How can I overcome my fear of flying?

Question

My father is paying for my husband, 2 young children, and I round trip airline tickets to go to New York, and DC for a trip. This trip will be happening next month, and I am scared to death to fly. I have flown a few times, and everytime I have, I have been so frightened that I am frozen stiff in my seat until the plane lands, not to mention that I feel like I am going to throw up the whole ride. I dream about flying all the time, but I never crash. Sometimes in my dream, we have to land for emergencies. Now the thought of crashing with my whole family on board frightens me more than anything. I don't have any money to take any courses on my fear of flying, and I don't know if drugs will make it any easier for me, or if they will just complicate matters. Someone please help me! I am nauseous and shaky just sitting here thinking about it.

Answer 1

I used to be a white knuckler also, I was flying to Palm Springs CA with my daughter and stopped in Vegas to pick up more folks and asked the flight attendant how many times a day they did take off and land, and did she know where we were right now. She looked out the window and said it looks like somewhere in the mountains (she had no idea). She said they take off and land a dozen times a day! It finally hit me... this was just a big fat bus....with wings. Would I get nervous on a bus? No. So it also hit me when turbulence hits I just close my eyes and make believe I'm in my truck on a back road bumping along and it doesn't bother me any more. The airline pilots are very well trained and don't want to put the plane in the mud any more than you do. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

When we allow fear to grow and it gets to an extreme, the thing we fear turns into a monster, something unreal, a fire breathing dragon. Your mind needs to find its way back to reality, then the fear will disappear. You do this by seeing the reality of the situation and realizing away the wrong perceptions you have that created the fear in the first place. For example, you gain knowledge about the planes, how safe they really are. They are marvels of engineering and fail far less than a washing machine. That the pilots are experts, trained to handle every situation should it arise (but hardly ever does). There are millions of people that travel in air more safely than those that travel in a car. Just thinking about the realities of flying will get you on the right track. The last step is to take the courage and push through the fear and experience flying so that you can see how much better the reality is than the fear.

If you have to, don't be ashamed of asking the doctor for a mild sedative for the flight. It will get you through. Everyone has monsters in their lives and sometimes we need a little help to get by.

Answer 3

You just have to put it into perspective. Think about how many planes that are taking off and landing right now as you read this without incident. You are more likely to lose your luggage than be involved in a plane crash. If you are worried about losing your entire family consider flying separately. Your husband and 1 child take one flight and you and your other child take another flight. Corporate executives generally do not fly together to ensure if something happens there will still be someone to run the company in the event of a tragedy.

What it really comes down to is a sense of being in control. The fear arises from not being in control of your fate. You have to rely on someone else's ability to get you from point A to point B. If you can get past this you will be able to relax and enjoy the flight. Good luck I think you will be fine and when you get back from your trip you be wondering what you were even worrying about.

Answer 4

Well, it depends on your priorities. If you want to stay in the fear, then you will continue to believe you don't have the money for "classes". On the other hand, there are many counselling centers that charge fees based on income levels. That is, if you don't have much money, they won't charge much. The most popular technique for overcoming fear of something is gradual desensitization training, which you can get help with in any counseling center. Because you only have a month to address your phobia, this is the quickest way to do it. Learning meditation and breathing techniques may or may not help, because your time frame puts pressure on you and trying to learn meditation/breathing exercises alone can take "a while" to master. When you have support and coaching from others, you learn faster. Fear is usually an indication of a perception that we've "lost control" of something. You can try to ferret out what it is about flying that makes you feel "out of control", but again, doing this work alone can take "forever", and may not resolve itself without support before the time of the trip arrives.

Again, just depends on how badly you want to go on that trip... drugs are not a solution for phobias. You can take Dramamine to help with nausea, which may help reduce adrenaline levels a little. Also, keep in mind that regular exercise will also help regulate that fight-or-flight response that is constantly "on alert" when we have phobias. If you are not doing something like walking aerobically half an hour a day at least 4 days a week, your body's energy levels can get off-kilter, so that when we perceive we are afraid of "something", our bodies "overreact" to the fear; because we've not been expending energy on anything, this energy is "built up" so to speak and will concentrate on the fear. Coupled with feeling "not in control" of that fear, we get wedged into a cycle that seems hopeless. This is why support (as in counselling) is so helpful, to help us see our way out of it, change our perceptions/attitudes, and learn how to "act on" rather than "react to" the stimulus that triggers the phobia.

Answer 5

In my revel in there is just one means to triumph over worry and that's with abilities. I might deliver you the begin of abilities in order to finally put off your worry. The cause I can do that's I paintings as an Aeronautical engineer and I labored with the primary airliner manufactures from the backside up. I realise precisely how and why an plane flies and precisely how robust they're, how are placed in combination, how a lot vigour they have got, the triple protection strategies and such a lot importantly I understand how many humans have died within the system of humanity finding out to construct plane. How every crash used to be and nonetheless is investigated till the purpose is known and if wanted an amazing answer installed location with the manufactures and operators. But when you wish to grasp you are going to have got to deliver me a well cause why I must spend the time explaining all that to you. I propose watching it up for your self? I believe you are going to be very inspired with all of the answers from the findings of crashes that we engineers be taught from. Or you might simply suppose me whilst I say the cutting-edge plane is a work of engineering artwork and I am in awe of the guys who layout and construct them. I love flying! I promise Engineers constantly recreation to ideal the plane for its rationale as their turns out no cause to not! I am running on a brand new one proper now, my main function is to make it as shop a viable, so shop I anticipate it'll amaze humans. I am running in this form of plane for humans precisely such as you so they're going to not ever revel in a horrifying second such as you did. I believe it could be a discomfort to seem up all that expertise to take away a worry that may be have shyed away from. There is different abilities that may put off your worry however I believe the great location you're being informed to begin watching is on the subject of your worry of flying. It may be very major to not get distracted from what you uncover "exciting" and you are going to without doubt uncover you get off the subject very rapidly seeing that worry in these days is in lots of facets of society and I do not understand how it's all affecting you. You have a corporation begin with the worry of flying. Go looking when you come to a lifeless finish begin once more with what final interested you. God bless.

Answer 6

Pl. try Mimulus, a Bach Flower Essence available online or at many health food stores. Also, pl. try the free online course at http://floweressencesintro.onlinecourse.com/ for help with other fears.

Answer 7

hypnotism?? i dunno what to tell u...pray, maybe that will help.