In the wake of several recent airplane crashes and near-incidents involving commercial flights over the past few months, your fear of flying may understandably be spiking. Here are some ways to help maneuver any anxiety that might be holding you back from using one of the safest modes of transportation there is.
Before even boarding an airplane, explore your phobia’s emotional origins. “This might involve understanding past experiences on turbulent flights, hearing stories as a child that exacerbated your fear, or related beliefs that may have contributed to the fear,” Jenny Maenpaa, a licensed clinical social worker and founder of the New York City Psychotherapy Collective, said to Travel and Leisure. Deeper introspection can “reveal hidden triggers,” and “confronting these through psychodynamic therapy that brings the past into the present can be transformative.”
Try exposure therapy
An effective means of overcoming more extreme cases of aerophobia is “through gradual exposure and learning how to calm your nervous system,” Abrah Sprung, a licensed clinical psychologist, said to Travel and Leisure. You can begin slowly, by “watching videos of planes taking off” before visiting an airport and “build up to taking a flight.” Facing your fear retrains your brain to respond with “confidence instead of panic.”
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Enlisting a therapist who specializes in treating phobias through exposure therapy can be highly effective because it involves gradually “exposing people to the source of their fear in a safe and controlled environment,” psychologist Shmaya Krinsky said to Time. Virtual reality can also play a helpful role in administering exposure therapy, he added.
Know the facts
Commercial planes remain mostly safe, recent headlines aside. Midair collisions could be a pilot’s biggest fear. Still, it is important to remember that midair collisions make such big news because they are rare, said Martin O’Loughlin, president and chief operating officer of Cornerstone Aviation, an FAA-authorized flight school, to the Los Angeles Times. In almost every case, the “design of the airspace and the rules that the FAA uses to design arrivals and departures is very, very good,” said O’Loughlin, acknowledging that more planes flying and fewer air traffic controllers have put a strain on the industry. It is hard to “build an impenetrable wall against our fears, but you don’t have to latch onto those fears and dwell on them.”
Avoid certain triggers
Certain elements can exacerbate your anxiety, even if you think they would help. Unfortunately, “alcohol and sugar are not the solutions to anxiety,” said Erin Weinstein, a hypnotherapist and psychotherapist, to Travel and Leisure. It may be hard to accept, but “consuming a drink or sugary food before a flight can actually increase your anxiety despite providing temporary relief.” Alcohol and sugar cause your blood sugar levels to spike. That spike “leads to your heart racing.” The “jittery sensation you experience may feel like panic,” but it is “just your body reacting to what you’ve consumed,” Weinstein said. If you struggle with flight anxiety, you may start to associate this “jittery” feeling with flying, “potentially triggering a spiral of distressing thoughts.”
Take a deep breath
If you find yourself actively dealing with anxiety, gain control of your breathing through “slowing inhalation through the nose and exhalation through the mouth,” said National Geographic. Multiple rhythms or breathing techniques could work, but “the key is to slow the breathing rate and focus on a pattern.” Controlled breathing “kickstarts the body’s relaxing mechanisms, as the slower pace helps re-regulate heart rate and temperature.”
Adding focused patterns “allows for what is commonly called grounding in psychotherapy, or the ability to connect to the present moment.” The controlled breathing allows the “mind to remain in the present where we are free from the outcomes we are worried about,” neuroscientist Brian Ramos said to National Geographic. Anxiety is “oriented to future outcomes. They are not happening right now.”
