Fear of Flying?
Summer is here! EVEN in the North East!!!
In fact, we’re currently enjoying lovely extended days – officially the sun rises just before 4.30am and is setting just before 10pm. In reality it’s only properly dark for a few hours in between those times so we’re all happily soaking up lots of vitamin D! So much easier to lift your mood when you can get outside and enjoy the air. We’ve even been combining our tea room habit with lovely walks in nature – Howick Hall and Kirkharle have been the most recent adventures – channelling Earl Grey (the tea one and the garden one) and Capability Brown. We’re feeling very smug – history, outdoors and lovely tea & scones!
We’re heading towards the end of the school term and the peak time for those with children to be setting out on the annual holiday. Many of these will be abroad, in search of guaranteed sunshine, warm seas, huge swimming pools, all inclusive buffets… This is the time of year when I see a lot of people with a fear of flying. The great news is that hypnotherapy is really effective in managing a fear of flying – it really is about re-setting your brain to remind it that airplanes are a fantastically safe way to travel, everyone involved in getting you from A to B is very well trained and all you’ve got to do is sit back, relax and let them get on with it.
Sometimes people have come to me because they’ve had a bad experience – turbulence or maybe they (or someone nearby) were ill. More usually it comes back to a loss of control or good old over thinking what might happen… We’re all very used to being the one that our families rely on to keep them safe/happy/well and so I see clients all the time who are concerned that they are unable to DO anything in this environment – they have to trust in people they’ve never met! We’ve also all watched far too many disaster movies or read too many reports of ‘lost’ flights.
When I work with clients on fear of flying, I make sure that I have a chat with then first in order to understand their fears, then we meet and I generally just do one session and give them a recording to take away that helps reinforce the idea that they are now a confident flyer. I ask them to listen to it regularly before they fly, to take it with them to listen to on the plane if needed and to listen to before they come back.
Irrational fears are just that – irrational, but your sub conscious is always primed to keep you safe, so if there is a bad association (real or created) then it will do all it can to stop you putting yourself in danger, and if you insist on going ahead, your brain will go into flight or fight mode – shutting off blood supply from your digestive system (your body then wants to get rid of anything undigested or on its way through your intestines which is why panic may bring on sickness and sudden trips to the loo) and your skin (you become pale) and redirecting it to the big muscles, heart and lungs – ready to run or fight! However, you can control those irrational thoughts if you’re ready for them and this is where hypnotherapy comes in – together we can replace the old thought pattern with a new one – and whilst flying might never be your favourite mode of transport, you will be ok and you won’t be frightened.
Holidays should be one of the joys of life – all that time, money and preparation that goes into them – what a shame if getting there is allowed to ruin it! Fight back!! Get in touch and let me help you!