- Here's a bonus for you.
Peladophobia, the fear of bald people.
Fear is a natural emotion that we all experience.
It's an evolutionary trait that has helped humans understand
and avoid danger for thousands of years.
But for some, their fear becomes a phobia,
an anxiety disorder that causes them to be
persistently fearful of an object or situation.
And while some are quite common, like arachnophobia,
because spiders are God's mistake,
others are beyond irrational and straight-up weird,
so today I gathered the absolute strangest phobias
that people have, and yes, these are all real.
So here they are, 10 extremely bizarre phobias
people actually have.
Number one is ablutophobia.
Taking a bath is a relaxing activity
that many people enjoy, but not everyone feels that way.
People with ablutophobia have an abnormal
and unwarranted fear of bathing, washing,
or cleaning themselves, in general, ugh.
Statistically, more women and children suffer
from this phobia than men,
although children generally grow out of it.
Faced with bathing, ablutophobes will show
common phobia responses, such as
panic, shortness of breath,
and they will go above and beyond to avoid the bath.
In other words, try to get them in the bath
and they'll go mental on you.
This phobia's been around for a long time,
in fact, the film Psycho, from 1960, was one of
the earliest horror films to effect its audience with
this type of phobia, after the famous shower murder scene.
For anyone affected by this, I have a simple cure.
Just do what I do, lay back with some scented candles
and a Celine Dion record playing-
I mean, only take a shower, because showers are for men.
Yeah.
Number two is philophobia.
Some people
♫ Stop in the name of love ♫
And other people get utterly crippled in fear by it.
People with philophobia have a strong, unwarranted,
and persistent fear of falling in love.
This fear can evolve from a horrible experience
from a past love or relationship,
leading to the desire to be secluded from others.
In many cases, religions with pre-arranged marriages
can lead to the development of this phobia.
It's affected many people over the years,
most notably Queen Elizabeth I of England,
who was believed to be philophobic.
Throughout her reign, she had many suitors court her,
but things never developed into marriage or any sort
of serious commitment.
It's believed that her fear stemmed from her mother,
Anne Boleyn, and her cousin, who were executed for love.
Man, but love is so sweet!
How could anyone ever be afraid of love?
(scary music)
Number three is hypnophobia.
If you thought Nightmare on Elm Street was scary,
just imagine a little, tiny Freddy Krueger in your mind,
waiting to terrorize you every night.
Hypnophobia is the irrational and excessive fear of sleep.
It can stem from a feeling of loss of control,
repeated nightmares, or the desire to take back
the time you lose while sleeping.
This is an especially dangerous phobia
because it can cause sleep deprivation,
which disrupts your brain function,
weight, and coordination.
Now avoiding sleep completely is impossible,
as brief microsleeps cannot be avoided.
However, the extended absence of deep sleep
can cause death.
Those with this phobia can only sleep
for brief periods at a time,
which ultimately causes a severe degrading
of one's quality of life.
Hey, sleeping is an ordeal for me too.
Not because I can't, but because it's so hard
to get out of bed in the morning.
Everything is so warm and snuggly.
The struggle is real.
Number four is heliophobia.
It's not just vampires.
Yes, now you too can be deathly afraid of the sun.
Heliophobia is the fear of the sun, sunlight,
or for that matter, any bright light.
Often stemming from a severe sunburn,
this phobia also has people removing themselves
from sunlight due to its connection to skin cancer.
Other medical conditions, such as eye and skin sensitivity
to light can also lead people to develop this phobia.
In pop culture, the fear of light has become
a tell-tale sign of supernatural creatures, such as
orks, vampires, and ghosts, although
the real-life implications of this phobia
are anything but fiction.
This phobia can be combated through exposure therapy
and talk therapy, although until they are cured,
those affected by it have to take large amounts
of Vitamin D supplements.
I'm not so much a heliophobe as I am an internet lover.
I just...
I don't get outside much.
Number five is ecophobia.
Remember being afraid of the monster
in your closet as a kid?
Well, just imagine your entire house is that closet.
Yeah.
Ecophobia is the fear of a home or the contents of a home.
In 1808, the poet Robert Southey first used the term
to describe his desire to leave home and travel.
His usage for the term, as a synonym for wanderlust,
became quite popular among other 19th century writers
and thus the term for the phobia stuck.
Then in 2004, research determined that this phobia
is an adolescent mindset that eventually passes.
You know, leaving home is something
that we all have to do eventually.
Especially when you get a coupon for 2-for-1 Big Macs.
You don't question that, you just run towards it.
Number six is trypophobia.
To us, they're just holes.
To them, it's pure fear.
Trypophobia is the pathological fear of objects
with irregular patterns of holes, such as ant hills,
bee hives, and lotus seed heads.
There are thousands of people who claim to have this phobia
with websites and even Facebook pages dedicated to it.
Although to be fair there's Facebook pages dedicated
to everything nowadays.
No, I don't want to like your page dedicated
to how much you like cheese.
Those who suffer from this feel physically sick
or even pass out at the sight of holes.
Interestingly, despite the number of people claiming
to have this phobia, it is not officially recognized
as a condition by the American Psychiatric Association.
It's believed that sufferers may develop this condition
based on past negative experiences with holes.
Oh, I could think of one.
Plot holes in movies.
God, those tick me off.
Number seven is pogonophobia.
Oh, yes, the beard is on fleek today.
Look at that, yes.
Well, if you're still here, congrats!
You don't have this.
Very simply, pogonophobia is the fear of beards.
In the United States, no president has worn a beard
since the 1800s.
Part of the reason for this is that it's believed
that sporting a beard is bad for one's political career,
which is partly attributed to this phobia,
albeit in a minor way.
Those who suffer from this phobia believe
that beards reflect a suspicious streak
of individuality and defiance.
This also partly explains why professionals
risk their reputations if they abandon their razor.
Being afraid of beards is completely irrational.
However, being afraid of handlebar moustaches
and mutton chops is perfectly understandable,
as those always insight pistol duels.
Number eight is neophobia.
This fear generally manifests in the elderly,
along with their complete loss of driving skills.
Neophobia is the fear of new things or experiences.
However, in its milder form can manifest
as an unwillingness to try new things
or break away from routine.
It can also be used to describe anger, frustration,
or trepidation towards new things
or towards change in general.
So if you're one of those people that hates change,
that means you.
This phobia leads to a conservative
and reactionary personality and can cause depression
due to a lack of change in one's life.
i.e., things become boring.
A more specialized version of this phobia is technophobia,
which is more specific to fearing new technology.
Food neophobia is quite common in toddlers
and young children, who have a fear of trying
new and unfamiliar foods.
I'd say it's safe to assume that people with this phobia
hate the internet because it's all new, all the time.
Reddit must be their version of the boogeyman.
Number nine is nomophobia.
You can have my phone when you pry it out of my
cold, dead hands.
Nomophobia is the fear of being out
of mobile phone contact, or in other words,
no access to a mobile phone.
The terms nomophobia is actually
an abbreviation for no mobile phone phobia,
which was created during a study in 2010
by the UK Post Office.
A UK research company called YouGov looked into
the anxieties that mobile phone users suffer
and found some pretty interesting statistics.
They found that over 53% of mobile phone users
suffer severe anxiety if they lose their phone,
lose network coverage, or run out of batteries.
The stress level that some feel from nomophobia
can be quite severe and can be
the equivalent amount of stress as a trip to the dentist
or even wedding day jitters.
I'm not ashamed to admit it, I am one of these people.
If my phone's battery dips below 80%,
I have a slight aneurysm.
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
And number 10, panphobia.
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Kind of like that.
Those who suffer from panphobia
have a vague and persistent dread of some unknown evil.
In other words, they're afraid of everything.
The term was created in 1911 by psychologists
and was defined more broadly as a state where patients
fear absolutely everything.
Academic literature has pointed out that panphobia
may be a piece of a larger and more complex state
of mental disorder.
This broad fear has also been linked to those who suffer
from generalized anxiety disorder.
A 2011 film, The Fantastic Fear of Everything
plays around with this phobia with its central character,
played by actor Simon Pegg.
Since those who have this fear fear everything,
do they fear the fear of everything?
Woah, meta.
And that's it for this video, guys.
If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out
the new video by my friends AsapSCIENCE called
Can You Be Scared to Death?
It explores the evolutionary history of fear
and the psychologist reason that you can die from fear.
Not only are they good friends of mine,
but they make amazing content that I think you guys
are really going to love, so if you want to check them out,
click the annotation on the screen
or the link in the description.
I hope you guys have a great day and I will see you later
on my social media and on my second channel.
I love you guys.
Peace.
(electronic music)