Aerophobia what to do. I'm afraid to fly: how to cope with aerophobia

Aerophobia can arise for no reason, or it can be the result of stress, for example, if you witnessed some kind of disaster.

Fear itself is a natural reaction of the body that helps us behave as circumstances require. We get used to basic fear and hardly feel it. A whole set of defense mechanisms helps to live with it. But if there is a malfunction in the mechanisms, anxiety disorders, obsessive thoughts, phobias appear, that is, fear in which common sense is completely absent.

How to distinguish aerophobia from ordinary pre-flight anxiety?

If you have panic attacks a few days before your intended trip, and they are so strong that you cannot bring yourself to even go to the airport, if you begin to change your plans and your life, if your hands get wet at the thought of airplanes, and during the flight you start to choke, you have a phobia.

All natural fears force us to act actively, phobias are passive: a person does not look for ways to get rid of his fear, but is simply afraid. At this point, rational fear gets out of control and we cannot control our feelings and emotions.

Causes

This fear has nothing to do with the instinct of self-preservation. Usually the passenger does not think about what is happening to him now, but builds in his head possible pictures of a plane crash in the future. This is a completely irrational fear that is based on imaginary threats. To fight aerophobia, you need to convince yourself that nothing bad will happen.

The phobia develops even in those who have never seen a plane crash or been in the air. People with a desire for excessive control often suffer from it.

It is noteworthy that the fears of men and women are different: the weaker sex is sure that their plane will crash and they will not be able to get out of the wreckage, while the stronger sex trusts technology, but is anxious because they cannot control the situation. Women's emotions are more pronounced: they can throw hysterics, cry, scream. Men hide fear within themselves. Elderly people are most susceptible to aerophobia.

Remember that an airplane is a very reliable design; all systems in it duplicate each other. And even if one of them fails, there is always a backup way to fix the problem during the flight. This explains the generally accepted fact that the number of accidents in air transport is significantly less than in land transport. And not a single plane has ever suffered from turbulence, much less crashed.

A phobia is any fear that interferes with life. Fear of flying can lead to serious psychological problems, such as panic attacks or panic attacks. Therefore, if your fear forces you to change plans, it must be treated.

How to overcome aerophobia

There are several ways

1. Drug treatment: use antidepressants and sedatives. If fainting and hysterics appear among the symptoms, more serious drugs (tranquilizers) are prescribed.

2. Neurolinguistics: a branch of psychological science, borderline for psychology, neurology and linguistics, studying the brain mechanisms of speech activity and those changes in speech processes that occur with local brain lesions.

3. Cognitive behavioral therapy: The patient, under the supervision of a psychotherapist or psychologist, is repeatedly immersed in the atmosphere of a flight, experiences many takeoffs and landings, and at the same time trains relaxation skills. This must be done until the association of flying on an airplane with a relaxed state, and not with panic, is firmly established in the unconscious. For this purpose, virtual reality simulators and other computer technologies are often used.

4. Hypnosis. With the help of hypnosis, you can determine why the fear arose and understand how best to deal with it. During the session, the specialist calms the client, puts him in a relaxed state and asks the necessary questions.

How to prepare

There are a lot of books and video courses on aerophobia, study them. The more informed you are, the easier it is to deal with panic. Read about how airplanes work, it will help you calm down.

If you speak English, special video courses on YouTube from various airlines or sites like fearofflyinghelp will help you get rid of fear. There are also similar video tutorials in Russian now. Ask your doctor to prescribe a sedative for you.

And remember: 90% of aerophobes were able to overcome their fear. So you have every chance.

In airplane

If you are already sitting on the plane, then half the work is done and you can be proud of yourself. But you feel yourself starting to panic. These few steps will help you manage your anxiety.

- Try to relax, Take a comfortable position, put on a sleep band, turn on calm music. Breathing always helps to calm down: inhale (half as long as exhale), you can breathe counting and as slowly as possible. By concentrating on this process, you will not notice how the unpleasant sensations will leave you. If the sounds of turbines scare you, use headphones.

- Talk to your fellow traveler or walk around the airplane cabin.

- Set yourself up for something pleasant, what awaits you: Imagine how happy you will be when you see your friends or visit new places, try new food, meet your family.

- Use mobile applications for aerophobes, for example Skyguru. It works in airplane mode and tells you in detail what is happening during the flight. The passenger receives information about when to expect turbulence and whether to be afraid of shaking on board. During the flight, the application “talks” to the user, so you have a feeling of security, a constant connection with a psychotherapist, albeit a virtual one.

- The sooner you understand that you are experiencing panic, the sooner you will be able to cope with it. By ignoring your emotions, you only make the situation worse. Accept your anxiety.

Defeat aerophobia

How to stop being afraid of flying?

10 mobile apps that will help you get rid of anxiety, insomnia, depression and aerophobia

Today, mobile phones and tablets accompany us from the first minutes of waking up to the last seconds before going to bed. Psychologists and psychotherapists have decided to use new technologies to help us cope with unpleasant psychological conditions and their physical symptoms. A list of ten popular applications and expert opinions on mobile medicine in the article

Author of the article: Maria Barnikova (psychiatrist)

Aerophobia: getting rid of the fear of flying on an airplane

22.11.2014

Maria Barnikova

Are you living? So you're afraid. Are you afraid? So you live! Fear is a natural psychophysiological reaction, the purpose of which is to help a person mobilize when an unusual or unsafe situation arises. It is considered normal when this emotion arises in the presence of a specific threat or source of stress and intensifies when the significance of the right choice is felt. Anxiety-phobia disorder is an excessive, frequent and causeless level of anxiety, in the process of anticipation or […]

Are you living? So you're afraid. Are you afraid? So you live!

What do the statistics say?

Modern aircraft are very reliable designs in which all existing systems are duplicated and, if necessary, can replace each other. In rare cases when one of the systems fails, a backup option is provided, and a method for eliminating the malfunction without interrupting the flight has been developed and implemented.

Statistics say that An airplane passenger has a one in 45 million chance of being involved in a fatal plane crash.. That is, speaking in the language of numbers, if a person flew every day, then the probability of death would occur in 123 thousand years. Today the mortality rate in plane crashes is 1 fatality per 3 billion kilometers.

Manifestation of phobia

The manifestation of aerophobia (fear of airplanes) in most cases follows the same scenario. Let us give an example of a classic description of this anxiety-phobic disorder.

How it happens in practice

The person has a fear of flying on airplanes, but his professional responsibilities include frequent business trips. Every time the flight turns into a nightmare for him. A few days before the upcoming business trip, he begins to feel his stomach shrinking, and the urge to vomit occurs more and more often. Once at the airport, a person feels how his limbs begin to get cold, his legs “give”, and sweating increases. When he finally gets on the plane, his heart is pounding and “jumping” out of his chest, he feels empty in his head and attacks of suffocation begin. And every time, the sensations become more frightening and all-consuming. Fear is added - anticipation, when an individual is afraid to even hear that he is about to fly. Eventually, in order to avoid experiencing this horror again, the person is forced to resort to prevention and avoidance behavior. Often he even changes his place of work and type of activity, choosing activities not related to the need to stay in air transport.

Beware of irrational anxiety!

Considering anxiety as a condition associated with a phobia, psychiatrists argue that this feeling is not directly related to the instinct of self-preservation, and is almost always not connected with reality, but is aimed at the future. Anxiety is completely irrational and focused on an “imaginary” threat. Aerophobia often manifests itself in people who have never flown in air transport and who have never been a participant or witness to an air crash. However, the anxiety of aerophobes is enormous, intense and firmly anchored in the conscious and subconscious.

The data from a survey conducted by Russian psychologists are of interest. When asked about the specific reasons and prerequisites for the fear of flying on an airplane, most women said: they are incredibly afraid that their plane will get into a plane crash. At that time, the male half of humanity trusts technology more, but notes a fear of heights, disturbing the lack of opportunity on their part to influence and change the situation. The reaction to the experienced emotion – fear – also differs. As a rule, women's emotions are more pronounced and are manifested by crying, trembling, and often hysteria. Men, even realizing their anxieties, try to keep them inside themselves and not show them to others. It is worth noting that among all age categories, elderly people are more susceptible to panic due to aerophobia, which allows us to make the assumption that in old age the fear of flying on airplanes is complementary and/or inseparable from the fear of death.

Symptoms of the disorder

Physical or somatic manifestations of aerophobia often include:

cardiopalmus,
tachycardia;
chest pain;
increased sweating,
nausea, urge to vomit;
frequent urge to urinate;
tremor of the limbs;
tension headache;
paleness or redness of the face.

Among other symptoms, aerophobia is characterized by:

frequent complaints of severe muscle weakness;
fatigue, constant feeling of tiredness;
difficulty concentrating;
irritability, nervousness, anxiety;
problems with falling asleep and quality of sleep, “nightmarish dreams”;
feeling of "emptiness in the head."

Often, with aerophobia, the symptoms intensify, rapidly progress, and, having reached a peak, are manifested by a sympatho-adrenal crisis and develop into panic disorders.

Reasons for appearance

According to latest research, published International Psychical Association, in most cases, aerophobia is a consequence of another mental disorder. It often occurs after a severe stressful situation or after prolonged depression, with obsessive () and asthenic types of disorders. According to experts, this phobia affects impressionable individuals who are strongly fixated (stuck) on negative situations that have taken place. Aerophobia often “cozily coexists” with (fear of enclosed spaces).

Genetics

The cause of aerophobia can be a genetic predisposition or hereditary characteristics of the nervous system. This phobia ( according to Noyesetal) occurs more often among relatives with anxiety disorders - about 15% (compared to the general population - about 3%). Strong evidence for the genetic etiology of the phobia has been presented Slater And Shields as a result of an examination of seventeen pairs of monozygotic and twenty-eight pairs of dizygotic twins, each of which had an anxiety-phobic disorder. Concordance in dizygotic twins was only 4%, while in monozygotic twins it reached 41%.

Living conditions

Living conditions, upbringing, personality development, and character formation in childhood play a significant role in the emergence of fears in the future.

Social factors

Among the social factors, it is worth noting the negative impact of widespread media coverage and focusing the audience's attention on the incidence of plane crashes and the number of victims.

How to get rid of it? Treatment for fear of flying

Most cases of aerophobia go away quickly without resorting to drug treatment. If the anxiety disorder lasts more than six months, and the fear of flying does not subside, despite the efforts made, you should seek help from a psychotherapist. You should consult a specialist if:

Aerophobia causes constant, intense, incapacitating fear, which turns into panic as the time of the event (flight) approaches;
A person realizes that fear of an airplane is excessive, groundless, selective and exceeds adequate anxiety in frequency and intensity;
The person begins to consciously avoid flying by plane, always trying to find and use an alternative, but often time-inefficient, method of transportation.

Today There are many effective techniques with which you can quickly overcome aerophobia. Successfully used in the treatment of fear of flying on airplanes:

neurolinguistic programming (NLP) technique,
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT);
modern methods of hypnotic influence;
drug therapy.

How is the treatment carried out?

Anxiolytic drugs are usually not required. To cure the fear of airplanes, it is enough to talk with a doctor, explain the actual nature of the physiological symptoms and draw up individual program on overcoming/correcting/getting rid of the fear of flying. The doctor’s task is to provide an accurate, logical explanation for the physical symptoms associated with the phobia. For example, the patient must understand that a rapid heartbeat is not a sign of cardiovascular pathology, but the result of an exaggerated reaction to a stressor. It is necessary for the aerophobe to completely get rid of the uncertainty and ambiguity of what is happening to him and have a clear plan for reducing anxiety.

How to overcome your fear of airplanes? John Malkovich found an excellent solution to this situation: “ I learned a long time ago not to worry about things I can't control. Are you worried that the plane is going to crash? Are you a pilot or what?».

Indeed, awareness and acceptance of the fact that there are situations whose outcome does not depend specifically on the individual can significantly reduce anxiety.

Psychologists recommend starting to “prepare” for the flight in advance. It is necessary to perform activities that bring pleasure and joy, without fixating on the continuous calculation of time before the flight. It is useful to do pleasant things: for women - go shopping, for the stronger sex - do something extreme that will help “throw out” the adrenaline. That is, in the hours before a flight, the strength of the emotions experienced should exceed the intensity of the anxiety that is taking place.

It is worth noting that if the emotions experienced from an action, both negative and extremely positive, become strong stressors and “outweigh” the fear of flying on an airplane, the entire body (including the psyche) will be forced to “throw” all available reserves and energy to fight the new significant stressor. It has been established that the “launch” of the first phase of a typical reaction to stress takes up about 90% of the activity of all organs, comes first in the “schedule” of the body’s actions, and sometimes overshadows in importance the satisfaction of vital (primary) needs.

The human psyche is designed in such a way that when an alarming situation is discussed out loud, anxiety and emotional stress are significantly reduced. Therefore, it is important to establish in a calm environment what was the primary cause of anxiety associated with the fear of flying.

Psychologists recommend avoiding watching news about negative incidents not only in the air, but also on other types of transport, which only aggravate the state of stress. A patient diagnosed with aerophobia should not watch television programs that describe the details of plane crashes.

And the easiest way to get rid of the fear of flying on an airplane is to use by air as often as possible! In the case of aerophobia, the saying is quite appropriate: “We knock out a wedge with a wedge.”

Drug treatment for fear of flying

The prescription of medications for aerophobia should be individual and selective. Medications should be used to restore rapid control of symptoms only for the period until the desired effect from other, less fast-acting methods is absent. Drug therapy may be prescribed to those patients whose condition has not improved after applying other measures. In the case of aerophobia, the following are used: benzodiazepines, antidepressants and anxiolytics.

A bad outcome of aerophobia can be predicted with extremely severe symptoms, such as: fainting, hysterical manifestations, agitation, etc. In this case, the prescription of tranquilizers and antidepressants is completely justified.

Article rating:

How to get rid of aerophobia by studying statistics

According to various sources, the chance of dying in a plane crash ranges from 1/45,000,000 to 1/8000,000. The probability is so small that you don’t even have to worry about it. Relatively speaking, a person needs to fly every day for many thousands of years to get on a “bad” flight. Where does so much information in the media about disasters come from?

A plane crash is such a rare event that it is always reported on all the news. Moreover, up to several weeks of airtime are devoted to one accident, and therefore people begin to think that plane crashes happen all the time. If the media talked about every car accident, they would not have enough time for a day: cars crash very often, and more than a million people die in road accidents every year. For comparison, airplane crashes lead to the death of up to one and a half thousand people over the same period.

Modern aircraft have redundant systems: that is, if one mechanism fails, its “replacement” mechanism will come into operation. Pilots are well trained and undergo regular medical examinations. There is a greater chance of not getting to the office on a regular city minibus than not getting to your destination across the ocean.

How to overcome aerophobia by working through unpleasant sensations

Many aerophobes panic because they are unfamiliar with the sensations experienced on board. When a plane encounters turbulence, such passengers begin to feel like “this is the end.” And at the moment of takeoff, the sight of the receding earth evokes thoughts of an ever-increasing height at which a person “should not be.”

There is a special program “Fly without fear”, which adapts the passenger to the stress on board. You can also use one of the computer games that simulate flight and allow you to experience the sensations of climbing and steep turns.

You need to be prepared for the fact that when landing, your ears may become blocked and even cause pain in them. Yawning helps to cope with the problem, although it does not remove all the discomfort. In this case, you should just wait it out, without fear or panic: such sensations are a conditional norm for flights, they are associated with changes in pressure.

Aerophobia: how to get rid of it by minimizing the level of unnecessary stress

The more stressed out a person is, the more difficult it is for him to cope with stressful situations. Therefore, aerophobes are advised to guarantee themselves the greatest possible peace of mind. First of all, you need to take care of your physical well-being:

get enough sleep before the flight;
eat before you travel;
if necessary, relieve pain (headache, toothache).

It is also important to remove rush factors. Necessary:

Check availability of all necessary documents before leaving home.
Complete online check-in in advance and print your boarding pass.
Arrive at the airport approximately three hours before departure.
Go through customs and passport control early.
Go for boarding immediately after it is announced, without waiting until the last minutes before the gate closes.

A well-fed, well-rested person feels calmer and more confident than his hungry, tired “colleague.” The body does not give unnecessary alarm signals: when the body is comfortable, the psyche is more relaxed and stable. And not having to run somewhere has a positive effect on your psycho-emotional well-being. In general, the less stress, the better.

How to combat aerophobia by choosing a safe place

Even in a plane crash, in 70% of cases people survive. Therefore, they traditionally do not worry about the safety of the seats: anyway, most likely, the flight will end successfully. But aerophobes can play it safe. The safest places are:

in the tail of the plane (there are three reasons - there is no fuel there, the tail usually remains intact, the exit is close);
near emergency exits(a person is more likely to be able to leave the plane without becoming a victim of a stampede);
near the aisles (the passenger will be one of the first on the way to the exit).

Traditionally, aerophobes are not advised to take seats next to the window. Since pathological fear will still prevent you from enjoying the beauty, it is better to sit near the aisle: then visually the flight will be little different from a regular trip on the subway or bus. You should not take a seat in the center, as it is the most uncomfortable, and being in it increases the discomfort from the flight.

How to overcome the fear of aerophobia by getting distracted

You can't focus on your fear. You need to do something else all the time. At the airport you can walk around duty free, looking at the goods, or read a book/watch a movie while sitting in the waiting room. It’s better to just correspond with friends than to devote your free time to thinking about planes and their crashes.

Once in the cabin, they don’t change tactics. Continue to be distracted with all their might:

read magazines provided by the airline;
study the on-board menu and choose what to order (you can also convert prices into your native currency if the flight is international);
count from zero to one hundred and back;
listen to music;
watch movies;
communicate with the person sitting next to you, etc.

You need to constantly remain active, which will allow you not to listen to your experiences and not worry about possible dangers. If you succeed, you should fall asleep: this way the flight will go unnoticed.

How to overcome aerophobia by trying on someone else's positive experience

People fly regularly and successfully reach their destination. An aerophobe needs to remember this: if everyone around him easily boards the plane, does not worry or worry, then there is really nothing to be afraid of.

It’s worth chatting with friends who love to fly. Let them talk about how they feel and why they prefer flying to other types of travel. Such a positive experience, although still foreign, may soon become our own. The more positive a person hears about something, the better he feels about that topic.

The fight against aerophobia can last a long time if you put off flying indefinitely. After only three or four takeoffs and landings, fear weakens and sometimes disappears completely. Aerophobia can only be cured with practice. Therefore, you should plan your next vacation so that you have to fly to your destination. The pleasant sensations of relaxation are a good reward for some stress.

MOSCOW, July 25 – RIA Novosti, Irina Ovchinnikova. Aviation is considered the most in a safe way transport, but there are a lot of those for whom takeoffs and landings are a serious test.

How aerophobia differs from pre-flight anxiety and how to overcome fear - in the material of RIA Novosti.

Phobia or anxiety?

“Fear can manifest itself in different ways: someone fiddles with their hair, rubs their palms and sweats, someone is afraid of everything, reacts violently to what is happening on the plane,” says flight attendant Alexey Kokhanisty. “For such people, the sounds of wing mechanization raise anxiety and a lot of questions.” , engine operation, landing gear retraction primarily because they don’t know if they’re okay.”

According to Alexey, rarely anyone is afraid of the entire flight - usually takeoff and landing or turbulence with air pockets are scary. In his memory, only one passenger experienced fear from the beginning to the end of the flight.

When asked how to distinguish fear from ordinary anxiety, one of the centers for the treatment and study of aerophobia answered that if a person has diagnosed himself with a phobia, then he almost certainly suffers from it.

If everything is limited to mild discomfort, does not poison life and does not affect freedom of movement, we should talk about pre-flight anxiety.

True, some passengers, under the pretext of a phobia, want to improve the conditions of the flight. "For example, they ask to go to business class - they say, there more space and air, and after refusal they make a row. Of course, these are not real aerophobes,” flight attendant Anastasia Kuprievich shares her observations.

The Nature of Fear

“Aerophobes are afraid not only of disasters, but also of heights and confined spaces, and most importantly, of losing control over the situation,” explains Sergei Enikolopov, head of the department of medical psychology at the Scientific Center for Mental Health.

The expert says that this is what makes aerophobia paradoxical: airplanes fall very rarely (and are considered the safest form of transport), that is, the risk of dying is minimal, but this does not reduce the fear.

Often, aerophobes are quite knowledgeable about flight topics; they themselves know all the arguments about safety, but cannot adequately perceive them in moments of fear. And against pre-flight anxiety, according to flight attendants, awareness often helps.

"Night flights used to cause more concern among passengers than day flights. Many people thought: 'How are we going to fly?' After all, you can’t see anything!” says Anastasia Kuprievich. “But now the vast majority of passengers know that pilots are guided by dispatchers, work with radar, that there is an autopilot, and they worry less.”

Treatment cannot be left

“I avoided flying for a long time, tried to suppress my phobia. It got to the point that I was afraid of everything: cars, trains, heights, elevators,” admits restaurant manager Marina Razzhivina, who overcame aerophobia. “Then I started working on myself, adapting to the situation.” Getting on the plane , I told myself: there is no turning back."

The center for the treatment of aerophobia confirms that fear almost never goes away on its own, and only gets worse over time. But most of those who turn to them are cured.

How to be treated

“You shouldn’t drink alcohol before a flight, because it puts additional strain on blood vessels during takeoff and landing, which can be hazardous to health,” says Alexey Kokhanisty.

Psychologist Sergei Enikolopov also emphasizes that alcohol is only a way to relieve anxiety. And someone, for example, takes anxiolytics (medicines that reduce fear), someone must smoke.

According to the expert, cases of rowdy behavior on board are often associated precisely with the fear of flying, as well as the inability to get rid of it in the usual way (when you cannot smoke or drink during the flight). Therefore, many people try to drink before boarding the plane.

If we talk about treatment, then specialists first of all teach how to relax properly. The technique is not so important: you can count to ten, breathe deeply or, say, chant some mantras - whatever you like, as long as it helps.

“If a person knows that he has to fly a lot, treatment with psychologists is simply necessary,” adds Sergei Enikolopov. “It is difficult, but possible, to work with fears, including the most important thing - loss of control and a feeling of one’s own helplessness.”

In certain cases, a clear understanding of what is happening on board is sufficient. Training on a flight simulator, which is a full-size copy of a real aircraft, helps with this. Anyone can “take the plane into the sky” or “land”, adjust the weather and time of day, and make sure the automatic control is reliable.

Lifehacks

“If you find yourself in a zone of turbulence and you are very scared, remember that this does not cause planes to fall and the danger lies only in those who do not fasten their seat belts - they can be thrown into the air. air pocket", says flight attendant Ekaterina Kuznetsova.

"I advise friends and acquaintances with this phobia to open one of the sites that show online planes, currently in the air around the world, and then pay attention to reports of possible flight incidents throughout the day. There won't be any - everyone landed safely! This often helps,” says Alexey Kokhanisty.

Aviation blogger Artem Kashirin advises arriving at the airport in advance and observing how the plane is being prepared for takeoff. He also gives examples of cases when it was possible to help a person during a flight by talking to him and even paying attention to the view from the window, which, it would seem, should aggravate the fear.

"See more beautiful photos and videos about airplanes and from airplanes, fall in love with this beauty, and fear will recede!” Artem is sure.