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Call it the hair of the dog that bit you: Psychologists say the best way to get over a phobia is to slowly and carefully expose yourself to the very thing you fear.
Easier said than done, of course. But now, a new study says a hormone that stresses people out can actually help the process along.
In people who were afraid of heights, doses of cortisol, the so-called stress hormone, appeared to help them get over their phobias more quickly by preventing their minds from shutting down under stress. "It helps the body stay alert," says study co-author Brenda K. Wiederhold, executive vice president of San Diego's Virtual Reality Medical Center, which treats phobias through computerized simulations.
An estimated 9 percent of adults in the U.S. suffer from phobias, and about a third of them pursue some sort of treatment, often through cognitive behavioral therapy. "What you want to do is change the way the brain is thinking about that specific phobic object," Wiederhold said. "If it's fear of spiders, you want to change the way the brain is thinking about spiders and give it accurate information."
Wiederhold's clinic combines virtual reality with so-called "exposure therapy" to allow patients to learn how to cope with their fear and ultimately overcome it. Flying-phobic patients might visit a virtual simulation of an airport, for instance. (Hopefully they don't charge $4.50 for a bottle of water there.)
In the new study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers gave placebos or small doses of cortisol to 40 people with extreme fear of high places (scientists call them acrophobics). An hour after taking the pills, the patients began a series of three treatment sessions, which involved a kind of virtual-reality therapy that simulated a ride in an outdoor elevator.
The hormone seemed to help patients keep their focus and avoid mental collapse, Wiederhold says. "What we want to do fully engage the brain, but not have them crash. They see that they're not going to fall, and they start to understand the new memories in the brain."
So should phobic people ask their shrinks about cortisol? Maybe, Wiederhold said, but the research is still preliminary.
If you have a phobia of reading stories about treatments for phobias, by the way, congratulations for getting this far.
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Leave a Comment:
Smoking pot also works.
Viva medical marijuana
Oh sure, you get over your fear of heights by getting high first!
This was a very interesting article to read. It really is no fun to be scared of heights and not be able to overcome the fear. I don't car for flying, hate going over high bridges, don't like the mountains. It is very very stressful to do any of these. I don't care to drive on trips because I'm scared to drive over bridges. There are so many areas in the US to see and it would be very enjoyable to go if I wasn't scared of heights. I have always wondered why. Please keep us updated on this new drug and treatment, it sounds promising.
I had a fear of bridges and was able to successfully overcome it through both cognitive therapy and practice. I couldn't even handle freeway overpasses. I would map out in my head any route I had to take and figure out how to avoid anything elevated. Ironically, at that time, I was able to fly without too much fear. All told, it lasted about 5 years. Now I drive over major overpasses and bridges and hardly remember what it used to feel like to be afraid.
This is how I did it: I told myself I loved myself, thereby releasing dopamines to my brain, which calmed me. and then when any fearful thought would arise, i would tell myself, "That might happen; but it probably won't." In essence, I started reshaping my muscle memory.
Now flying still sucks. actually - I like flying, I just hate the cramped quarters and flinching from turbulence.
My father had a fear of heights as do I. He was a fighter pilot in WWII and I held a private pilot's license and took some aerobatic training. Flying didn't bother either of us. Anywhere else, pure terror. I have a sailboat and from time to time it's necessary to be hoisted to the masthead about 60 ft up. Give me a couple of stiff rum's before that thank you. I can go about half way before being bothered. At the Grand Canyon I can't get closer than about 20 ft from the edge without freezing.
I even took up mountaineering when I was younger to help try and overcome it. It helped a little but never did overcome the irrational fear that I would loose my balance, get blown over, step on something slippery, etc. and plunge to my death. I once had an appointment with someone on the 20 th floor. Even riding the elevator up and visualizing the hole in the shaft beneath me was harrowing. You can bet I stayed as far away from his floor to ceiling windows as I could.
I wish it wasn't so but it is. Also, don't get me started on spiders and snakes.
I have a true fear of heights, creepy, crawly bugs and driving in the snow. I will cry if I come into contact with any of these things. As far as heights go, it doesn't matter if it's just the second floor up or higher. I have had this fear since I was little. I have tried to desensitize myself to it by going on ferris wheels, roller coasters, etc. and climbing up kind of high. On the rides I end up closing my eyes and praying to God. I have tried to talk myself out of being afraid of bugs and driving in the snow. I have tried desensitizing myself to these as well. I have tried deep breathing and other things, nothing works.
I'm terrified by heights. I feel the same way about staying back from the edge of a drop off in case I trip, get blown over, etc. If I'm watching a movie and the shot is a view looking straight down from the top of a building, I get dizzy, can't help shaking my head NO, and have to look away. My husband is a pilot and is also uncomfortable with heights. But he shed some light on my completely irrational fear of flying (Crying, panic, wringing my hands, looking at everyones face to make sure they're not upset). He suggests that probably most of my fear comes from not being in control, and I think he's right. Then it dawned on me that everything I fear (heights, spiders, flying) has a common thread: I can't control these things. I hate being a passenger in a car going 80 on the expressway, but if I'm the one driving I'm fine.
The phoia may be less dangerous than taking cortisol (prednisone). And how long do you have to take steroids to prevent the phobia?
Sounds like doctors/therapists should be looking for ways to naturally increase cortisol in the body instead of prescribing drugs with as many significant side effects as corticosteroids.
Right on ttmadison
If you want to naturally increase the level of cortisol in the body take a high stress job or face your fears. Cortisol in the body is elevated as a result of stress. A side effect is weight gain.
I think I'll keep my fears and avoid them rather than imbibe in steroids which i KNOW will have an adverse effect on my body.
I'll bet this same exact study was done before with opiates, probably with similarly successful results. You are basically overriding your body's natural response with drugs.
I guess stress hormones are more PC than heroin.
What if you have a phobia of something that even people without the phobia don't generally want to be exposed to?
e.g. I'm emetophobic, which is fear of vomiting.
Is taking cortisol and undergoing exposure therapy really worth it for something like this?
My daughter also has this fear and my wife has a fear of snakes. Both things are encountered very infrequently so here's a way that I know will work for you. It's not easy or fast or "the american way" but it will work:
When you feel the fear coming on just experience the fear. Don't do whatever it is you do to escape or cover up the feeling. Just experience it. Do this for a few months and I guarantee your fears will lessen and if you're consistent enough, they will disappear.
Overcoming fears and habits is not easy. How ever many years old you are is how much time has passed to set in the habitual reactions you have to fears. Yes, fear is a habit. It's a habit in your mind that associates something "like vomiting" to something to fear. It's not the thoughts that are bad, but your reaction to them.
Let us take a look at the effects of cortisol on the body, lowered immune system, poor digestion, perhaps even cancer. Stress releases cortisol and cortisol kills if the body is exposed for too long, it is poison. We should be working toward reducing cortisol not putting it in. This is perhaps the most brain dead study I have ever seen.
I really hate flying in planes..just hope when I die they have a really long rope they send down from heaven..can climb well..(if I'm going to heaven that is).
What a pill culture we live in! I also have/had a fear of heights and many other things. The cure? Just go out there and do it anyway. The more you do stuff you think you can't do, the more you'll find confidence in yourself.
I still get nervous around heights but I just do it anyway and experience the anxiety it creates. It gets less and less every time.
Better than any pill... feeling that you can do it on your own.
Some fear of heights isn't really fear, but a physiological problem. One possibility is inner ear problems. Car sickness, though not fear-induced, is brought on by a problem with the brain synchronizing stimuli and I'm guessing true vertigo is physiological as well. Just "facing your fears" isn't going to fix the problem.
It depends on how you look at a physiological problem. I look and mind and body as one and yes, some things to cure the body will help cure the mind and vice versa.
Consider a physiological problem that has no cure. Do you just give up and say, oh well my body is doing X so I won't do Y? Instead, do Y if you want to and don't give X so much power.
No doubt some physiological problems are brought on by stress, etc. But I look at vertigo as something that can't be changed by wishful thinking. It would be the same as someone wishing they had different eye color; you can wish all you want but that won't change anything. I'm commenting on some things that can be changed through behavior versus some things that, unfortunately, may be set in stone. True vertigo is real and not imagined.
Sure, just take a pill and all of your problems are solved.
Yes, heights bother me, but I am not going to take a pill for it. Maybe it will go away by itself, maybe it won't .
I will just live with my dislike of heights, it is really not that bad. We take too many pills already. Have you noticed that once you start taking pills, the number never decreases, the number always increases.
What dont we have a pill for anymore ?
People are addicted. They are addicted to doctors and pills. There are doctors and pills for everything. Even the things that are not important, except in the minds of people with money to spend, which causes the people without money to feel disenfranchised and creates a subtle desire to visit the same doctors so they can get the same pills.
The commercials today just promote this mentality. They run something like this, "Does the hair on your arm grow faster then it used to. You might be suffering from hypertrichosis. Tell your doctor you want 'Slow Grow'. That is followed by a commercial from an attorney who asks if you used 'Slow Grow' and then lost your eyesight. The attorney then says to call him.
I have had enough.
I think the irony of this is that I came from a page about the shortage of pills for ADD. People just fretting because their 'stash' may not lost if they keep getting turned away. I used to be afraid of hights. Then one day I was like. 'Eh whatever, may as well die trying something new.' Big shock I didn't die. For a long time I couldn't do an off-the-ground flip. I always wanted to and in junior high I was pretty close to being able to. Again, one day I just though; 'Eh may as well try it. Grass is pretty long, it should break my fall.' Well I was able to preform flips for the rest of that year quite well. (On a side note, I seem to have trouble doing them now, as if the fear worked its way back into my life. But we'll see how long it lasts). Honestly if pills were the solution to everything we should just give those people at airports afraid of terrorists getting on their plane pills. Then the rest of us wouldn't have to endure that embarressment called Security-on-Demand, curteousy of TSA.
I know exactly how that pill helps. Cortisol is the hormone that causes you to have belly fat. It gets you over your fear of heights by making you so fat you can't climb too high, or too fat to fit in an airplane seat.