A phobia is when someone experiences irrational dread about a specific situation or object, like a fear of heights or spiders. Coping with phobias is an opportunity to improve your quality of life.

Fear is a basic human emotion designed to protect us. Most of today’s phobias are based on things that posed as significant threats to our ancestors – fear of spiders, falling off a cliff, wild animals, or strangers who weren’t part of our tribe.

While those phobias served our predecessors, they don’t serve us in modern-day life. Phobias don’t have anything to do with your life being in immediate peril, but your mind doesn’t know that. This can become a problem when the phobia strikes a terror so deep inside you that you can no longer function normally in your daily life.

Unfortunately, men tend to avoid the source of their phobia, which feeds an unhealthy cycle of avoidance that makes the phobia worse. The good news is that most phobias can be unlearned. If you find your phobias are interfering with your everyday life, it’s time to get help.