Fear of flying is a phobia
In order to deal with fear of flying effectively you acknowledge to yourself that it is not just a matter of your 'nerves', of developing determination or will-power, or of 'pulling yourself together'.Fear of flying is a phobia. It may be a quite mild phobia or a severe one. But it is a phobia.
A phobia is an irrational fear
To be precise, it is a mainly irrational fear. Because most phobias do have a degree of realism.
And fear of flying is a partly rational and partly irrational fear. Yes, planes do crash and the one you’re on, or thinking of travelling on, could conceivably crash.
But the likelihood is very small indeed. If you have a fear of flying you probably know this already. And you know that, statistically, it is more dangerous to walk around any town or city. Or travel by car.
You know these facts but this does not stop you dreading flying.
Because a phobia is not a rational process. So facts and statistics do little to calm your fears. Neither does information about how safely planes are engineered. Or how well the staff are trained.
A phobia is a mainly irrational fear and is not the result of weighing up the pros and the cons and coming to a reasoned conclusion. It is a learned emotional response in which your imagination causes a powerful surge of fear.
The culprit: your own imagination
A flying phobia is a ‘gut reaction’ of anxiety that is triggered in by being in a plane or, in some cases, by even thinking about flying.
Once triggered the phobic response is fuelled by runaway imaginings that occur very quickly and can be very intense.
These produce anxiety symptoms that can read more
