“The airplane stays up because it doesn’t have the time to fall”, said Orville Wright. Air travel is something revolutionary, it has changed our lives forever. Nowadays, if you want to travel to the other side of the world you just have to hop on a plane and you’ll get to your destination in a few hours. It has been proven to be the safest way of travel; in fact, the chance of one dying during the car ride to the airport is substantially larger than the chance of dying from an airplane incident. Why is it then that people are still scared to fly? Is it the turbulence, the thought of crashing, trusting two men to get you to your destination safely? There are so many reasons why people are afraid of flying and, actually, there is no need to be. Keep reading to find out why.
According to Dr. Arnold Barnett from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the death risk per flight is one in seven million; this means that if you fly every day of your life, it would take nineteen thousand years before you encounter a fatal accident. This is a shocking statistic that would surprise many, especially nervous flyers, although this probably doesn’t change their opinion on flying. For those people who close their eyes during take-offs and grab the armrest with all they’ve got with their sweaty palms, there is still a valid reason for why they are anxious. Intense fear of flying, known as aviophobia, affects an estimated 6.5 percent of Americans, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. (Depillis, Lydia. Washington Post. #2) Does the tight space make that phobia worse? Experts say no, it’s a “confluence of a lot of different phobias” said by Dr Martin Seif, a clinical psychologist who specializes in anxiety disorders. Airplanes become the object of other fears and anxieties because of a combination of other feelings and sensations. News about a plane crash might intensify anxiety for an aviophobic awaiting to hop on a plane, most likely, won’t lead to a more widespread outbreak. The most common anxiety is claustrophobia, or an extreme or irrational fear of confined places. It would seem surprising to most people, however fear of flying doesn’t have anything to do with the thought of crashing, as stated by Dr Barnett; “That has nothing to do with fear of crashing. Once someone becomes very frightened, they can think of a reason why they’re frightened, but that’s not the primary fear.” Generally speaking, passenger traffic has drastically decreased after the September 11 attacks although the fear-related anxiety disorders have stayed fairly constant over the past few years. Many other ways could trigger the fear of flying, although when you think about, mere flying can be pretty intimidating.
I understand why people could feel nervous, being forty-thousand feet up in the air, the plane is rocking side to side with turbulence, strange noises coming from below, really could be a rocky ride. There’s actually nothing to worry about, all of these factors combined create that sense of nervousness and fright but they are usually all dealt with. As mentioned by Dr Arthur Jones, “ Turbulence is just change in air pressure, it’s nothing to worry about.” (Jones par. 4) Other aspects that could cause worry are those strange noises you hear, ranging from a loud beeping sound to a crack coming from under your seat. Every bump, whistle and clunk has a simple explanation. You have to understand that all these are absolutely normal. The beep could simply be a signal from a flight attendant asking for an orange juice from the galley for seat 12B. Those more mechanical sounds that you think are the engines failing or the wings cracking could be the landing gear coming up after take-off, flaps of the wing moving positions or anything else. Again, it’s nothing to worry about. You may ask what other reasons exist that cause fear of flying. Sometimes it may be a challenging life event, typically in one's’ twenties or thirties, which causes fear of flying. You might have experienced a stressful period in your life, one marked by job change, relocation, getting married and having children. People often are shocked to find themselves getting panicky on an airplane during this time of their lives and become phobic for flying as a result. Traumatic events unrelated to flying can cause fear of flying, particularly when they occur shortly before a flight. This might be an auto accident or a physical assault or even a sudden, unexpected layoff. A person may seem to respond to the trauma satisfactorily but then become very afraid on the flight and thereafter develop a phobia.
If you are one of those people who get sweaty palms and a bouncy leg on flights, you might want to find a solution. According to Forbes, more than 9 million people fly on a daily basis, some of them for vacation, others to visit family, and then the ones who take business trips. You might be sent by your boss to a meeting on the other side of the country or the world, your only way there is by taking a plane, whether you like it or not. So you have no choice, therefore, you might as well learn how to be a better flyer. There are definitely methods for reducing negative thoughts and anxiety which help to eventually conquer the fear. One technique used by psychologists to help people overcome their fear of flying is controlled exposure. Exposure-based therapies work by gradually exposing the person to the object or situation that frightens them. In general, people with a fear of flying tend to avoid it. This means that they do not have the opportunity to learn that, very often, their fears or anxieties do not come true; or, if they do come true, that they can tolerate them because they are not as terrible as they imagine. Treatment usually involves a number of sessions under the guidance of a trained therapist. In the first sessions, people generally learn anxiety management techniques, such as deep breathing and how to identify and correct irrational thoughts. In the later sessions, they learn to face their fear in controlled stages. Traditionally, this involved the therapist accompanying the person onto an actual flight, but these days virtual reality can be used to simulate the various onboard conditions. Studies suggest that controlled exposure is an effective treatment for a flying phobia with participants reporting significantly reduced flight-related anxiety and an increased likelihood of flying again at a follow-up assessment. Although there are still other solutions to this issue, Goretti Cowley, writer for Medical News Today, describes them as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Pharmacological treatment, flying-course, or simply just planning a trip. The one I went into most detail was exposure because that is the best medicine for any fear, “face your fears”.
At the end the of the day, that nervousness and anxiety will always be there, it just has to be dealt with. If you are scared of flying, the best remedy is to expose yourself to it and go at it. You can’t avoid aviation anyway because it's too important and necessary in our lives these days and will be much more so in the future. The reasons mentioned in the previous paragraphs are why some people are scared to fly. It is what it is and instead of questioning a plane’s safety, admire the airplane and watch it take off into those blue, friendly skies.