We all love to sit alone or with our loved ones in open ground or open places and watching the sky and clouds, where the cold wind passes upon us.

But have you ever wondered that there are people also who have fear from cloud this condition is defined as Nephophobia. Today we are going to discuss neophobia and related information about nephophobia.

What Is Nephophobia?

Nepho means “Cloud” and Phobia means “Fear”. So word neophobia means fear of the cloud. Anything we fear is defined as a phobia. The word nephophobia arrived from greek.

This condition is very rare and those people who suffer from nephophobia can develop serious conditions like anxiety, Fright-Or-Fight response, and other physical symptoms.

What Are The Symptoms Of Nephophobia?

There are plenty of symptoms that may occur in nephophobia, which includes physical as well as mental symptoms also.

It is not mandatory that two people having nephophobia can suffer from the same symptoms. The symptoms may vary from person to person according to their nature and body response.

Symptoms of nephophobia include

• Extreme fear or excessive anxiety when they see clouds or at cloud sight
• Sometimes fight or flight responses may lead to overpowering in some cases due to more release of adrenaline.
• Dryness of mouth at the sight of cloud or by thinking of cloud
• Nausea or Vomiting at the sight of cloud or by thinking of cloud
• Sometimes more physical symptoms lead to tremors
• Increase in heartbeat and palpitation when they think of clouds and seeing clouds.

These are some most common symptoms seen in people with nephophobia, but some people also can suffer from some different or additional symptoms also according to their nature and body response, and mental health.

Causes For Nephophobia

There are no exact causes for nephophobia, but some studies have been done to find out what causes nephophobia.

Sometimes genetics plays a major role and can come from parents to their child, as long as you remember the condition.

According to some surveys, nephophobia occurs due to weather-related incidents or some other factors which trigger the phobia. For example, there are some people who fear Strom and if they see clouds appear similar to stormy weather they start to get fear from it without Strom.

Some people have passed from bad incidents which may also trigger the phobia if it is related to the cloud.

Sometimes exposure to extreme bad stormy weather, hurricane, a thunderstorm can also cause mental effects and leads to nephophobia.

Some people do not actually have nephophobia but they have fear of flying objects like UFOs or other things, and if they see towards sky and cloud appears in the shape of UFOs or other flying things then they may suffer from symptoms of nephophobia.

So here are some causes which may lead to this condition, there may be other causes also but we have limited information about causes for nephophobia. The additional causes are astrophobia, nyctophobia, etc.

Diagnosis Of Nephophobia

If you are dealing with symptoms of nephophobia then you should first tell your physician about your fears and your response according to them.

Or if you have a condition due to any incident or after exposure to certain weather and mental affection you should have to consult a mental health specialist or psychiatrist for treatment.

There are not specific physical tests or particular tests for the diagnosis, but after series of questioning and some sitting your consultant will help you to determine if you have nephophobia or not.

Once your diagnosis is confirmed then the physician can help you to treat or coping up with your phobia.

Treatment For Nephophobia

There is no specific treatment or medicine available for this condition as it is related to the mental aspect of the patient. But certain things like talk therapy, exposure therapy, EDMR therapy, and some medication can help to treat and reduce the complaints.

What Is Exposure Therapy In Nephophobia?

According to the website Mayoclinic, Exposure therapy can be great to treat people with this condition. Exposure therapy can help the person to cope up with the phobia.

This therapy is not based on not finding the cause of the phobia. The main principle of exposure therapy is “ Gradual exposure of the person to his/her phobia to coping up with phobic condition”. This helps a person to remove the fear of a particular thing and help to deal with the phobia.

For nephophobic person exposure therapy should start with thinking about clouds first then transient looking at clouds or images or pictures of the clouds. Then gradually you can expose a person outside to clouds to deal with the phobia.

Note: This therapy is only used by a trained physician or consultant and psychiatrist.

Medication For Nephophobia

There is no specific medications available for this condition, but if there is fight or flight conditions occurs with the patient then Beta-blockers can be prescribed as it inhibits the action of adrenaline.

Adrenaline is the hormone responsible for the fight or flight response of the body, thus Beta-blockers are useful to inhibit its action. Some physicians prescribed sedatives to inhibit the trigger of phobia but nowadays usage of sedatives is prohibited by so many physicians. As it can be addictive.

Conclusion

Summing up this article by adding the last few lines to it. Here we have discussed a very rare condition called nephophobia. If you have any doubts or questions regarding please let us know in the comment section.

Also, you can read our health-related blogs, Mental health-related blogs.