Overcome Fear of Flying With Hypnosis, Part 1

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If you are afraid of flying, hypnotherapy and therapeutic guided imagery
can alleviate your anxiety and make your journey more comfortable. 

 

                With the approach of June and the end of the school year, many people are planning and preparing for their summer vacations. Even if you plan to take a cruise, at least part of your travel itinerary is likely to be by air. If you are afraid of flying, hypnosis and guided imagery can alleviate this anxiety and help to make your journey more comfortable. In this blog, I will suggest some ideas and concepts to help desensitize you to any negative associations you may have with flying and air travel.

·         Wrong words: Airport staff, flight attendants and ground crew often make a lot of unintentional negative associations with flying: e.g., terminal (airport building), departure lounge and last and final call to board the airline, final destination of your journey. These are just words and part of flying jargon; they are not meant to imply negative consequences of flying and air travel.

·         Flying is still one of the safest forms of travel and is statistically less dangerous than driving an automobile.

·         Airplanes are constructed to have several safety (and back-up safety) mechanisms and computers to keep the crew and passengers safe throughout the journey.

·         Pilots have thousands of hours of training in flight simulators before they sit at the controls of a commercial jet; even then, they will be working with/supervised by a pilot with more experience to deal with various flight conditions, turbulence and other air emergencies.

·         Air-traffic control centers are trained to and responsible for monitoring each commercial airplane at specific parts of the flight, from takeoff until landing. The pilot, co-pilot and any other officer on board will be in constant verbal and radar contact with the air-traffic control officers that are monitoring your flight.

·         The pilot(s) and flight crew all have a vested interest to have a smooth flight and a safe (and timely) arrival. They are well-trained to handle various air emergencies and are highly unlikely to do anything to jeopardize their or their passengers’ safety.

·         Finally, since the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001 passengers and flight crew are aware of potential risks and have proven they are prepared to physically subdue a potential or suspected threat during the flight.

 

In my next blog, I will describe some hypnosis and therapeutic guided-imagery techniques that I use to help people work through and overcome their fear of flying.

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2014

 

How Hypnosis Has Helped Me

                I graduated from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute as a certified hypnotherapist in 2005. Since then, I have helped many clients achieve various vocational and avocational self-improvement goals such as quit smoking, overcome a fear of flying or driving, improve self-confidence and self-esteem, overcome test anxiety, improve study skills and improve sport performance. Following are some examples of how my hypnotherapy training has helped me to achieve some of my own self-improvement goals and change unwanted behaviors.

·         Overcome my anxiety about driving on freeways. John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind model was the biggest influence here: Since the mind is uncomfortable about and resists doing unknown activities, I knew I would feel more relaxed and comfortable driving freeways by just doing it. It took me a few weeks of round-trip journeys to HMI in Tarzana and reminding myself that once freeway driving was no longer an unknown to me that I truly did get comfortable navigating Southern California’s biggest and busiest motorways.

 

·         Increase and improve my patience with myself (and others): Before I started my hypnotherapy training, I was usually very tense and impatient (usually with myself). Now, when I get frustrated I immediately use cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to disarm negative self-talk and reframe the situation by turning it into a learning experience.

 

·         “Keep calm and carry on.” Sir Winston Churchill was right: the calmer you are, the easier it will be to survive a crisis. Now that I can recognize and identify my potential stress triggers, I can employ relaxation and breathing techniques to maintain a calm and relaxed demeanor to weather just about any kind of storm—literal or metaphoric. These days, what would have been a “crisis” ten years ago is a non-event because I am able to remain calm and relaxed; in turn, this mellow state enables me to focus on the situation and come up with an appropriate solution to the problem.

 

·         Take better care of myself. One of the extra benefits of my hypnotherapy training is that I learned a lot about how maintaining a healthy lifestyle (or not) affects my mood and ability to function during the day. I try to eat a well-balanced diet and get plenty of sleep at night so I can remain energetic and focused on what I am doing during the day and avoid that jittery feeling I get if I drink too much coffee or my blood-sugar level starts to drop when I haven’t eaten in a long time.

 

·         Analyze my dreams. Dream analysis helps my clients to work through unresolved issues in their lives. It is a lot of fun for me—and very enlightening—to analyze my own dreams to find out what my subconscious mind is really trying to tell me!

When you are ready to learn more about what your subconscious mind has to tell you, give hypnotherapy a try. It is definitely a mind-opening experience—and you will get to enjoy a mental massage in the process!

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2014