Why are we afraid of the dark?

More people than you might think fear what might lurk beyond the shadows

Kashmira Gander
Monday 22 February 2016 16:17 GMT
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Cowering underneath your duvet after lights-out as you try to convince yourself that the knocks and gurgling of the radiator are not coming from a monster may be a familiar childhood memory - but fear of the dark lingers into adulthood for many people.

A YouGov survey of 2,000 adults by Go Glow found that 40 per cent were scared of walking around their house in the dark. A further one in 10 said they were so scared of darkness that they would not use the toilet at night.

However, being scared of the dark isn't as wholly irrational as it may seem.

Known as nyctophobiam, the feeling of dread caused by being in darkness is essentially a form of anxiety. The reptilian part of the brain is to blame for such distressing emotions, from the fear of heights and potentially dangerous animals to the terror buttons can cause some people.

Fears are hardwired into the brain in one of three ways: by observing and learning the fears of others as a child; from a traumatic experience, like being attacked by a dog; or by a process known as anchoring, where a person has a fright and the brain links a nearby object to the feeling of fear.

Such experiences plant the seeds of phobias, and cause sufferers to be cast into “fight or flight” mode when they encounter their fear.

Not only inconvenient, a fear of the dark has also been linked to trouble sleeping at night, according to researchers.

A team at the Ryerson University Sleep and Depression Lab conducted a small study which lead them to believe that this may be because those who are able to sleep easily are more accustomed to noise over time, while those afraid of the dark are more likely to anticipate sounds, according to the British Psychological Society.

Taryn Moss Ryerson University Sleep and Depression Lab said at the time: "As treatment providers, we assume that poor sleepers become tense when the lights go out because they associate the bed with being unable to sleep."

But be warned if sleeping with the light on is your coping mechanism. Researchers at Ohio State University found that sleeping with the light on can be bad by affecting brain structure and raising the risk of depression, according to Stylist.

Professor Colleen Carney of the Ryerson team told the magazine that, as with many fears, exposure therapy is the simplest solution.

"You go into the situation, you take stock of what level of anxiety you have, and then you just wait If nothing bad happens, the anxiety will abate. It might take a while, but it eventually does," she said.

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