Are you scared of going to the hospitals? If yes, you might have nosocomephobia. Nosocomephobia is known as the fear of hospitals and it is an extremely common form of phobia. Nausea, obsessive worrying, rapid breathing, faster heart rate, and excessive sweating all come along with it. Many people do not go to the hospitals instead they lock themselves up in their homes even though their condition worsens. One must learn to overcome these fears and to handle himself in these situations. This narrative directed blog will explain to you how to overcome your fears of going to the hospital:
Fear of Doctors
The term used for an intense fear of doctors is “Iatrophobia”. In this phobia, you may feel a wave of stress all the way to the doctor’s office or even sitting in the waiting room. Your heartbeat increases and you may sweat, cry, shake, or even refuse to enter the examination room. You try to self-treat yourself, cancel your doctor’s appointment. You may suffer a loss of sleep and appetite. You can overcome such fears by consulting it with your friend or a psychotherapist, who can find the true source of your anxiety and educate you on how to better manage your fear. Try to add more trust to the doctors. Know that they are the only one that can help you in tough situations. Doctors are here to take care of you if you are suffering from a disease or any fear in particular
Fear of blood
Some people are afraid of hospitals because they cannot tolerate the sight of blood or get tested for blood. Rapid heart rate, breathing problem, shaking or pain in the chest is some general symptoms of such phobia. Just like other phobias treatment, a therapist will help you with related advice and may also treat you with medicines. Exercises like deep breathing to yoga may help in treating such phobias.
Fear of needles
This phobia is clinically termed as “Trypanophobia”, which includes extreme fear of medical procedures involving injections or hypodermic needles. You may undergo high blood pressure and a rise in heart rate if you have fear of needles. To overcome this you can try similar treatment as other phobias were treated. You may also meditate to find the root cause of such fears. You must think and try to understand why they are important to you and why avoiding them would become a problem for you in the future. In small kids, the relaxation techniques are used for engaging that can help them to fight stress and easy physical symptoms.
Fear of germs
Another important reason for our fear of hospitals is “fear of germs”, clinically termed as “Mysophobia”.No doubt, being good at hygiene is a good habit but what if you are washing hands until your skin is bleeding or you refuse to go to public places? While COVID-19 has made us suffer this phobia at its best but once this virus disappears we all will be diagnosed with mysophobia. One may develop this phobia because of fear of catching germs in the hospital. Therapist, Exposure therapy, and medications are ways to overcome this phobia.
Fear of death
For most of the people, when the word “hospital” comes in mind, they immediately correlate death with it. While there are so many movies, dramas, where hospitals are portrayed as the scariest places where death lay on every bed. The sight of dead bodies in the morgue of a hospital may be a breathtaking sight for a feeble-hearted person. If you still are afraid of going to the hospital, you must accept the fact that one who is born is bound to die one day as death is inevitable. You have to stay strong to fight such fears. Good exercise, a healthy diet, and staying away from all things that keep you stressed, may help you to get strong by increasing your immune system.
To conclude we can say, that it is in our hands to get out of all such phobias. Hospitals not only mean illness, pain, blood, disease, or death; they also shake a person with its huge unexpected expenses. In spite of all such fears, the fact that you have to trust your doctors remains the same. The doctors know how to deal with weak-hearted patients and for you staying at home and avoiding hospital can lead you to some grand misfortune. So better early or else it gets too late.