Tips for Travel Anxiety: Manage Your Flying Phobia with Therapy

The fear of flying, also known as aerophobia, is one shared by roughly 20 million Americans, so if you’re not a fan of plane rides, you’re definitely not alone. Just the thought of getting on an airplane is too much for some, which may lead to total avoidance of air travel altogether.

Even if you haven’t had issues with flying in the past, you may find yourself anxious about getting on a plane again, especially after a particularly bad experience or from learning about recent air accidents from the news.

What causes fear of flying, and is it treatable? Can you ever wholly rid yourself of this life-restricting phobia? Keep reading to learn more about aerophobia, plus get helpful tips for reducing travel anxiety and getting the right kind of flying phobia counseling.

Causes of Aerophobia

If you’re considering therapy for a flying phobia, one major travel anxiety tip is to get to the bottom of what causes your fear of flying.

According to Trauma Research UK, aerophobia (and all types of phobias) is a learned behavior, not genetic. The charitable organization identifies four factors that can ultimately lead to this phobia, namely:

• A bad experience, like turbulence or airsickness during a flight, scary movies about flying or plane crashes, learning about recent or frequent air crashes, or even witnessing others’ episodes of aerophobia.
• Copying a parent or guardian who experiences aerophobia, as children often take their cues from those they see as their protectors—fearing what they fear.
• Becoming a parent, as your protective instinct allows you to become more aware of dangers you may have taken for granted in the past.
• Transference, which can happen in a few ways:
  • If you experience trauma while traveling, but are not able to process your feelings immediately, your anxiety and stress can catch up to you on the plane ride home, potentially causing an anxiety attack or episode, which you may attribute to a fear of flying instead of what really caused the anxiety in the first place.
  • If you have other phobias, like claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces) or acrophobia (fear of heights), you may experience a fear of flying as well, as it can seem like a logical connection. However, when this happens, you and your therapist should address the underlying phobia first, as this may help reduce your aerophobia as well.

Symptoms of Aerophobia

Every person’s reactions are different. Depending on the severity of the fear, the following are a few symptoms that may occur:

• Increased heart rate
• Shortness of breath
• Nausea

When faced with the prospect of air travel, your anxiety may reach extreme levels, to the point of having a panic attack or acute stress reaction. Or, you may start avoiding any thoughts or mention of planes or anything related to them, even refusing to go to or near airports, which could severely impact your daily life or travel plans.

Treatment Options

Here’s a tip for overcoming travel anxiety: Try CBT—it’s one of the best forms of flying phobia therapy. The basis of Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is that our thoughts create our feelings, which result in our behaviors. If we change our thoughts, we alter our behaviors.

CBT allows a person to manage their fears by helping to change the way that person thinks—gradually. CBT can aid in the development of a sense of mastery and confidence about one’s thoughts and feelings, so they feel less overwhelmed by them.

The CBT process also includes exposure-based strategies, which gradually push the person to face their fear, but in small steps. Exposure-based strategies for aerophobia might include reading about airplanes and how they function, or going to the airport and watching planes take off.

By exposing yourself to your flying phobia during counseling, you gently get acquainted with the fear and emotionally embrace it rather than run from it.

Tips for Travel Anxiety

Managing anxiety is critical when traveling, and fortunately, some powerful tips for travel anxiety can help get you airborne calmly rather than in panic mode.

1. Learn Your Triggers

Knowing what triggers your anxiety when flying can help prevent the fear of flying from becoming activated. Some common aerophobia triggers are:

• When the plane takes off
• When there is turbulence
• When the plane lands

Being prepared is vital when it comes to flying phobias, and therapy can go a long way to helping with this. If you know that something is about to happen that will bring about anxiety, you can plan to cope with it ahead of time.

2. Get the Facts on Flying

Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to treating the fear of flying.

• Replace “What if..?” thoughts with facts, because anxiety thrives on ignorance.
• Come up with a plan by looking up fear-of-flying specialists, tips for travel anxiety, and coping mechanisms for when you feel the symptoms of anxiety start.
• Read up on how airplanes work and what causes turbulence.
• Don’t give in to anxiety-ridden thoughts. Instead, do the opposite. Allow the feeling to pass as though you are experiencing an ocean wave.

One fact that might alleviate a flying phobia is knowing that around 10,000 planes are airborne at any given moment, safely carrying passengers to their destinations. This means that thousands of planes are not crashing or meeting a tragic end, so the statistics can bring a sense of logic to an otherwise emotional subject.

And unlike car crashes, air crashes are always heavily investigated, with authorities often requiring industry-wide improvements to prevent repeat incidents. Learning about these safety measures from articles, documentaries, and even safety information in an airport or on the plane itself could help to ease anxiety about air disasters.

Arming yourself with knowledge is one way to deal with your phobia that doesn’t require a fear-of-flying specialist or therapist, but talking out what you’ve learned can help cement your newfound knowledge in your mind.

3. Utilize Other Coping Skills

Distract negative thoughts by focusing on other things.

• Listen to music
• Read a good book
• Practice mindfulness meditation

Coping skills that redirect the mind from any negative thoughts can be extremely beneficial during flying phobia therapy. Instead of fighting the anxiety about flying, you can change the course of your thought pattern and focus on something else. When you fight the thought, it gives it more energy, almost like adding fuel to the fire. Refocus and restart your thoughts for a calmer mindset.

4. Seek Outside Assistance

Sometimes, the fear of flying is too overwhelming, and seeking outside help is the only answer.

In the short term, if you’re already on an airplane or due to board, ask a friendly flight attendant for tips for travel anxiety. These men and women are fear-of-flying specialists and no doubt have strategies for easing aerophobia.

In the long-term, consider undergoing therapy for your flying phobia. Don’t discount the benefits of therapy when it comes to overcoming your phobia—there’s no shame in your need for help, and there are professionals who understand your mindset.

A few of the most productive flying phobia counseling treatments include:

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
• Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
• Hypnotherapy

If you’re based in Florida, you’ll find fear-of-flying therapy near you—we offer both in-person counseling and virtual therapy sessions.