Whether you are a climbing enthusiast or not, you may find that one of the amusement projects that the domestic mountaineering scenic spots in the past two years especially like to engage in is the "high-altitude glass trestle". Hundreds of meters high, the transparent glass bridge built between the two mountains, if it is accompanied by strong winds, let alone go up and walk, just looking at it from a distance feels a little scary. Therefore, we can often see tourists staggering or even struggling on the flat bridge deck.
However, if you find that a friend is afraid of heights in a high-rise office, or even sweaty, heart-racing, and difficult to think normally, you need to pay attention - your friend may have "fear of heights"!
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01
Fear of heights is a disease
It has nothing to do with guts and courage
Fear of heights is a real psychological disorder, is a common anxiety disorder, not in the general sense of "timidity", specifically manifested as fear of standing on a tall building or on the top of the mountain, close to the bridge, subway road and other heart will also feel fear. 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.
02
"Fear of heights" is an innate form of self-preservation
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. This "fear" itself is also a protective measure for human beings to protect their own lives, which can make people instinctively stay away from dangerous areas and reduce the chance of casualties caused by falling from a high place.
In addition, there is another point that makes people avoid the high places, that is, human beings have become accustomed to seeing things from a perspective parallel to the ground, and at high places, people's eyes are perpendicular to the ground. 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, it is necessarily inappropriate to convert the ability to balance the body and the ability to distinguish directions in the horizontal perspective to the vertical perspective. After the visual information obtained changes, the body is very easy to lose balance and sense of direction, which will cause people to feel the lack of security, and need to return to the horizontal perspective as soon as possible. The above two reasons determine that "fear of height" has become a fear rooted in everyone's heart.
03
Fear of heights can be cured
Since fear of height is normal, it may even be beneficial to survival, but fear of height ≠ fear of heights. Fear of height is more of a warning of danger, thinking that the height may not be safe enough, if you can confirm that you are safe, you generally do not feel how afraid. Fear of heights is different, fear of heights will have a strong sense of anxiety in the high place, even if they know that they are actually in a safe environment, they will still involuntarily panic, and lose confidence in their sense of balance, want to lower the body weight (squatting or even lying down) to seek security. In addition, there may be physiological reactions such as trembling, sweating, palpitations, etc., and in severe cases, it is even impossible to think normally.
True fear of heights is rare, and the standard for judging whether you are afraid of heights or really fear of heights is to think about whether the fear of heights has affected your normal life. If it does not affect normal life, the fear of heights belongs to the normal range; on the contrary, if you cannot live and work in a high-rise building because of fear of heights, or if you climb a few steps and are afraid of not being able to do it, it is likely to be a real fear of heights.
In addition, unlike fear of heights, patients with fear of heights feel a stronger sense of anxiety, lasting longer, and have symptoms of anxiety and autonomic nerves during the attack, and may have dry mouth, increased heart rate, flushing, etc. At the same time, people with fear of heights know that this fear is excessive, unnecessary, unreasonable, but they cannot control it.
Fortunately, fear of heights can be cured. The most famous of these is the systemic desensitization treatment regimen: exposing patients to environments they don't like for a long time until they weaken or eliminate their fears. Of course, for safety reasons, virtual exposure is also recommended, that is, to recreate a high-level scene in virtual reality created with special equipment. Clinics with this type of equipment are more willing to choose this type of treatment because it allows therapists to treat more patients more effectively and in a more timely manner.
04
Standing tall and jumping far?
Relax and don't be nervous
Have you ever had the experience of being on the edge of a cliff when a strange thought suddenly flashed through your mind: What if I jumped? Or you're driving on a dangerous mountain road and suddenly and inexplicably want to slam the steering wheel to the far right and rush out of the mountain road.
Don't panic if your answer is "yes", there are many people who think the same way as you do. Studies have shown that 75 percent of those who had suicidal thoughts had the idea of jumping from a height, and half of the 431 subjects who had never considered suicide had the urge to jump from a height. In 2012, an American psychologist published a paper calling this emotion a "phenomenon of heights," and there is even a proprietary word in French (l'appel du vide) to describe this emotion, meaning "the call of nothingness."
Why do you want to jump when you stand on a high place? Jennifer Harms, a professor of clinical psychology, believes that this impulse arises because people are stimulated by a real desire to die, or it may be that the brain mistakenly interprets "jumping" as a safety signal. When we are facing high altitudes, the brain circuits may sound a "fear" alarm, and then our consciousness will try to deal with this fear, and imagining the scene of ourselves jumping down can help the brain better understand this strange fear scene to form an effective response.
So, the next time you experience the "high-altitude phenomenon," you can tell yourself in your heart: Take it easy, it's just the brain trying to keep us out of danger. However, if you find yourself too anxious, or suicidal ideation appears very frequently, feels out of control, affecting daily life, work, and social interaction, it is recommended to seek professional help in time.
bibliography:
[1] Huppert, D. , Wuehr, M. , & Brandt, T. . (2020). Acrophobia and visual height intolerance: advances in epidemiology and mechanisms. Journal of Neurology, 267(12).
[2] Fanny, Levy, Pierre, Leboucher, Gilles, & Rautureau, et al. (2016). E-virtual reality exposure therapy in acrophobia: a pilot study. Journal of telemedicine and telecare.
[3] Doreen, H. , Eva, G. , & Thomas, B. . (2017). A new questionnaire for estimating the severity of visual height intolerance and acrophobia by a metric interval scale. Frontiers in Neurology, 8, 211-.
Author | Tang Yicheng Zhongke Popular Mental Health Promotion Center
Audit | Wang Kui, Associate Researcher, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
This article is produced by the "Scientific Rumor Dispelling Platform" (ID: Science_Facts), please indicate the source when reprinting.