What is Cryophobia? (An Overview)

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

An intense fear of extreme cold is known as Cryophobia.

It is a type of specific phobia which comes under the category of anxiety disorders in the DSM-V.

Sufferers will experience this phobia in different ways.

Someone might be more fearful of cold objects (for example ice), others might be afraid of touching objects they perceive to be cold (for example fridge items). 

In Cryophobia, one experience’s extreme anxiety when exposed to cold objects, ice or frost. They may even have full-blown panic attacks if the anxiety worsens.

Thus, one tends to avoid objects/situations where they might encounter cold objects/weather. 

This avoidance is what maintains one’s fear of cold because of the pleasant feelings it produces by eliminating anxiety.

The body’s response to avoidance justifies the sufferer’s fear to them, that cold is something to be fearful of.

Though, in present time these actions seem as a nice way of managing anxiety, in the long run they can lead to other disorders, OCD for example. 

As the DSM-V suggests, this anxiety and avoidance affects one’s social and occupational functioning.

For instance, one might not be able to live in colder climates and prefer tropical countries.

Others may not be fearful of the winter season, but the objects that turn cold due to frost or low temperatures might instigate anxiety and one will avoid touching them. 

For some, going out of the house in winters can be tough/terrifying whereas, another individual will be hesitant going to school on a bus/car which is cold to touch in winters.

In extreme cases, sufferers will prefer not turning on the air conditioner during summers or drinking/eating cold food items. 

In Cryophobia, this avoidance and extreme anxiety cold causes to one can be because one might be afraid of getting sick or injured due to cold. 

Cryophobia is the irrational fear of extreme cold. It is a part of Frigophobia, which is the fear of cold in general.

The word Cryophobia originated from the Greek word ‘cryo’ meaning icy and ‘phobos’ meaning fear. It is also a type of specific phobia. 

Symptoms of Cryophobia 

As with all the other specific phobias, anxiety is the main symptom of Cryophobia.

This irrational fear is the driving force which encourages sufferers to avoid extreme cold. This avoidance can be stressful because they will put in all their efforts to escape a fearful situation.

As mentioned earlier, this is what affects their social relations and occupations. 

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 Cryophobia or any other type of specific phobia, the physiological symptoms that are produced when exposed to cold (including extreme anxiety) causes 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.   

Including anxiety, Cryophobia also causes a number of other symptoms in the sufferer.

They are as follows: 

• Extreme anxiety in the presence of extreme cold (situation/object)
• Extreme anxiety by just thinking about extreme cold (situation/object) 
• Avoiding extreme cold (situation/object)
• Full-blown panic attacks 
• Inability to handle anxiety 
• Muscle tension/tremors 
• Increased heart rate 
• Inability to breathe properly/increased breathing 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 
• Drying up of mouth 
• Butterflies in the stomach 

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

Causes of Cryophobia 

Cryophobia is a specific phobia, thus it is caused by relatively the same reasons as other phobias.

This irrational fear of extreme cold can be a result of a childhood trauma or unpleasant experience with cold.

For example, a child might have been stuck in a snowdrift or fallen sick by catching cold. 

Other reasons can be for example the association one does of cold (a fairly neutral stimuli) with something emotionally shattering or disturbing.

A child might have lost his parents or one of them because they fell sick due to cold or by having an accident due to frost.

This event might have led him to associate this neutral stimuli (cold) with his parents’ death. Now every time he experiences cold or hears about it, it reminds him of his parents’ loss. 

Another example can be, watching media reports or stats on the adverse effects cold has on people’s lives. 

Childhood experiences are more important and highly discussed in phobias because this the time when most of the people develop fears or phobias due to an unpleasant event.

They might not develop phobia at that age, but the events that led to this fear are more commonly experienced when a child.

This is so because at this age ones’ personality is still developing and the stimuli or events that seem normal or neutral to us might be very emotionally overwhelming to them. 

Thus, the effects of childhood events are long lasting and even a small trigger can produce a phobia, later on in a person’s life. 

Apart from past traumatic events, genetics also plays an important role in the formation of a phobia. 

Someone who has a family history of anxiety disorders or specific phobias has a higher chance of developing Cryophobia than someone who doesn’t.

This is because they are genetically predisposed to develop it.  

Genes and neurotransmitters also play a significant role in this genetic predisposition. 

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 Cryophobia until and unless there is some trigger event, instigating anxiety or fear related to cold.

But it is important to note that there is no definite explanation as of why one develops phobias.

It can be either due to genetics, post traumatic events or both.

Treatment of Cryophobia 

Like all the other specific phobias, Cryophobia 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. 

• Exposure Therapy 

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

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

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

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 encounters extreme cold.

During the 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/she is then exposed to an actual cold object, for example a refrigerated tin. 

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 patients 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 extreme cold, by being exposed to that stimuli repeatedly, until they learn to undergo the situation without anxiety/panic attacks. 

• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) 

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

Cryophobia is defined as the irrational fear of cold/frost. 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 cold.

The 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 (anecdotes) 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 Cryophobia.

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

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 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. 

• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) 

MBSR is a meditation therapy, is 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 for 6 days a week and to record their results/feelings in a book or diary for 15 minutes a day. 

• Yoga/Meditation 

They are not just one of the many treatment therapies used for Cryophobia, 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 pose/position.

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 cold/frost. 

• Drug Therapy 

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

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

These include medicines called as Diazepam.

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

         ii. Antidepressant Drugs

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

Medicines like Zoloft 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. 

Whether the cause of Cryophobia, 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://www.verywellmind.com/cryophobia-understanding-the-fear-of-cold-2671738
• https://psychtimes.com/cryophobia-fear-of-cold/
• www.apa.org
• www.psychologytoday.com