Agoraphobia is a type of mental condition in which affected individuals are extremely scared of certain situations such as stage fright becoming highly phobic fear for them. It is a debilitating mental illness but what if we said there is a good availability of agoraphobia treatment? Let’s talk about it in the words below while we will also be talking about agoraphobia self-care in conjunction with agoraphobia therapies.

Defining Agoraphobia

It’s an anxiety disorder that is essentially categorized by overwhelming feelings or fear of not being able to find an escape from and getting stuck in certain situations. These are literally panic attacks because of this relentless fear, affected individuals are afraid of going out, participating in gatherings, and even suffer from extended bouts of social anxiety disorder. They tend to avoid places that introduce them to new places and unfamiliar situations such as:

• Crowded spaces
• Extremely large and open spaces, especially the ones that are enclosed
• Public transport such as buses or trams
• Almost everything outside their home

It is not uncommon to have panic attacks in it and that is why at times, Agoraphobia often co-occurs with a panic disorder, another mental illness that is able to mimic the effects of a heart attack such as heart palpitations, racing heart, and sweating but this time due to excessive anxiety. About a third of people who have panic disorder tend to develop agoraphobia but agoraphobia also can occur alone. About 1.7 people in the world tend to have agoraphobia (Balaram & Marwaha, 2011). Symptoms such as chest pain or rapid heart rate, shaky feeling, trouble breathing, and lightheadedness among other things show up in people with agoraphobia around when they are young adults or adolescents making the need for agoraphobia treatment critical.

Read More: Beyond the Basics: Unfolding the Mystery of Specific Phobia

Risk Factors Of Agoraphobia

It is important to know what are the risk factors of agoraphobia before we get into agoraphobia treatments because this way you will know when these exacerbating symptoms will lead to worsening conditions of Agoraphobia:

• Having persistent panic attacks.
• You respond to panic attacks with excess fear and apprehension.
• You have other phobias in conjunction with agoraphobia, for example, specific phobia.
• Experiencing stressful life events, especially trauma such as the death of a loved one, assault, or abuse
• Being sensitive to anxiety or having other anxiety disorders in parallel such as OCD.
• Having a family history of agoraphobia.

How to Treat Agoraphobia?

There are a couple of agoraphobia therapies and agoraphobia self-care techniques that can help with treating agoraphobia. Let’s start with the agoraphobia self-care techniques as a way to start agoraphobia treatment.

Agoraphobia Self-Care Treatments

It is also great to learn more about your affliction and its symptoms but it can also be beneficial to learn more about how and when they attack and what are the associated triggers, so you can control the symptoms in a much better way.

• Take Two

Giving yourself time when a panic attack arises can go a long way for you. For example, you were working when the panic attack arose, you just stop whatever you are doing, no matter how important it might be for you, don’t fight the panic attack and let it slide in. If it’s a crowded or open space that you are in, just sit where you are instead of running to a safe space that you perceive might help.

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• Breathe in and out, slowly

You can do it this way or even try other breathing exercises. Breathing fast always exacerbates a panic attack, especially when it’s a panic attack stemming from agoraphobia. Trying to focus on slow, deep breathing while counting slowly to 3 on each breath in and out.

• Create a visualization of your safe space

You can try to resist the panic attack when you can create a visualization of something that makes you feel safe and not only that but it also makes you feel peaceful, relaxed, or at ease. This way you are able to push the negative thoughts away and by proxy, you are also batting down the panic attack in the process. It is one of the best ways to start agoraphobia treatment.

• Do not fight the attack

It can also make someone with a panic attack more oblivious to the fact that these panic attacks will get worse if someone tries to fight them. Instead of fighting the panic attack, accept that it is not life-threatening but essentially an overwhelming response to an irrational thought process. Forget that it is embarrassing or dissuade yourself from thinking that these are difficult to deal with.

• Bring about lifestyle changes

Also, another one of the best ways to start an agoraphobia treatment is to make lifestyle changes, which are not only beneficial for your physical health but also work well as agoraphobia therapy. These are some of the greatest examples: getting regular exercise helps relieve stress and tension and improve your mood, having a healthy diet helps maintain a healthy, balanced diet and weight in addition to overall health, avoiding substance abuse even if they may provide short-term relief, but in the long term they can make symptoms worse and avoiding drinks that contain caffeine, such as tea, coffee or cola as caffeine has a stimulant effect and can make your symptoms worse. If these can help with treating a mood disorder then certainly it can help with this one.

Read More: What’s The Difference Between A Mood Disorder And A Personality Disorder?

Medical-Induced Agoraphobia Treatment

There are certain ways that agoraphobia treatment can be induced medically but the following two are some of the most prominent ones: psychiatric medication management and psychotherapy.

Psychiatric medication management

It is a monitored version of the medication where experts first prescribe related medication. Examples of medication for agoraphobia include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) as these medications which are often used for treating depression, can also essentially be used as a form of agoraphobia treatment. SSRIs induce treatment processes via chemical changes in the brain. An SSRI called sertraline is usually recommended for people with agoraphobia. In addition to SSRIs, anti-anxiety medication such as Benzodiazepines can also help in dealing with agoraphobia and is a great way to answer a question like how to help someone with agoraphobia!

Psychotherapy

Talk therapy, which is another name for psychotherapy can also be used in conjunction with medication for treating agoraphobia. It involves working with a therapist to set goals and learn practical skills to reduce your anxiety symptoms. One of the greatest examples of psychotherapy is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT is based on the idea that unhelpful and unrealistic thinking leads to negative behavior which experts try to focus on via short-term and goal-based sessions with a patient.

Read More: Coping Mechanisms For Depression: Practical Strategies To Help You Navigate

Conclusion

It’s everything about agoraphobia treatment and we hope we have descriptively answered questions such as “How to overcome agoraphobia?”, “Can agoraphobia be cured?”, or

“How to get over agoraphobia?”. Be it agoraphobia therapies or self-care techniques, we have them available at Orange Coast Psychiatry. If it is something else you are looking for, for example, flexible treatment like telehealth psychiatry for an ailment like bipolar disorder, then we’ll still be at your service.