Overcoming Flight Phobia

By Felix Dela Klutse
Traveling is part of day to day human activities and the kind of business an individual does informs how often he travels either by air or other means of transportation.

Some people see traveling as adventure that should be carried out to widen their horizons, while others because of their business engagement and family visitation or vacation see traveling as unavoidable exercise.

However, it has been discovered that individual body system reacts to traveling in different ways which often leads to flying phobia. As people react to traveling on land which usually makes some travelers vomit on transit, air passengers also react to flying in various ways. The common syndrome of fear of flying is known as aviophobia.

Fear of flying according to experts is a different type of phobia or an indirect manifestation of one or more other phobias, such as claustrophobia (a fear of enclosed spaces) or acrophobia (a fear of heights). It is a symptom rather than a disease, and different causes may bring it about in different individuals.

This type of fear generates more interest as air travel is mostly unavoidable to people particularly business tycoons, leisure travelers and in professional contexts.
Investigation by BUSINESS GUIDE revealed that the fear is widespread, affecting a significant number of the Ghanaian population.

A fear of flying may stop somebody from going on vacations or visiting family and friends, and it can cripple the career of a business person by preventing him or her from traveling on work-related business.

Generally, some people systems react to flying which make them develop sudden display on board. These reactions include shivering, vomiting, ear blockage while symptoms of phobia on the other hands are breathlessness, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, feeling sick, shaking, heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying, becoming mad or losing control, a sensation of detachment from reality or a full blown anxiety attack, experts say.

Also, it has been found out that flights phobia can be in form of a simple fear for height, as the feeling of impracticality to personally pilot the aircraft, together with expectation of a bad.
According to specialists, flying phobia is more or less like a mental state, experienced by majority of the air passengers suffering from it. An alert produced by their mind that is directly associates with the word "plane" connects to a disaster or heartbreak.

In a state of panic, people becomes over-anxious and sensitive to any strange noises, feeling abnormal from their point of view, with fatal meaning, and suspiciously take whispering between the stewards and the plane engine sounds.

Recorded air crashes or lost of a fellow family members in past air mishap or even their personal involvement in some kind of accidents could sometimes informed the feeling in some individuals.
Osei Kweku, a student at the University of Ghana accused the media of being a major factor behind fear of flying, claiming that the media sensationalize airline crashes.

However, there is no basic medication against flights phobia, although taking some tranquilizers or drinking small dose of menthol flavored sweet can be an option - this may help to avoid the uncomfortable anxiety during a flight together with medical therapies that are known to treat hodophobia.

Some of the ways to avoid flights phobia includes according to experts include hypnotherapy, energy psychology, and neuro-linguistic programming.
Hypnotherapy, according to the aviation experts minimises the symptoms of travel phobia by reprogramming the existing thought patterns that are stored up in peoples’ subconscious, which brings about the fear.

Energy psychology is a new method of therapy that is compared to that of acupuncture and the needles. With energy psychology, the experts say a person with travel phobia will experience these benefits - thought patterns change fast, easily changed behaviors, and the person will easily develop skills and techniques that are useful to him for a lifetime.
Neuro-linguistic programming on the other hand works by changing the patient’s manner of creating reality.

It is better to recognize that travel phobia is an intense fear of something that poses no actual danger. Adults suffering from it realize that such fears are irrational. They often find out that facing it or even thinking about it brings a panic attack or severe anxiety.

Specialists usually advise passengers to ensure that they note what led to the first air phobia. It could be a strong jolting, long landing approach, or unscheduled landing.
As soon as the first fear trigger is detected, passengers are advised to answer a question such as "if all of the previous flights they have experienced went well, must this lead to a tragedy?"

It is further recommended by experts that the best way to overcome travel phobia is to fly more frequently as every successful flight operations will change into a positive notion that all the past air mishaps and accidents reported only happened as an exception rather than the true situations in the subsequent events.

Media are also urged to educate flying publics on flying phobia and shift from the horror way of reporting air catastrophes.

As travel phobia is a serious obstacle to daily life and traveling is unavoidable part of human existence, every person who suffers from this should be given every opportunity for treatment.

E-mail: felixklutse@yahoo.com