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In recent years, many famous domestic alpine attractions have been engaged in special scenic spots, that is, "high-altitude glass trestles". At a height of several hundred meters, a transparent glass bridge is built between two high mountains, or a curved suspended sightseeing corridor is built along the cliffs. Standing on a transparent glass bridge, under your feet is a clearly visible "abyss". Many tourists will be frightened on the glass trestle, their legs and feet are weak, they can't move their steps, or even sit on the ground and refuse to walk, while the tourists who pass by around will cover their faces and laugh - "This courage is too small, even children who have just walked are not as good!" ”。 If these friends may have "fear of heights". Is that fear of heights really cowardice and lack of courage at all?
In fact, fear of heights is a disease, which has nothing to do with guts and courage.
Fear of heights is a real psychological disorder, a common anxiety disorder, not "timidity" in the general sense. According to statistics, one in fifteen people in the world will have a tendency to fear heights to a greater or lesser extent, and to some extent, "fear of heights" has evolutionary significance. Because this "fear" itself is also a protective measure for human beings to protect their own lives, it can make people instinctively stay away from dangerous areas and reduce the chance of casualties caused by falling from a high place.
Fear of heights is manifested as fear of standing on a tall building or hilltop, and feeling afraid when approaching a bridge or subway road. In general, the point of fear of people with heights is usually the fear of falling from a high place will be injured, and some people with fear of heights will have an abnormal, uncontrollable urge to jump down, and will feel as if there is an external force pulling them to the edge of the high ground; and may even have visual fantasies, even if the feet stand firmly on the ground, but the body will fall downwards. Feeling like you're falling or sliding down is a form of somatic representation that causes people with fear of heights to feel dizzy. Fear of balconies, stairs and elevators is all related to fear of heights. These fears are strong even when there are guardrails or enough away from the edges of heights that it is impossible to fall.
In the normal living space, human beings have become accustomed to looking at things from a perspective parallel to the ground, but at high altitude, people's line of sight is in a down-to-earth state, and the angle is close to vertical, so naturally there will be an unadaptable process. For example, if a person sees a car on the ground, he sees the side, and from the plane down, he can only see the cover. Although they are all three-dimensional, if the body balance ability and direction discrimination ability under the horizontal perspective are converted to the vertical perspective, it is bound to be unsuitable.
After the visual information obtained by people changes, the body is very easy to lose balance and sense of direction, which will make people lack of security, and the prompt given by the brain will be to return to the horizontal perspective as soon as possible, in this case, there will naturally be a stress response, or the line of sight will quickly return to a horizontal state, dare not look down, or the legs and feet are soft and trembling, which is the first time response given by the brain. Therefore, the brain's stress response determines that "fear of heights" becomes a fear rooted in everyone's heart.
Fear of heights is a simple phobia among phobias. If it doesn't have much impact on your work and life, it doesn't necessarily have to be treated. If you want to treat, there are 4 therapies that work better.
Behavioral therapy
(1) Systematic desensitization therapy allows patients to learn to self-treat through systematic desensitization. The aim is to eliminate the conditional link between the terrorist stimulus and the terrorist response and to counter the avoidance response.
(2) Exposure therapy is also known as full irrigation therapy. It is a rapid behavioral therapy that encourages the seeker to engage directly with situations that cause horrific anxiety and persist until the feeling of nervousness disappears.
(3) Exercise therapy The human body is responsible for controlling the elements of balance - vision, inner ear and muscles, through the activity of normal operation, if we sit still all day, the eyes only stare at the computer and other objects, the human body's balance function will decline.
(4) The shock method is called "shock method" for the treatment of "fear of heights", which is more effective. The specific operation method of the "impact method" is to inspire the corrected subject to imagine that he is at a considerable height and that height is still rising.
In addition, the following four points are the twelve-character principle for the treatment of fear of heights.
Prolonged: Allow the patient to stand at a height that can cause a terrifying emotion for at least 30 to 45 minutes. In particular, when starting treatment, let the patient persist for enough time to reduce the level of terror by 50%.
Gradually: Don't set high goals for the patient at once, start with easy goals and gradually move to difficult goals.
Regular: One exercise is not enough to dispel fear. So each process needs to be repeated many times until the feeling of fear is completely gone.
Totally: when performing exercises, the patient is asked to concentrate and not think about anything else. Because although the diversion of attention can alleviate the fear, it is not conducive to the complete elimination of the sense of fear. Fear of heights is a type of phobia that can be cured as long as treatment is adhered to.
Reference source: Popular Science China Sohu