What is Ancraophobia? (An Overview)

In this blog we will post discuss the symptoms, causes and treatment of Ancraophobia. 

An intense fear of wind is called Ancraophobia. It is a type of specific phobia which comes under the category of anxiety disorders in the DSM-V.

Someone suffering from this phobia feels extreme anxiety when exposed to wind. 

Not just the exposure, but a mere thought of wind can instigate anxiety. When one’s condition worsens, they undergo full-blown panic attacks.

To elude these unpleasant feelings, one avoids getting exposed to wind. 

By avoiding wind, one feels relieved from an impending danger it might cause and this feeling is what causes them to repeat those acts.

An individual will constantly avoid their fear stimuli and this recurrent act can turn into compulsions. One can develop OCD in the future. 

In Ancraophobia, one is terrified of wind because they fear getting in trouble because of it. Wind is not harmful.

It is a natural phenomena that occurs. Therefore, sufferers are unable to rationalise their fear and end up avoiding their fear stimuli, to control their anxiety.

According to the DSM-V, avoidance and anxiety affects one’s social and occupational functioning.

For example, a sufferer will not leave their house at all on a windy day. One will skip school or office and this will affect their professional and academic careers. 

Individuals will prefer living in a place with dry, hot or humid climates. Visiting relatives who live in these areas can also be a reason for why one feels anxious. 

Ancraophobia is an irrational fear of wind. Someone suffering from this type of specific phobia will experience extreme anxiety when exposed to it. 

Symptoms of Ancraophobia 

People with Ancraophobia, like in all other specific phobias experience intense anxiety when exposed to wind.

They’re unable to control this anxiety and thus end up feeling more anxious.

This anxiety, in extreme cases, can give rise to full-blown panic attacks.

The sufferer goes into flight or fight mode because of an adrenaline rush.

In this state, the body’s physiological responses help one make decisions when in fear causing situations.

They either decide to escape the situation (flight) or stay and combat their fear (fight).

In the case of Ancraophobia or any other type of specific phobia, the physiological symptoms that are produced when exposed to their fear stimuli (including extreme anxiety) cause the person to escape or avoid that situation.

Sufferers don’t have the courage to fight with their fear because of the unpleasant, terrifying experience the body goes through. 

Apart from anxiety, Ancraophobia has a number of other physiological symptoms which include:

• Extreme anxiety upon an encounter with wind 
• Extreme anxiety when thinking about wind 
• Avoiding wind 
•  Full-blown panic attacks
• Inability to control anxiety
• Muscle tension/tremors
• Hyperventilation
• Increased heart rate
• Feeling dizzy
• Hot/cold flashes when in a flight or fight mode (A hot flash refers to the temporary heating up of the body when in a state of fear. And a cold flash means when the body suddenly starts to shiver or cool down, when encountered by a fear stimulus)
• Migraine
• Nausea
• Upset stomach

Out of these, one should experience at least 3-5 symptoms and anxiety lasting for at least 6-months, to be diagnosed with Ancraophobia. 

Causes of Ancraophobia  

Ancraophobia, like all other specific phobias, has no known cause.

These types of phobias can be a result of a number of factors such as biological (genetics) and or environmental (past experiences or social learning).

Genetics refers to the genes and neurotransmitters in our body.

Someone with a family history of a phobia/mental disorder has a higher chance of having the same or different disorder in the future.

This is because the genes of the parents are transferred to their children, thus any alteration in the genes of one’s parents are transmitted into their child.

 Someone whose parent(s) has Ancraophobia is more likely to have it, as compared to a person who doesn’t have a family history of any disorder.

This genetic tendency to develop a mental disorder/specific phobia can also be referred to as a Diathesis-stress relationship.

According to this, one with a genetic predisposition will not develop symptoms of Ancraophobia until and unless there is some trigger event, instigating anxiety or fear of wind.

Ancraophobia can be developed as a result of other specific phobias. Someone fearful of clouds is very likely to be afraid of wind because of the destruction these two, together can cause.

For example, hurricanes, heavy rain storms with strong winds and or tornadoes. 

An environmental trigger event can be a past-traumatic experience.

For example, someone might have had an accident due to wind may be because of a tree falling on their car/on them, resulting in injuries. Or maybe their parents or loved ones lost their life this way.

Additionally, one can develop Ancraophobia because of news coverage and media reports on the number of accidents that happen due to strong wind/wind storms. 

Therefore, Ancraophobia like all other specific phobias has no definite cause. It can be caused by both genetics and or environmental events.

Treatment of Ancraophobia 

Ancraophobia like all other specific phobias has no exclusive type of treatment that is specifically designed to treat it.

Like all the other specific phobias, Ancraophobia is treated by a number of different therapies including, Exposure Therapy, Cognitive-behavioral Therapy (CBT) and or medications that lower downs the anxiety or other physical symptoms.

• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

It is one of the most frequently used treatments for patients with almost all kinds of mental disorders.

Ancraophobia is defined as the irrational fear of wind. Thus, the therapist helps the patient in replacing these irrational thoughts with more rational ones.

The patients are helped out in analyzing and justifying the way they feel about being exposed to wind.

Therapists assist them in uncovering the reasons behind their fear and later they provide them with alternate, pleasant thoughts.

The patient is told to maintain a thought diary (with ABCD column) which provides them a replacement for every irrational thought they have, when thinking about a particular situation.

The ABCD stands for:

i.      A (antecedents) a situation or triggering event.

ii.     B (belief) the thought that comes to one’s mind when in that triggering situation.

iii.    C (consequences) the symptoms/feelings caused by that event/thought

iv.    D (dispute) alternate, rational thoughts provided by the therapist in an attempt to    dispute/challenge those irrational beliefs.

 This last section of the thought diary is what really plays a role in helping the person feel good/less anxious. 

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

This is another effective therapy used to treat Ancraophobia.

It is more commonly used with people suffering from personality disorders, but is also useful with patients of this specific phobia.

Coping skills are taught in the DBT group which lasts for about 6-months and can have a number of people (depending on how many join the group).

        i. Half-smiling is the first module of DBT. It is a technique that is used with patients who are distressed because of their irrational thoughts.

The technique is known as ‘Half-smiling’ because the person is first advised to think about the stimuli that fears or upsets them, and while doing so they are told to lift the corners of their mouths by subtly smiling.

Smiling is not that will help one get rid of these unpleasant thoughts, it is the person’s ability to constrain itself from thinking about those thoughts while half smiling.

      ii. Mindfulness, the second module, is another technique used in DBT groups which helps the individual in getting rid of those negative thoughts.

Individuals are told to focus on the present and be attentive to what is going on around them at the moment.

This helps in breaking the link between their mind and any negative thought that might come to them then. 

For example, a person is told to focus on his breath or on the sound of the blowing wind, making use of their auditory sense.

     iii. The third technique or module of the DBT is distress tolerance skills. This module teaches people to calm themselves down in healthy ways when they are distressed or emotionally overwhelmed.

Individuals are allowed to make wise, rational decisions and take immediate action, rather than being captured by emotionally destructive thoughts that might make the situation worse.

Reality acceptance skills are also learnt under this model so that people fully accept reality and later make plans on how to address the problem/fearful aspects to it.

• Exposure Therapy

It is one of the most frequently used ways of treating patients with Ancraophobia (or any other kind of specific phobia).

In this therapy, the patient is exposed to the source of his fear over a certain span of time.

To begin with the therapy, the therapist exposes the patient to the least triggering stimuli, a picture of the fear stimuli for example. 

As the therapy progresses and the patient is able to control his anxious feelings, imagery can be used to take the treatment a step further.

In this part of the treatment the patient is asked to visualize/imagine a situation in which he is exposed to wind.

During this process of imagery, one actually feels being in that particular situation or place, experiencing various senses.

 Once the person successfully, without feeling anxious clears this step of the therapy, he is then exposed to real wind, on a windy day for example.

While the patient is being exposed to different intensities of stimuli during the various stages of therapy, the therapist simultaneously teaches them coping exercises.

These include, breathing techniques or muscle relaxation methods to lower their anxiety, when in an actual fear/anxiety causing situation.

This teaches them how to remain calm when exposed to the fear stimuli.

Before actually starting the exposure therapy, the therapist needs to figure out the intensity of the patient’s fear, as to deduce whether they will be able to undergo this treatment, without any physical or psychological harm caused to them during the exposure processes.

However, these steps desensitize one to their fear of wind, by exposing them to that stimuli repeatedly, until they learn to undergo the situation without anxiety/panic attacks.

• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

MBSR is a meditation therapy, used to manage stress or anxiety. It is an 8-week program which includes group sessions.

Mindfulness meditation and Hatha yoga are practiced in these sessions, lectures and group discussions are also done to talk about mental health and increase interactivity.

In mindfulness meditation the person is told to, for example, to focus on the sensations felt while breathing or the rhythm of the chest rising and falling during the process.

This distracts the person’s attention from something stressful to something which is neutral and soothing.

For quick and effective treatment, patients are also given a set of home works, for example 45 minutes of yoga and meditation sessions, 6 days a week and to record their results/feelings in a book or diary for 15 minutes a day.

• Drug Therapy

Drugs are used to reduce the physical symptoms caused by Ancraophobia.

Drugs are very quick in effectiveness, as they start showing progress in the patients’ health at least 2 weeks after the medicine is taken.

This type of biological treatment is usually more effective if the cause of the phobia is only genetic.

However, these drugs/medicines are not to be taken without a doctor’s prescription or consultation.

Two types of drugs are used in the treatment of this phobia:

                    i. Anti-anxiety Drugs

Medicines like Valium are anti-anxiety drugs. They are most commonly used with patients who experience panic attacks and also lowers their anxiety by binding to receptor cells of the brain that cause these unpleasant symptoms.

                   ii.Antidepressant Drugs

These drugs, as the name suggests don’t only treat depression but are also very effective in treating phobias.

Medicines like Lexapro reduce the anxious feelings of a person and makes him feel calm.

They need to be taken on a daily basis but not without a doctor’s advice.

• Yoga/Meditation

They are not just one of the many treatment therapies used for Ancraophobia, instead they are one of the most common ways of relaxation used by many people.

Yoga tends to stimulate the meditative state of one’s mind while a person is in a particular yoga posture.

Through yoga/meditation the mind is diverted towards something more productive and calm, allowing the person to escape the negative, distress causing thoughts.

Out of a number of yoga types, one can benefit from any yoga type/pose they like. Hatha yoga is one of the different types of yoga.

The breathing techniques or the imagery one creates while in a yoga posture are the real factors that makes the person feel less anxious and diverts their mind, away from the thoughts about wind.

Whether the cause of Ancraophobia, or any other type of specific phobia is genetics, environmental or both, the best and the most effective way of treating them is by using a combination of both biological treatments (drugs) with cognitive treatment (for example CBT/exposure therapy).

 Frequently Asked Questions 

Citations 

• https://psychtimes.com/ancraophobia-fear-of-wind/
• https://common-phobias.com/ancrao/phobia.htm
• www.psychologytoday.com
• www.apa.org