1. By: Lindsay, Austin, Kayla & Drew
Phobias & Fears
By: Lindsay, Austin, Kayla & Drew

2. What is a phobia…
A phobia is defined as a mental or emotional disorder due to events that have occurred in a persons life that may have caused extreme sadness, depression, trauma, or excitement.
These unfortunate situations become stored in a persons memories and cause them to relive past experiences when reminded of them.

3. Cont…
Your memory is connected with nerves in your brain, therefore if you have a bad memory of something, many people correlate the bad memory with certain objects or people.
This connection between the objects and the bad memories can cause tremors, night sweats, nausea breathlessness and paranoia.
Most phobias begin as a child because of occurrences that were perceived as traumatic to the child.

4. Causes of a Phobia…
A phobia is brought on by a specific situation or stimulus in the brain.
The cause of fear and phobias is thought to be in the amygdala.
A person with a phobia has an altered fear response to the point where they don’t process dangerous situations correctly. Instead they over react to them.
The brain senses conditions of fear and the pre frontal cortex evaluates the situation and decides whether it seems like the situation is dangerous or safe. It then sends an “all clear” message to the brains fear center.
Phobias have been linked to anxiety disorders and post traumatic stress disorders in their reactions and severity.

6. Causes of fears
Areas of the brain such as the amygdala and the hypothalamus are activated when fear is sensed and cause the release of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.
Fear, unlike a phobia is adaptive and you can overcome it.
Fear is a neural circuit that keeps the body going in dangerous situations. The stimuli is transferred along neural pathways to the amygdala and is evaluated based on outside influences.

7. Common Phobias…
Some phobias are very common and are not severe in their reactions such as:
Arachnophobia: Fear of spiders
Claustrophobia: Fear of enclosed places
Acrophobia: Fear of heights
Necrophobia: Fear of death or dead things
Belonephobia: Fear of needles

8. List of phobias… Pteronophobia: Fear of being tickled by feathers
Anuptaphobia: Fear of staying single
Bibliophobia: Fear of books
Cibophobia: Fear of food
Didaskaleinophobia: Fear of school
Ephebiphobia: Fear of teenagers
Francophobia: Fear of France or french things
Gymnophobia: Fear of nudity
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia: Fear of the number 666
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: Fear of long words
Kathisophobia: Fear of sitting down
Methyphobia: Fear of alcohol
Mycophobia: Fear of mushrooms
Parthenophobia: Fear of young girls
Porphyrophobia: Fear of the color purple
Sexophobia: Fear of the opposite sex
Walloonphobia: Fear of walloons
Zeusophobia: Fear of God

9. Bibliography http://www.listofphobias.org/what-causes-phobias.htm