Travel Tips for the Nervous Flyer Part II

I've made no secret that I'm afraid of flying. I know that flying isn't most people's favorite activity, but for me, it can be (and has been) panic-inducing. I've been uncomfortable flying for most of my life, but i really crossed the line from "Prefer not to do it" to "avoid it at all costs" when I had a serious panic-attack en route from Atlanta to Houston a few years back. I had all but convinced Ben to rent a car and drive from Houston to Virginia because I just couldn't see how I was going to step foot on a plane again.

We were in Houston for a few days before our flight home, and in that time I worked up the courage to fly back. I was already uncomfortable flying before that experience, but after that it became pretty Pavlovian the way I associate planes with extreme fear and anxiety. As a result, I didn't fly for a couple years (fortunately that didn't hold me back from traveling altogether and instead aben and I went on our most wood road trip ever). My first flight after that flight of terror was a short jaunt to Boston and another, slightly longer flight a few months later to Chicago.

Both went off without a hitch, but I still wasn't ready to become a jet setter any  soon. Then earlier this Ben and I started planning out 5-year anniversary trip and we decided on California. So many baseball games! Big Sur! The Golden Gate Bridge! We planned a perfect trip except for one small detail: flying across the country. 

I've only actually flown across the country once, and that was in high school when I went to Hawaii (with layovers in Detroit and Seattle). Oh and I had a mini panic attack on the flight coming back from Hawaii to Seattle, so you know, not a great track record with flying out west. I was really excited about our trip, but really nervous about flying all that way.

I shared some of my flying tips last November when we went to Chicago, but I wanted to share a few more I acquired this time around. They're mainly geared toward people who get anxious about turbulence; if you're one of those people who stresses about getting to the airport on time or other logistics like that, I can't help ya. Ben is that way; he's all worked up about getting there on time and going through security and finding our gate and boarding, and then he finally relaxed once we get in our seats. Then it's time for me to freak out for the actual flight. We make a great traveling duo. 

Understand what turbulence is (and why it's okay and that it doesn't mean you're going to die). I read this article a couple months ago when Kristen posted it, and I pulled it up on my phone to read on the way to the airport last week. It was written by an experienced pilot who explains not only what turbulence is, but what the plane is actually doing during those times. In case you don't feel like reading the whole thing (although it's definitely worth it), the main takeaways I got were that even in severe turbulence, which can feel like the plan is falling out of the sky, it barely registers on the controls. The dips are maybe 10 or 20 feet, and the most severe aren't even 30 or 40 feet. I put this into perspective by remember that just the day before, I had ridden my bike up and down a 170-foot tall bridge. I wasn't scared coming down from that, so what's 20 or 30 feet compared to 170?

He also mentioned that even though in our minds we tend to think of the pilots in the cockpit fighting to regain control during a turbulent episode, it's actually the opposite. The plane is engineered to naturally return to its original state, and usually does so fairly quickly and easily. Some autopilot devices are even equipped to take away some of the controls and automate the flight even further during those episodes. The point is: sooner or later, the plane will return to normal. It's just a matter of everyone - passengers and crew alike - riding it out.

I don't know about you, but in my head, turbulence lasts forever. When I'm on the ground thinking about my next flight, all I can think about is how I'm going to endure the turbulent agony that will surely last five, ten, thirty minutes, an hour...seriously, I have no concept of how long it actually goes on. I still can't say for sure, but from reading this article, I learned that "several minutes" constitutes a more sever episode. Of course, when you're fearing for your life, several minutes is basically an eternity, but once I realized that on a normal flight id only be going through episodes lasting under a minute, I felt a lot better.

So speaking of this timing thing, here's a lather thing I practiced. Once I realized I'd probably only have a couple minutes of turbulence to deal with, I devised a system: every time it got a little bumpy and I started feeling panicky or uncomfortable, I'd close my eyes and start counting. I took deep breaths to help calm myself down, and I counted: (breathe in) 1-2, (breathe out) 3-4, (breathe in) 5-6, (breathe out) 7-8, and so on. I figured that even in a scary bout of turbulence I still probably wouldn't even make it to 100. Most times I didn't even make it to 10. I did make it up to 100 one time, but it ended shortly after that.

This last suggestion may be a little controversial, and it's one I've made previously but it still applies. Let me just say first that I tend to stay away from medication whenever possible. Aside from the occasional ibuprofen to ward off a headache, I don't take any medication regularly. I don't even take hormonal birth control because I just don't like the idea of putting chemicals in my body. However, desperate times call for desperate measures, and I've found that Xanax is a lifesaver for me on flights. It's not magic cure-all for my anxiety, but it does take the edge off and allow me to think more rationally instead of going to those scary places my mind wants to take me. The biggest benefit is that it makes me pretty drowsy, which allows me to actually get some in-flight shut-eye, which is far and away my favorite way to pass the time. I'm obviously not a doctor and don't want to imply that everyone needs to run out and get a Xanax prescription, but I think it's worth discussing with your doctor.

Lest you think I'm taking the easy, Wetene mediocre way out, I do have one more trick up my sleeve. This one isn't an easy or immediate fix; it's something I've been working on in all aspects of life and, in conjunction with the aforementioned, I've found it to be pretty helpful with my flying phobia. This one's a little hippy dippy, but hear me out. I mentioned in my Sunday Sweetas a couple weeks ago that I had a bad run, the kind where I just wanted to quit a mile into a 7 mile run, and that those types of runs usually put me in a bad place. Lots of negative self-talk, feelings of failure, you know the drill. But that day, instead of letting those thoughts snowball out of control, I was able to recognize them for what they were and work on letting them go. I'm trying to realize that my knee jerk reactions don't have to be my only reactions, and that I don't have to attach feelings (good or bad) to my experiences. Sometimes I can just be. So even though my gut reaction to flying is to be like omgomgomg every time we hit a bump,it doesn't have to be that way. All that feeling does is get me more worked up and more upset. It doesn't do me any good to give into it. I don't have to ignore it completely, but I also don't have to go down the rabbit hole as soon as I have one of those feelings. Armed with the knowledge I have from reading that article, I can go through a bit of turbulence without it rocking my world and putting me on edge for the rest of the flight.