Needle Phobia

Practically anyone can experience needle phobia. The correct medical name is trypanophobia – an irrational and often intense fear of hypodermic needles or injections – though it is regularly labeled belonephobia; this term is incorrect since it denotes a fear of pins and needles, without reference to the medical aspects.

If you suffer from one or some of these symptoms whenever you begin to think about a needle, then there is the chance you have to some degree, a needle phobia.

 

• Shortness of breath
• Heart palpitations or accelerated heart rate
• Chest pain or discomfort
• Sweating
• Nausea
• Dizziness or light-headedness
• Fear of loss of control
• Hot or cold flashes
• Fear of fainting
• And, even a fear of dying in some cases

 

The first important thing you need to know

The first important thing you need to know is that fear of needles is a learned behavior and this means that it is something you can overcome. People are born with only two built-in fears and they are the fear of sudden loud noises and the fear of falling. All the other fears are learned behaviors and because of this, you can overcome the fear. Your brain is a learning machine that works constantly trying to make sense of the world and to protect you. Because conscious thinking takes time and in some situations, a second or two thinking could make the difference between danger and safety your brain is designed to learn and protect you. So if it has learned a fear rather than being a conscious process it is something that runs at an unconscious level or in other words rather than thinking about it you just do it. And although in many situations this is very useful there are some situations where you need to be able to over-ride the learned response.

 

How to overcome the fear of needles?

 

In order to overcome your fear of needles, you need to do several simple things to overcome the fear and teach your brain a new response. Generally, the majority of people with a fear of needles can overcome the fear or phobia in just a couple of appointments and in some cases just one appointment. What we are looking to do is break the old learned response and to create a new more useful response.

When someone has a fear of needles particularly a strong fear it’s not uncommon to find that everything about how they think about it and perceive it is built around and on the idea of being scared. And unfortunately by doing that they are unwittingly re-enforcing their own fear. Most people with a fear of needles don’t wait until the injection is being done to start feeling scared. Typically they will start feeling afraid of hours, days, or weeks in advance. Now if you think about it if you are feeling anxious before the injection has started then obviously it’s actually not the needle causing it. That would be like the food making you feel sick before you eat it.

 

The first thing you have to do

 

So the first thing is to start paying attention to how you are thinking about it. Because we all have thoughts going through our minds all day long most people are consciously unaware of how they are thinking about things. Many people reading this will be hearing the words inside their heads as they read. We all think things to ourselves inside our head but have you ever taken the time to notice how you are thinking about something and whether your internal dialogue sounds calm and relaxed or anxious? When you think about having an injection do you imagine yourself there being calm and relaxed, anxious, or even panicky? Do you see yourself there in your mind’s eye picturing what things may look like or do you see what you’d see through your own eyes in the experience?

No matter how you are thinking about it they are your thoughts. And because they are your thoughts you can change how you think about needles.

 

Your brain responds literally

 

Your brain responds very literally. So if you are making scary pictures inside your mind your brain will respond to those images. The bigger they are and the more realistic they look the stronger the emotional response generated by your neurology. Also looking at them from the perspective of what it would look like in the experience, in other words, what you’d actually see through your own eyes in the experience will produce a stronger emotional response compared to watching yourself there from the perspective of what you’d see if someone had videoed it and you were watching it back on TV. Now notice what happens when you not only watch yourself there but also reduce the size of the image, put a border or frame around the image, make the colors look faded, and drain the detail out. What’s happened to the feelings that were associated with that image? Obviously there is a bit more to it than this but the important thing to realize is that your fear of needles isn’t who you are it’s something you do. Its behavior and behaviors can be changed quicker than you may think.