All of us are scared of something. Look at the poor Dino! He seems awfully scared of that tiny rat! I am extremely scared of cockroaches. Once I saw a big ugly fellow loitering in my house at night, I couldn’t sleep thereafter. I spent the whole night sitting on a chair, upright and alert, fearing that it would crawl on me. Are you scared of something to that extent? Sometimes, people have great fear of some things or about being in a situation. When the fear becomes extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something, to the extent that it puts the person in distress, it is often known as a ‘Phobia‘. The word ‘phobia has been derived from Greek word ‘phobos‘ meaning ‘morbid fear’.

Is there anything that you have a phobia of?

There are some highly common phobias that people suffer from. If you suffer from one of them, you are not alone.

Are you mighty scared of travelling to the mountains or looking down from your 35th floor apartment? You might be having Acrophobia – fear of heights

Thalassophobia – fear of the sea, or fear of being in the ocean. Such people often keep away from water travel.

Another common fear, Aerophoia – fear of flying, keeps people away from flying in airplanes their entire life.

Some people feel particularly uncomfortable in closed spaces like elevators. Claustrophobia is fear of being closed in a space with no escape

People around you cuddle cute dogs, but you don’t dare go near them! You have Cynophobia.

The fear of Spiders and other arachnids to no limits is Arachnophobia.  

Many a times, the roots of these fears are associated with unpleasant incident that might have happened in the past but sometimes they are just unjustified. Here are some funny phobias ;)

Xanthophobia – fear of the colour yellow

Anthophobia – fear of flowers

Heliophobia – fear of sunlight

Halitophobia – fear of bad breath

Ablutophobia – fear of washing or bathing

And how about this last one?

Phobophobia – fear of having a phobia or of fear !! Confused? So am I. ;)

Can you add to our list?