Many of us are actually scared of flying. Fear of flying is not only limited to first time travelers, it will surprise you to find frequent flyers accommodating this fear too. I remember my first flight, it was a 7hrs plus flight. Though i didn't shake as I thought I would, but I remembered thinking there is all the time in the world for the plane to just drop and it will be over. There were times the plane will just drop and then stabilize. Oh my! I was awake all through, couldn't bring myself to close an eye lid. Then the turbulence.. It was as if there were some imaginary speed bumps in the sky and the plane was moving over them. Wheeeew! It was an experience I can't forget.

Though I am no longer scared of flying, I found out there are thousands out there that are.

Here are some things that can help you alleviate those fears.

Step 1: Build the Right Mindset

Beating your fear of flying is tough and frustratingly slow. To succeed, you need balls and the ability to handle a roller-coaster ride of success and failure. That’s why a determination to win is a must. But how do you get that determination?

The trick is to view the process as an exciting game, not a terrifying chore. You need to apply the same energy and enthusiasm as you would if learning a new sport, instrument, or language. Once you see the process this way, your motivation levels will rocket, as will your ability to handle the inevitable setbacks.

Step 2: Become Less Anxious

One of the best ways to ease your fear of flying is to reduce your "background" anxiety levels. What do I mean by "background" anxiety? I mean the non-specific anxiety you’re carrying around 24/7. Why? Because in my experience, people who have a fear of flying tend to have higher background anxiety levels than others. That means they react more fearfully to all of life’s stressful events.

For example, imagine that a door at home slams shut unexpectedly. The person with the highest background anxiety will freak out more than anyone else in the room. By reducing your background anxiety levels, everything about flying will seem less scary. As an example, consider turbulence. If your background anxiety was lower, you’d feel less anxious when your plane was bumping around. You’d also feel less nervous when simply thinking about turbulence.

What’s the trick to slashing your background anxiety? It’s practicing a relaxation technique. Daily. I do mindful meditation, but I started with progressive muscle relaxation. It doesn’t matter which one you use, as long as it helps you relax. What does matter is doing it every day. Twenty minutes is ideal, but five minutes is better than nothing.

Step 3: Learn How Flying Works

To beat your fear effectively, you need to bone up on how planes are built and how they work. In particular, you need to fill your head with facts about the stuff that worries you most. Why? Because your fears are triggered when negative thoughts pop into your head. Especially so-called "what if" thoughts. These are thoughts like "What if the engines fail when we take off?"

You can't stop these negative thoughts creeping into your head, but you can stop them making you panicky. How? By challenging them with facts. For example, once you understand why turbulence isn't an issue for planes, you can question your negative thoughts about turbulence as they pop into your head.

Step 4: Start with Baby Steps

I’m a big believer in what psychologists call the "gradual exposure" technique. The idea is that you expose yourself to the thing you fear—but in increments. For example, if you had a fear of heights, you wouldn’t head to the top of a skyscraper on Day 1 of your treatment. Instead, you might just hang out on the ground floor until you felt comfortable with the idea of even being in a tall building. Then on Day 2, you might push the envelope a bit by going to the first floor. You’d rinse and repeat until you finally made it to the top.

Likewise with flying, you should start by tackling the thing that worries you least. For example, let’s say your jitters normally start when you turn up at the terminal to catch a flight. In that case, you should kick off your treatment by visiting the airport simply to hang out in a terminal. You’re not flying anywhere—your objective is simply to spend so much time there that it no longer stresses you out.

For many people, this would demand more than one visit. If that sounds dull, that’s what it’s supposed to be. After all, the objective of each stage of therapy is to achieve a state of utter boredom. Once a feared situation becomes a yawn-fest, you need to level up to the next thing in your hierarchy of fear. For example, now that you’re happy with being in a terminal, you might want to tackle boarding an aircraft.

Step 5: Use Visualization Techniques

One problem with the gradual exposure technique is that you can’t gradually expose yourself to flying. After all, once you step on an actual plane, you’re obviously committed to the whole flight. Luckily, visualization provides a work-around.

The idea is to plonk yourself down somewhere safe (such as at home). Next, you imagine yourself in a situation you find scary. Like walking through an airbridge towards the plane door. Then, as negative thoughts pop into your head, you challenge them with those facts you picked up earlier. The idea is to do this over and over until the situation you’re visualizing no longer feels threatening. This may sound lame, but it really works. And it’s a great way to practice the art of challenging negative thoughts.

Step 6: Focused Flying

Once you’ve got the above skills sorted, you need to expose yourself to actual flights. However, you don’t want to just get on planes and pray things turn out better than they used to. Instead, you need to do what I call "focused flying." What does this mean?

It means experiencing your flights in a very deliberate way. For example, let’s say you hate take-offs. Before you take a focused flight, you spend time learning what actually happens during the take-off. In other words, you get your head around the sounds, sights, and sensations. Armed with that knowledge, you board your flight and deliberately observe those sounds, sights, and sensations as they occur. By doing this, you take the mystery out of the process. Suddenly, stuff that once seemed foreign and scary now becomes logical and reassuring.

How should you start your focused flying program? I suggest you start with the kind of flights that worry you least. For example, short daytime ones. Once you’ve gotten comfy with these, you need to move on to longer flights or flights that feature stuff that makes you nervous (such as flying over water). The idea is to progressively expose yourself to all your old fears until none of them worry you, and boredom sets in.

Step 7: Keep Flying (Lots)

To stop your fear returning, you’ve got to keep flying regularly. Forever. If you don’t, the skills you’ve learnt can start getting rusty and old fears can start creeping back. How often is regularly? There’s no hard and fast rule. But I’d say you should aim for a minimum of one round-trip every four months. More is better.

Oh—and keep up the relaxation. It will help keep you flying and bring a stack of other benefits, too.

I hope these steps can help you out! Get to love flying especially if you know you can't do without it.

Thank you!
Hokage Travels.

this steps are meant for those who can afford to apply for passport and are able to fund a flight ticket, except you are from Benin

remi1444:
this steps are meant for those who can afford to apply for passport and are able to fund a flight ticket, except you are from Benin

It will surprise you how many people can! People can, and you will too.

You have a dream? Chase it and it will turn up well by God's Grace.

HokageTravels:


It will surprise you how many people can! People can, and you will too.

You have a dream? Chase it and it will turn up well by God's Grace.

amin...I blive.

Last time i was sitting near a lady flying first time she dug her nails on my arm flight was six hours and turbulence was enemy with her hand grabbing on my thighs

pat1612:
Last time i was sitting near a lady flying first time she dug her nails on my arm flight was six hours and turbulence was enemy with her hand grabbing on my thighs

There are thousands of cases like this..

Like a friend will say..

"Na Nigerians fear pass"

This is something people from different part of the world experience... Death and the fear of it is what we all have in common, regardless of our race!

When I find myself beside such persons, I smile and try to reassure them its perfectly normal.

Check out top cheap dumbbells

Freelancer007:
Check out top cheap dumbbells

Ok thanks

Morning guys