Why does aerophobia and how to get rid of it?

Flights to other cities and countries are an integral part of life modern people.

A professional or business trip, a honeymoon trip, or simply the desire to see the world is often associated with overcoming long distances on an airplane.

Although air transport is the safest in the world, uncontrollable fear occurs in many passengers long before you have to step on the ladder.

And instead of enjoying the flight, people only think about one thing - how to get rid of aerophobia?

What is the fear of flying a plane?

What is aerophobia? Aerophobia (from the ancient Greek "aero" - air, "phobos" - fear) is a fairly common type of fear and means the fear of movement on aircraft.

According to statistics, about 30% of people around the world are afraid to fly.

At the same time, aerophobia is not always separate diseaseand may be due to fear of closed spaces (claustrophobia) or fear of heights (acrophobia).

Causes of fear

Why are people afraid to fly planes? Most often, aerophobia occurs in a person who has anxiously suspicious psycho. Such people live constantly with the feeling that the world is not safe.

Here it is necessary to recall the hierarchical model of needs put forward by the famous American psychologist Abraham Maslow.

According to this model, the need for safety is in the second place after the human physiological needs. An anxious and suspicious person creates for himself the so-called illusion of security, as well as control over the situation.

For example, being at home, driving a car or in a supermarket, such a person is absolutely sure that nothing bad will happen to him, as he completely controls the situation, and in case of danger he can always find a way out.

All the above illusions crash on the plane. On board an air liner, a person suffering from anxious phobic neurosis, realizes that he cannot control the situation, and in the event of a plane crash he will have no opportunity for salvation.

At this point, the human psyche can not give the mind any soothing explanation and brings him to panic attack.

What is the cause of aerophobia? The psychologist comments:

How safe is the flight?

To cope with aerophobia, first of all, you need to understand that the plane is robust designEquipped with many backup elements and systems.

If something fails, there is always at least one backup solution.

Plus, flights of all modern airliners controlled by not only pilots and flight engineers, but also dispatching services and flawlessly working computer, navigation and automatic systems. For clarity, the safety of air traffic is better to turn to statistics.

For the year, the aircraft transports about 5 billion passengers. And no more than 1000 people die in plane crashes during the same period.

At the same time, the victims car accidents over 1.2 million people become annually. Therefore, we can confidently say that in the entire history of civil aviation (almost a hundred years), fewer people (about 150,000) died in air crashes than they die in traffic accidents in just one month!

However, aerophobia sufferers use the car or bus daily without fear.

Is it dangerous fly on a plane? Find out from the video:

The main symptoms

Signs of aerophobia often appear in people long before the upcoming flight. Of course, on board the aircraft, these symptoms become pronounced. All signs of aerophobia can be divided into physical and psychological. Among the physical symptoms observed:

heart palpitations (tachycardia);
cooling and / or tremor of the limbs;
increased sweating;
headache;
nausea, vomiting;
frequent urination;
pallor or, conversely, redness of the face;
chest pain.

As for the psychological symptoms aerophobia, we can distinguish internal tension, irritability, insomnia, obsessive and frightening thoughts.

Often such a person looks for information about accidents in the media, presents horrific pictures of crashes, and during the flight he listens to the engine noise and monitors the movements of the crew.

As a result of such psycho-physiological phenomena in the human body occurs the release of a large portion of adrenaline in the blood, and the attack begins, known in psychology as panic attack.

Go through test on aerophobia:

How to stop a panic attack?

If a panic attack occurred on board the aircraft, you can handle it in the following ways:

Try to divert your attention, for example, start reading a book, do knitting or solving a crossword puzzle, find your favorite game on a smartphone or perform a complex mathematical operation in your mind.
Take a sedative (of course, in the absence of contraindications).
Try to relax the muscles, unbutton the buttons on the chest, loosen the belt, remove the scarf.
Contact the flight attendant with a request to bring a drug that reduces fear and anxiety.

Slow breathing into a paper bag for two minutes is also an effective way to stop a panic attack.

During this procedure, the level of oxygen in the blood decreases, brain activity calms downand with it the ability of the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline decreases.

In an effort to overcome anxious thoughts, some passengers of the plane resort to the help of alcoholic beverages. It is extremely undesirable to do this, since even a small amount of alcohol can aggravate the situation and “disperse” the panic with a new force.

How to overcome a phobia?

How to cure aerophobia? The most effective way to combat aerophobia is regular flights.

The more often a person uses an airplane, the more he is convinced of his safety.

The main thing - you need to understand that aerophobia will not pass by itself. It is possible to overcome fear both with the help of medications and through psychotherapy.

Medicines

It is important to know that not a single tablet can solve the problem of aerophobia. Antidepressants or tranquilizers can only temporarily relieve anxiety and block disturbing thoughts.

Therefore, a person who often needs to travel on an airplane becomes dependent on pills, and this extremely negatively affects the general condition of the body.

Prescription drugs should be carried out by a psychotherapist individually and only if it is not possible eliminate the symptoms of aerophobia by other means.

Psychological help

The most effective treatment for aerophobia is cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, through which the psychologist parses the logical errors of the patient, and most importantly - eliminates the very cause of fear.

By the way, according to statistics, more than 50% of aerophobes are not afraid of the flights themselves, but of the occurrence of a panic attack on board and the inability at the peak moment of fear of leaving the cabin.

Thanks to psychotherapy, a person gets rid of irrational beliefs and finds root of your problem.

In large psychological centers dealing with aerophobia problems, the virtual reality method is used, through which the patient feels himself on board the aircraft.

Repeated takeoff, flight and landing in the virtual world contribute to the addiction and the development of new reflexes and relaxation. But unlike drug therapy, psychological help requires more time consuming - from several days to months.

In addition to the cognitive-behavioral method, in the fight against aerophobia, you can use hypnosis or gestalt therapy, but these methods only eliminate internal tension and fear, but do not indicate the true cause of the disease.

Self Exercise

It is impossible to defeat aerophobia on your own, but to reduce general anxiety and not to bring your body to panic attack is quite real.

This will help compliance with several simple rules:

Before the flight should be excluded from watching movies and reading news about the crashes.
On the day of departure, it is advisable to arrive at the airport early to look around and get used to the situation.
If you follow the diet, it should be interrupted (to remove additional stress for the body), but at the same time and not to overeat, as this may adversely affect the general condition.
In the event of a panic on board, go to the breathing exercises described above and try to relax the muscles of the body as much as possible.

I'm afraid to fly after a plane crash: what to do?

People who have had the opportunity to become participants in an unsuccessful landing of an airplane or a witness to a plane crash are much harder to fight aerophobia.

And yet, based on statistics and common sense, as well as enlisting professional help of a psychotherapist, overcome fears is quite possible.

Every 2-3 seconds in the world the plane takes off or lands. Right now in the sky is from 8 to 10 thousand passenger airliners. For the safety of these flights are responsible hundreds of thousands of people, modern computer and navigation equipment.

Overcome gravity, to conquer the sky and fly - people have dreamed about it since ancient times.