Ever been scared of flying?

You know the feelings.

Hyperventilation.

Hypersensitivity.

Sweating.

Nervousness.

Dizziness.

Hoping alcohol or drugs will help the problem. (They only make it worse.)

The unrelenting “what if’s” continually churn in your mind.

What if that all went away?

How would your life change?

If only it could. It can.

Generally people will experience fear on their first flight. They are simply frightened of an unknown experience.

Once the flight starts, the fear diminishes and they enjoy the experience.

Otherwise,  they may have an irrational fear of flying or have experienced trauma while flying.

Choosing Your  Answer

The first one is pretty obvious, requiring no explanation.

The second is more difficult.

It falls under the category of a phobia, an irrational fear of something perceived as real when there is no basis for the fear.

A phobia may require psychological or psychiatric intervention to pinpoint how and where the fear originated.

Once determined and the client is aware of the irrationality of the fear, hypnotherapeutic techniques may be used.

The third is an issue where a person has experienced a panic attack brought on by travel stress and low blood sugar,.

Thereafter, they associate that attack as a fear of flying.

Or perhaps they had a bad experience flying with technical problems or weather issues.

Rather than accepting that the experience was bad for that flight only, they have attached a perfectly legitimate feeling of fear.

Instead, they should accept each flight as a separate experience.

A Panacea for One Player

A golfer I knew was having a bad time retaining his swing. He stated that he was constantly thinking about his last shot, good or bad. His game suffered terribly.

Once he understood he had to accept each new shot as his only point of concern, treating each shot as his first, his game improved dramatically.

So it is with a flight.

We can be aware of the things that could go wrong or have gone wrong in the past.

Dwelling on them, though, is foolish, only reinforcing the negativity toward flying.

We must also understand a basic, that the word fear is an acronym, False, Experience, Appearing, Real.

If we can understand this, resolving the fear is easy, using simple desensitization, visualization, relaxation and breathing techniques as well as a high protein, low carbohydrate diet to ensure proper blood sugar levels for a few days before and also during the flight.

(Carbohydrates quickly break down to sugar, causing mood swings and wild sugar level swings that create an inability for the brain to access its higher level functions. This causes the brain to react in a lower level of functioning, which creates panic and anxiety. Protein breaks down to sugar slowly and evenly. Ensuring good sugar levels guarantees that the brain’s higher thinking faculties remain constant.)

By having the client watch a movie of his or her last scary flight in his mind while in a hypnotic trance, the client can watch from a safe, detached viewpoint. As the client begins to show fear, the hypnotherapist will ensure that the client remains mentally safe and calm. He will assist the client to the point of watching this mental movie with no emotional reaction.

Then the Hypnotherapist will have the client watch another mental movie, one where the client is calmly preparing for the flight, driving to or being driven to the airport, going through security, sitting calmly in the waiting area for the flight to be called, serenely boarding the flight, finding his seat, attaching the safety belt, and enduring the takeoff, flight and landing.

The hypnotherapist makes certain the client is relaxed through the whole process. With some repetition, the client is more relaxed as  fear diminishes through the hypnotherapeutic process. The combination of relaxation, diet and breathing exercises, almost always resolves the issue.

Remember, the subconscious is really a “hard drive” for storing huge amounts of information. It does not determine what is right or wrong, good or bad but simply gives the conscious mind what it wants when it is asked for. If the conscious mind wants fear, the subconscious will give it.

By replacing an image of fear with an image of calm, the conscious mind, after hypnotherapeutic conditioning, will start to automatically ask for the calm image, and get it, so flights no longer are a negative concern.

Problem solved. A life changed for the better.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing this issue or other fear-, panic- or anxiety- related issues, please contact me.

A clinical hypnotherapist, handwriting analyst and certified  master hypnotist, Nicholas Pollak may be contacted at nickpollak@hypnotherapy 4you.net