Following the popular Netflix release of The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window, in which the main character has ombrophobia, searches for the phobia spiked up to 60.5k from 3,000 the previous month.
The NHS classifies a phobia as a type of anxiety disorder characterised by an overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. Between 1st April 2020 and 31st March 2021, there were 24,475 referrals in England for patients seeking therapy on the NHS for phobias (3,546 for agoraphobia (fear of being unable to escape a situation), 16,629 for social phobias and 4,300 for specific phobias). But an estimated 10 million people in the UK have phobias.
Wellness and CBD brand Love Hemp has compiled a list of page view counts of some of the most unusual phobia entries on Wikipedia.
Hollywood films and TV programmes have long delved into more common fears, from Hitchcock’s 1963 classic The Birds centring around ornithophobia (fear of birds) right up to 2017’s American Horror Story: Cult featuring imagery prompting a repulsion of small holes in some viewers.
Do you share these phobias?
Orlando Bloom has swinophobia (fear of pigs), while Kendall Jenner reportedly has trypophobia (fear of repeating patterns). Nicole Kidman is famously terrified of butterflies, also known as lepidopterophobia, and Johnny Depp has previously revealed his coulrophobia (fear of clowns).
Other little known Wikipedia phobia entries include 170 page views of acousticophobia (the fear of noise), 150 views for agryophobia (the fear of crossing streets) and only 230 readers reading about aphenphosmphobia (the fear of being touched).
CBD to treat phobias
Research shows a natural link regarding the use of cannabidiol for phobia treatment. According to Love Hemp founder Tony Calamita, there is a growing trend for CBD to support phobia treatment.
While CBD has been recently combined with exposure therapy to help treat phobia-related anxiety, it has also been shown to help those with social anxiety who had never received treatment before.
According to a 2011 study of generalised social anxiety disorder participants, published by the American College of Neuropsychology, a single 600mg dose of CBD before a public speaking test significantly reduced anxiety, cognitive impairment and discomfort in their speech performance.
CBD works in harmony with your endocannabinoid system to support the body’s essential functions, interacting with the cannabinoid receptors, which help to balance our mood, sleep and even appetite.
Love Hemp founder, Tony Calamita, explains how adding CBD to your daily routine may help to support a surge of anxiety after facing a phobia: ‘Adding CBD to your night-time routine can have a calming effect on the mind and body which can help us to unwind after a stressful situation. Placing just a couple of drops of CBD oil under the tongue at bedtime is the perfect way to help reduce anxiety and regulate the body.’
While there is no current Wikipedia entry for ombrophobia (fear of rain), Love Hemp’s research of the search volumes of phobias highlights this recent spike in the curiosity of Netflix viewers.
