through the window. We try to capture pleasant sensations. After this, we conquer the floor on which, in our opinion, discomfort will arise. Not worth it the slightest symptoms panic and rush headlong down the stairs. We carry out deep breaths, if necessary, we squat down or take the hand of the accompanying person. We look out the window, study the panorama and draw pleasant associations in our imagination.

Step 3
At severe course acrophobia requires resorting to drug treatment. To relieve the symptoms of a panic attack, short-term use of anti-anxiety drugs - tranquilizers - is advisable. These drugs can eliminate nervous excitement, relieve muscle tension, ease the experience of fear and tune in to psychotherapeutic work. To eliminate autonomic symptoms associated with excessive release of adrenaline when a person is at altitude, the doctor may prescribe drugs of the beta-blocker class.

However, it should be borne in mind that taking even the most powerful pharmacological agents is not able to eliminate acrophobia, but only minimizes fear reactions. We remember that it is possible to overcome the disturbing fear of heights only by completely eliminating the cause of the phobia.

People have always strived to conquer mountain peaks, because they seem so great and unbridled, which attracts extreme sports enthusiasts from all over the world. These people constantly climb into the most high mountains or trying to ride the most big waves, this is what allows a person to experience an emotional explosion, a wave within himself. However, not everyone experiences this, and in general, many people suffer from so-called acrophobia - this is a fear of heights. And how to get rid of the fear of heights? First, let's look at the reasons. This phobia is among the ten most common fears among the inhabitants of the earth. And although the fear of heights itself is a completely logical reaction of the body to heights, because if the man will fall, he will break, but acrophobia is a pathological fear to the point of trembling and convulsions, which can no longer be the norm. So, can a person overcome this phobia and conquer one of the mountain peaks?

To begin with, it is worth noting once again that fear of heights is an absolutely normal reaction, which is controlled by a banal instinct of self-preservation, however, fear very often spirals and turns into an uncontrollable pathology. It is precisely because this fear is the norm that many courses are extremely ineffective in curing this phobia. But despite this, there are now more and more methods to overcome this panic fear of heights.

Fear of death.

Every year, scientists say more and more that absolutely every phobia is based on a banal fear of death.

This fear is quite caustic and is not one of those that can be so easily forgotten, which is why people in most cases simply lock them away in a distant drawer in the hope that they will never remember about them. But it is precisely because of this that a person gets such strong phobias. It’s just that over time, the fear of death begins to transform into various phobias, usually several at once, although it can also be one.

After all, a person is not afraid of heights, this is simply impossible, he is afraid of what will happen if he suddenly falls and falls. The basis of a phobia is precisely the fear of death, therefore, below we will present several ways that can help get rid of acrophobia.

Belief in an afterlife.

Believing in life after death helps many people cope with everyday problems, so why shouldn't it be used in larger problem situations? If a person is convinced that after death he will go to “Heaven,” then the fear of death will recede, because formally, life will simply change, but continue.

Also, there is another knowledge, like reincarnation. People who believe in reincarnation are not afraid of death, even more often they neglect life, assuring themselves that they will always have a second chance. So how can you get rid of your fear of heights? It is when a person believes in the continuation of his existence after death that he ceases to be afraid of death itself.

Rationalism.

If faith in God, for some reason or personal conviction, is not suitable for a person, it is worth using rational thinking. A person must think about his fear, break it down into pieces and give it a logical explanation. When a person thinks about one thing for a very long time, he begins to see it with different sides and from different angles.

For some, acrophobia is acquired, in which case you can get rid of the fear by breaking it down into parts - you need to remember the whole moment when this fear first appeared, perhaps a fall from a garage in childhood contributed to this.

You can get rid of the fear of heights after a person understands the original source of fear. Then he can free himself from it. If it is very difficult to process all the memories on your own, then you can contact a psychotherapist; as a rule, they manage to pull out all the unwanted memories from the person.

Belief.

Another simple way is to convince yourself not to be afraid. It sounds quite strange, but in fact, it is very difficult to do this. People throughout their lives convince themselves of something, but this does not happen consciously, and it is very difficult to pull off this trick consciously and in the direction of one thing. Although, if you devote enough time to this, you can hone this skill and apply it to different circumstances in life.

These were the three most popular and most effective ways, according to people and in the majority one of them works. But even if a person manages to get rid of his fear of heights, most often he will still feel panic attacks.

Psychologists say that the easiest way to get rid of fear is to constantly be in such conditions.

Here is the answer to the question: “How to get rid of the fear of heights?” In order to eradicate acrophobia, you need to constantly climb mountains or arrange similar tests for yourself, then the person will simply begin to perceive it as it should and the fear will go away.

WHAT is familiar to a person never scares him, because all this has already become familiar and rather mediocre, a person will simply stop perceiving heights as a threat to life.

Watch a video about aerophobia and fear of heights.

Your legs are shaking, your eyes are running wild, your head is spinning, and your heart is about to jump out - this often happens to people when they look down from a height. This condition is called acrophobia or fear of heights. A person who suffers from such an illness will be afraid no matter where he is, on a second floor balcony or on a high bridge. At such moments, you need to know how to overcome your fear of heights.

Fear of heights is called acrophobia

What is acrophobia

Acrophobia is a disease that refers to a loss of orientation in space. A person is afraid to look down even at a low altitude. He begins to feel nauseous and dizzy. He fears not the elevation itself, but the consequences of the fall; this factor is embedded in the subconscious.

Fear of heights can be present not only in people, but also in animals. If we consider the problem from a medical point of view, then dizziness at height is considered normal factor. For many, this feature develops into a pathology. A person is afraid to look at the earth from any height. He begins to feel lethargic, his heart rate slows down, and there may also be disruptions in the functioning of the stomach and intestines. According to statistics, 7% of people in the world suffer from this disease. In women this fear is more developed than in men.

Causes of fear

Have a fear of heights various reasons, and psychologists have their own arguments on this matter. Many people think that this is how the instinct of self-preservation of the individual is expressed. Others believe that a person acquired this fear throughout life, and this is only connected with mental state. There are different causes of acrophobia.

  1. An innate phobia associated with a sense of self-preservation.
  2. Fear acquired throughout life. If a child falls from a tree, he will have impressions for the rest of his life. He will be afraid of heights and falls.
  3. The psychological state of a person is disturbed. He is very impressionable and suspicious. Just the thought of height causes strong fear and a storm of emotions.
  4. Disorders of orientation in space, that is, poor vestibular apparatus. Often such people experience dizziness and nausea at elevated levels.

There is no need to make fun of people who are afraid. Regardless of the cause, psychological or medication assistance is needed.

Acrophobia can occur as a result of falling from a height

Symptoms of the disease

It's normal to feel fear. This emotion is present in every person from birth. If a person begins to be afraid when standing at a height, then this is natural, because he worries about his safety. But if fear becomes sharp forms disorders, then the help of specialists is required.

Symptoms in adults

The symptoms of acrophobia do not differ between men and women. There are two types of body condition: mental and somatic. Somatic conditions in adults include the following factors:

  • dizziness occurs at altitude;
  • due to fear, the heart rate increases;
  • disturbances in the functioning of the stomach;
  • pupil enlargement;
  • legs and arms are shaking.

TO mental disorders include the following factors:

  • an emotional outburst when a person begins to think about the consequences of falling from a height;
  • fear of accidentally falling while walking;
  • strong impressionability and suspiciousness: such people are afraid of heights even in their dreams, the fear is present in the mind.

Fear of falling while walking is a disorder

Symptoms of childhood acrophobia

If a teenager has symptoms of acrophobia, this does not mean that the disease is congenital. IN childhood big role play psychological factors: the child began to walk, climbed onto the sofa, fell and began to cry. This situation remained in his subconscious for for many years. Fear of heights often leads children to state of shock, their temperature rises, they cry a lot. For children, such factors are quite dangerous, because panic can lead them to a nervous breakdown.

To prevent symptoms from starting to appear in childhood, it is necessary to enroll children in sports sections. Many sports (bicycling, football, basketball, figure skating) well develop coordination of movement and significantly strengthen the vestibular apparatus. Cartoons and books will help you overcome a phobia: the characters often encounter obstacles, fight them and win.

Positive actions help you cope quickly mental problems and develop leadership qualities in the child.

Cartoons and books will help overcome children's fear of heights

How to overcome acrophobia

There are several methods to get rid of the fear of heights. Experts identify several methods for treating height phobia.

  1. Drug treatment.
  2. Psychotherapeutic treatment.
  3. Self-medication.

Medication method

There are no special pills that relieve the symptoms of acrophobia. The cause of fear will not go away, remaining in the subconscious.

Antidepressants can only relieve nervous condition and anxiety. Doctors recommend taking Diazepam or Midazolam in such cases.

Psychotherapeutic methods of struggle

Fear of heights is nervousness, you can get rid of it if you go to see a psychotherapist. He will tell you how to properly control and manage your emotions. There are special techniques for this.

  1. Cognitive behavioral treatment. Thoughts influence behavior. If you learn to control yourself, you can really overcome fear.
  2. Gestalt therapy also aims to control emotions. If you get rid of bad emotions, you can overcome fear.
  3. Hypnosis method. Correction of the internal state is carried out in a trance. The idea is instilled that fear of heights is an unreasonable phobia.

Methods of self-medication

How to overcome fear of heights at home? If a person is able to manage his behavior and feelings, he can overcome fear on his own. To do this you need to do meditation. Self-hypnosis also helps relieve nervous conditions. The technique helps well to fight fears. It is necessary to apply the method of mental vision.

The “face to face” technique also helps overcome fear of heights. You should not run away from danger, you need to take a good look at it. You are afraid of heights and live on the 5th floor. You need to go to the balcony and start self-hypnosis.

Repeat to yourself that there is nothing to be afraid of, and the fear will soon go away. At this moment, you should not look down, you need to focus on your thoughts. To overcome acrophobia, many recommend:

  • go on excursions to high platforms (don’t look down for too long);
  • go to the pool: to overcome emotions, start jumping from a springboard;
  • tell people about your concerns;
  • You need to train your fear by going on rides, etc.

Ski jumping will help you overcome fear

Conclusion

Fear of heights haunts many, and this may not always mean that a person is sick. A person needs to learn to control his thoughts and feelings. You can try to treat fear yourself or ask psychologists for help.