A trip on the subway is a serious stress for many. Especially in the morning, when crowds of people nervously rush to work. But the metro is not only a gloomy crowd, but also a creepy mine with an escalator. Many people feel dizzy and afraid just by looking inside the abyss. The subway is also a train that suddenly emerges from the tunnel and rushes before your eyes. And also this eerie whistling, deafening sound of wheels rubbing against the rails. A crowded subway car. Ominous darkness outside the window. The light going out for a moment along with the feeling that there is nowhere to run. Therefore, it is quite natural that, according to research, more than 60% of subway passengers experience anxiety or outright panic.
Causes of metrophobia and escalaphobia
The fear of the subway is officially called metrophobia. Various simple psychotherapeutic “life hacks”, together with qualified help from a specialist, will help cope not only with it, but also with its frequent companion - fear of escalators (escalaphobia).
Escalaphobia is the fear of going down or going up an escalator. Fear appears:
- if we are afraid of heights, we are terrified: right now we will feel dizzy and fall;
- when we are wary of “relentless unauthorized” machines, we are afraid that we will be “sucked in” as soon as we find ourselves at the bottom or top of the escalator. It is in these places that the steps seem to decrease and disappear;
- because of the all-encompassing fear of falling when we put our foot on “unsteady” moving steps from “solid ground”. This is another typical reason for fear of escalators.
But metrophobia most often occurs in individuals prone to other various fears. The phobia appears:
- if closed spaces make you feel faint. Then we worry: the ceiling of the subway will collapse, a huge mass of earth will bury you alive. Or we are afraid of suffocating in a stuffy carriage;
- if we don’t like darkness, we begin to fear that the light will disappear and the carriage will be enveloped in darkness;
- overly suspicious people, being in space underground, are afraid of terrorist attacks;
- individuals who hate crowds and fuss are afraid that the mass of people will “inadvertently” crush them and push them onto the rails.
In general, fear of the metro is caused by a variety of reasons. For some impressionable individuals, sometimes simply hearing an urban legend about underground “mutant rats” is enough for their consciousness to become filled with irrational fear.
What does a phobia lead to?
This type of phobia cannot be classified as dangerous or deadly, but it significantly complicates life. The patient has to give up a fast and convenient form of transport, he avoids going to large shopping centers, and obsessive thoughts prevent him from concentrating on work and personal life. If a certain point can only be reached by metro, then the patient refuses the meeting and plans. In general, he is constantly looking for alternatives, adapting his life to the phobia.
The second group of consequences is psychosomatic. Chronic stress weakens the immune system and worsens heart function. Constant mental stress is fraught with nervous breakdowns, isolation, depression, and neuroses.
Symptoms of phobias
Metrophobia and escalaphobia are rich in unpleasant symptoms. The most typical is severe panic.
Because of these fears:
- The pulse skips a beat. It’s difficult to breathe intermittently, we’re suffocating;
- we feel very dizzy, spots are dancing before our eyes;
- we sweat terribly, feel hot, chills;
- my legs feel noticeably heavier, as if they had weights attached to them.
If we are afraid of escalators, we may even lose consciousness from severe dizziness. Something like this can easily happen to us in a crowded, stuffy subway car.
How does metrophobia manifest itself?
The main symptoms are avoidance of the object of fear and a panic attack. It is manifested by the following symptoms:
- cardiopalmus;
- labored breathing;
- dyspnea;
- chest pain;
- high blood pressure;
- icing of extremities;
- sweating;
- headache;
- tinnitus;
- dizziness;
- heaviness in the legs;
- chills.
A panic attack can happen on the stairs, in a carriage, on a platform, or when entering the subway. During an attack, a person is afraid of dying, fainting, or going crazy. In advanced stages of the phobia, panic occurs at the mere thought of taking the subway.
Simple ways to get rid of the fear of the subway
The following simple methods and techniques will practically remove the unpleasant fear of the subway and escalaphobia from your life.
We don’t go down the subway feeling hungry or thirsty.
If in the morning before going to work, breakfast is limited to coffee, then, undoubtedly, we dehydrate the body. This will make you feel dizzy, hungry, things that lead to the release of stress hormones. To reduce fear and stress, we will try to have a normal breakfast before “diving” underground.
Conquering escalaphobia - looking forward
To avoid dizziness on the escalator and avoid panic, we try to look anywhere, as long as not deep into the mine. We look at the backs of the passengers' heads and the sloping wall. We can focus on the “lulling” light bulbs floating by.
If we experience discomfort when the escalator is pinched on both sides, we will go down a little to the “bald patch”, where the people are less crowded and stand loosely. Such more or less empty seats are a common occurrence even during rush hour. There the fear will go away.
Deep breathing vs escalator trains
Deep breathing is a real lifesaver against “underground” panic attacks that force you to breathe short and shallow. When we go down the escalator, we ride in a subway car:
- Let's close our eyes, start breathing slowly, evenly;
- Let’s take a deep breath through our nose and count to 4;
- hold your breath for 2 seconds;
- Let's exhale the air very slowly.
Let's repeat the exercise 10-15 times. The result will come instantly, panic and fear of the subway will begin to recede.
Write down your panicky thoughts so they don't seem scary anymore.
We write down various nonsense ideas that make you afraid of the subway. Thoughts about what might be trampled if there is a terrorist attack; people, gripped by panic, will rush to the escalators. About the fact that you will slip and dive onto the subway tracks, and no one will come to your aid.
Then we will read what we wrote down. We will be surprised to see: fears began to seem pitiful, completely unrealistic, even ridiculous. The fear of terrorist attacks, stampedes, and falls, exaggerated by the psyche, began to look trivial and absurd on paper.
Fight your fear of the subway with facts
Do some digging, study the statistics, see how often in the metro:
- get hit by a train;
- electricity disappears;
- There is a stampede and terrorist attacks.
Facts are stubborn things. They say unequivocally: all of the above happens extremely rarely. According to statistics, only one in 25 million people a year is hit by a train. Even lightning strikes more people over a given period of time. People become victims of road accidents ten times more often.
We create an impenetrable shell around ourselves
On the subway, we distract ourselves from fear in all available ways:
- We listen to relaxing music, an exciting audiobook.
- We build Tetris fortresses on the iPhone.
- Texting with a friend using a tablet.
- With curiosity we find out what the person sitting next to us is reading, we look at the appearance and clothes of our fellow travelers.
Let's focus on anything other than fear. It’s also worth putting on dark glasses to build a small psychological wall between us and the outside world with all its horrors.
We stop perceiving fellow travelers as enemies
To ease the fear of the subway and escalators, let’s stop considering fellow travelers as enemies. We will see brothers around who will help us out of trouble. Of course, the gloomy faces of those around you do little to put you in a friendly mood. But we are also gloomy, so we know: this is an ordinary mask. Travel companions are just people with their own problems. In trouble, neither they nor we will abandon them. Such thoughts will help ease anxiety, the feeling that there are “strangers” around, ready to trample.
Treatment of agoraphobia
Correction of manifestations of phobia of open space and crowds of people should be carried out by a psychotherapist or clinical psychologist. This is due to the fact that agoraphobia is essentially a neurotic disorder, that is, a borderline state between health and illness. Drug therapy in most cases only temporarily removes external manifestations, without in any way affecting the causes of fear. Accordingly, when the drugs are discontinued, agoraphobia returns, sometimes in a progressive form. In order to qualitatively draw up a psychotherapy scheme that will allow one to overcome a phobia by using the internal resources of the individual himself, the client must first undergo a psychological diagnosis. Psychotherapy is always individual and may consist of:
- cognitive behavioral therapy;
- neurolinguistic programming;
- Gestalt therapy;
- Ericksonian hypnosis.
A correction plan is developed individually for each client, taking into account the severity, characteristics of manifestation and the reasons that caused agoraphobia. It is optimal to start working with the use of cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, which will help improve a person’s condition after the first treatment. Cognitive behavioral therapy for agoraphobia almost always involves making a list of fearful situations and ranking them depending on the intensity of the fear experienced. Gradually, the therapist immerses the client in frightening situations, starting with the least disturbing ones. This may be a mental recreation of the situation or its actual execution. After a person gains experience in a frightening situation, considers new strategies for coping with it and ceases to feel fear, the specialist immerses him in the next one from the list. Thus, the skill of being in previously frightening situations without feeling fear or anxiety is gradually acquired, which leads to a weakening of the sudden onset of symptoms. To make the process faster and more effective, cognitive behavioral therapy is usually supplemented with:
- muscle relaxation techniques;
- body-oriented therapy;
- meditation and relaxation.
All activities aimed at relieving muscle tension help reduce emotional stress. When psychotrauma is discovered during therapy, deeper psychotherapy techniques are used to treat it. This helps to free oneself from difficult experiences, complete unlived situations, and gain access to the resource potential of a traumatic experience. Therapy for psychological trauma is carried out at the internal personal level, after which a return to behavioral techniques for overcoming fear is possible. A course of psychotherapy for agoraphobia ranges from 10 to 20 sessions, the duration depends on the individual situation of the person seeking psychotherapeutic help. The sooner psychotherapy is carried out, the higher the likelihood of successful social adaptation. Agoraphobia is a rapidly progressive disorder, so waiting for symptoms to disappear on their own can lead to complete social isolation within six months. If you are interested in the treatment of agoraphobia, make an appointment with the specialists of our Center by phone. or fill out the form on the website.
Psychotherapeutic assistance
The above methods, of course, help ease metrophobia and escalaphobia, but they do not completely overcome the problem. A good psychologist can make fear disappear. With the help of Gestalt and behavioral-cognitive therapy, a specialist will get to the bottom of the causes of the phobia. Then, using special techniques, it will help to reconsider the attitude towards objects of fear - escalators, trains, crowds, underground rooms.
To treat a phobia, a hypnologist uses video and audio subway noises to gradually “dull” the client’s unhealthy reaction to these stimuli. When the fear subsides, the person will gradually begin to travel underground. He will do this accompanied by a relative or friend not during rush hour, when there are few people on the subway.
The most effective weapon against metro and escalaphobia is hypnosis. Hypnotherapist-hypnologist Nikita Valerievich Baturin has been successfully eliminating unpleasant fears for many years. The specialist will work through the fear and conduct a series of hypnosis sessions. The client will be instilled with a subconscious attitude to treat the metro simply as an ordinary form of transport. As ordinary and unthreatening as a bus or tram.
Metrophobia and escalaphobia can seriously complicate life, causing you to spend a long time shaking on a bus or trolleybus instead of quickly getting to your destination by subway. Simple psychological life hacks and the help of a highly qualified psychotherapist will make unpleasant horror stories disappear from our lives. We will gradually forget what the fear of the subway is, what this phobia is called. We will boldly step onto the escalator. Moreover, now it’s not just the metro that’s full of them. Favorite shopping centers also offer rides up or down.
Why does metrophobia occur?
Metrophobia, or fear of the subway, occurs in a person as a result of traumatic situations associated with the limitation of space in which he was destined to find himself. In this regard, the very fact of the existence of this type of transport is a provocateur of the shock experienced and a powerful activator of those emotions that arose at the time of the traumatic situation. It is logical to ask the question: “Why exactly does the subway cause such strong fear?” As mentioned above, there are quite a lot of factors in the metro that, in case of emotional instability, contribute to the aggravation of feelings and emotions. Thus, the cause of metrophobia does not lie on the surface.
Self-help for Siderodromophobia:
- First you need to recognize and acknowledge the presence of fear.
- Try to find the cause of fear. Remember everything, starting from childhood, that was connected with trains.
- Don't dwell on your fear, live life to the fullest. Find something you like that will help you distract yourself and diversify your life.
- Try to relax when you see trains in pictures.
- Evaluate the missed opportunities to use transport due to your fear. In the absence of this fear, work could be different, rest in other places.
- Be more confident. Try taking the tram.
- Find someone like you who suffers from the same phobia. By supporting each other and sharing experiences, you can achieve a positive result in treatment.
Without treatment, the problem will not be solved, it will worsen, so it is important to seek help from a psychotherapist for individual therapy.
Causes of fear of trains:
Most often, overly impressionable individuals suffer from this disorder. They are prone to pessimism and focus only on the negative aspects of life.
Any negative event that occurs on railway transport can cause siderodromophobia. It remains in the person’s subconscious, and when similar situations arise on railway transport, a panic attack occurs. Then, not understanding the reasons for his behavior, the person stops using trains. Instead of driving them, he chooses buses, cars, planes. But the less he rides trains, the more he becomes convinced that trains are dangerous.
