Learned fears Spiders, snakes, the dark – these are called natural fears, developed at a young age, influenced by our environment and culture.

METHIONYLTHREONYLTHREONYGLUTAMINYLARGINYL … All told, the full chemical name for the human protein titin is 189,819 letters, and takes about three-and-a-half hours to pronounce. The problem with including chemical names is that there’s essentially no limit to how long they can be.

45 letters

A negative or past traumatic event can also trigger a deep fear of oceans. Traumatic experiences of being frightened while swimming, or almost drowning are also leading causes of thalassophobia.

Signs you may have a phobia include:

1. being excessively fearful of a situation or object on an ongoing basis, for six months or more.
2. feeling an intense need to avoid or escape from the feared situation or object.
3. experiencing panic or distress when exposed to the situation or object.

What is a phobia? Almost everyone has an irrational fear or two—of spiders, for example, or your annual dental checkup. For most people, these fears are minor. But when fears become so severe that they cause tremendous anxiety and interfere with your normal life, they’re called phobias.

Treating phobias Almost all phobias can be successfully treated and cured. Simple phobias can be treated through gradual exposure to the object, animal, place or situation that causes fear and anxiety. This is known as desensitisation or self-exposure therapy.

There are three types of phobia: social phobia, agoraphobia, and specific phobia. Symptoms, or phobic reactions, may be psychological, such as an intense feeling of unease or foreboding; physical, such as crying or gastrointestinal distress; or behavioral, which includes a wide variety of avoidance tactics.

What are the top 10 Phobias

• Arachnophobia: The fear of spiders.
• Ophidiophobia: The fear of snakes.
• Acrophobia: The fear of heights.
• Agoraphobia: The fear of situations in which escape is difficult.
• Cynophobia: The fear of dogs.
• Astraphobia: The fear of thunder and lightning.
• Trypanophobia: The fear of injections.