Ask HN: How to overcome fear of flying?
A few years ago, on a short flight to NYC, the plane went through a sudden turbulence. It was strong enough to send 2 flight attendants to the floor. It probably lasted 10-20 seconds and, during those seconds I thought we were going to crash because I had never experienced turbulence that strong.
Since then, I started to develop fear of flying. Even though I have flown since then, each time it has made me more anxious. Now I actively avoid flying.
After some introspection, I realized that I'm more afraid of the moments preceding the crash than actually dying. This fear got worse after I had a daughter because now I also picture how the last moments would be if she was by my side on a falling plane.
Rationally, I do know how infrequent plane crashes are, and how driving is more dangerous, but at the end I convince myself that the best way to not die on a plane crash is to not get on a plane. Since flying is not required for work, and I've already seen most of the world, it's not hard to convince myself that I don't need to get on a plane.
The last few times I've flown, I used a mental trick to help me get through it. I read that the odds of a plane crash is 1 in 1.2 million, so I used a random number generator to generate a number between 1 and 1.2 million, and then tried to guess what that number was. That gave me some relief but didn't completely stop the bad thoughts.
How do I overcome my fear of flying?
265 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 189 ms ] thread1 in 114 chance of dying in a car crash vs 1 in 9281 chance of dying in a plane crash. You can verify this anecdotally...we all know someone who has died in a car crash (I know at least 6 close friends and relatives who have), but nearly no one knows someone who died in a civilian plane crash.
But his fear is irrational so I don't know if statistics will help. Most people are afraid of sharks, lightning strikes, and snake bites even those these events are extremely rare, and nearly no one fears heart disease or cancer which are the top two causes of death by a factor of tens of thousands. 600k people will die of cancer this year vs maybe 500 plane deaths.
1. Per hour vs per mile is a completely different stat. Every hour in a plane is possibly more dangerous than every hour driven by a cautious driver. Of course it's true that you can cover far more ground in a 500mph plane.
2. Most Americans drive a lot more than they fly so even if they were equally safe there would be far more fatalities in cars per capita.
3. You can do a lot to mitigate your chances of a fatal car accident, like choosing a safe car, practicing defensive driving, not driving in the rain, not driving drunk, not driving at night, etc. A cautious driver will have a far lower chance than the average stat.
4. Also, driving is quite scary. I can't wait for a world with computer controlled cars that rarely crash.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety
Can you provide a citation for the per hour stat?
> It is true that to drive 12,000 miles would take 12,000 hours...
Uh, what? No one drives 1mph. It's just 200 hours at 60mph.
> That said you are also more than 50,000x as likely to die in a car accident.
Based on what stat? The wiki page said that per mile traveled it's 750x times higher. But this still doesn't address the per hour safety. Or the fact that people probably drive 1000x more than they fly or whatever the number is.
It also doesn't address the main point which is that many fatal accidents involve drunk driving, etc. So your individual risk factor might be incredibly different from the average. Unlike with flying where you have almost no control over your own safety and the average is very meaningful.
I didn't do the math before, but let's try some back of envelope math. You can estimate it based on mileage. Assuming that a car averages 50mph and a jet averages 500mph, then you spend 10x as long in a car as you do in a jet per mile flown. So if you are 750x more likely to die per mile in a car than in a plane, then you are 75x more likely to die per hour in a car than in a plane.
Uh, what? No one drives 1mph. It's just 200 hours at 60mph.
Yeah I accidentally pasted the 12000 where the 200 was supposed to go
Or the fact that people probably drive 1000x more than they fly
This is actually an interesting question. It would be very difficult to compare because there is a population that drives extensively and perhaps never flies (e.g. taxi, delivery, truck drivers), and a population that flies extensively and never drives (e.g. Wall Street banker, flight attendant, student traveler). As an example, I drive about 14k miles a year and fly about 20k (round trip to the Philippines is 14k alone and I do that every year). I can see most of the population never flying at all, in which case they drive infinitely more than they fly?
A quick look at the stats show that most fatalities involve distracted driving, speeding, drunk driving, bad weather, not using seatbelts, etc. And there's even more variables like vehicle type, speed, urban vs rural, etc.
Another major factor is averaging short flights with long flights because the biggest danger for planes is in take-off and landing. 10x200 mile flights is far more dangerous than 1x2000 mile flight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit...
I remember finding a government site with these kinds of stats decades ago when fighting a red light camera ticket and finding that something like 95% of red light accidents came more than 10 seconds after a light turned red, but that 95% of red light camera tickets were issued during the first 1 second after a light turned red. I ended up getting the ticket dismissed because I convinced the judge that my red light running was harmless because it was half a second after the light changed.
1) Limit flying, of course. Find a job that doesn't require travel by plane. Keep family and friends in the same locale if possible.
2) Comfort yourself with statistics. Cars on fast roads with no barriers are pretty dangerous. There's a low chance that you will be one of the unlucky few hundred that die on a plane every year out of tens of millions of passengers.
3) Benadryl + sleep strategies. If I have a morning flight, I stay up all night before hand and then take 2-3 benadryl right before boarding. It takes about 40 minutes to work, and it hits like a truck.
4) Let go of things you can't control :) Hard one....
Some airlines will run a "get over your fear of flying" course.
Here are two, but there are others: https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/travel-assi...
https://www.flyingwithoutfear.co.uk/
I don't have a cure for myself so I obviously don't have one for you, but here are some ideas:
1. Look at how many flights work out well https://flightaware.com/live/ there's something like a million people in the air at any given time. It's extremely unlikely that your plane will be the unlucky one. Take a screenshot and keep it on your phone.
2. Think through how horrible a crash would be and then just accept that you might die like this. You're going to die eventually and this is far from the worst way you could go. Your family will probably get well compensated which is a plus.
3. Sit in the stable parts of the plane, which I believe is towards the front and over the wing. The tail flexes which makes for much worse turbulence.
4. Consider drugging yourself. I can't do it but lots of people pop an anti-anxiety pill. Your doctor will probably give you some if you tell them you can't fly. It may completely solve the problem by altering your brain chemistry. Not a good idea if you're at risk of developing an addiction.
5. Fly on the high quality airlines with big planes. They don't want to lose those $500 million planes so they generally staff them with good pilots and do proper maintenance.
6. Don't fly when the weather is bad, just because it might feel scarier.
7. Try to avoid flying at night, just because it might feel scarier.
8. Watch pilot videos on youtube to see how incredibly stable modern airplanes are. These machines are incredibly fault tolerant and capable of recovering from severe problems in many cases. They're not flimsy or weak. They're really badass.
I wonder if "developed fear" would be worth studying.
I wonder how widespread an increase in flight anxiety is as airlines add seats to planes and increasingly fly planes at max capacity.
Can that work against a fearful mind though? Look at all of these planes flying safely! Statistically, in a strange way, the chances of a crash are only increasing in light of all of those safe flights I'm watching on Flight Aware.
On a side note, the best way to overcome any fear is to face it, repeatedly. In my fight with flying fear, I forced myself to fly often and longer and longer distances. Secondly, you need to stop negative thoughts in their tracks. Fear is exacerbated by an endless stream of "what if" thoughts that can spiral out of control. I learned to practice mindfulness and stop these thoughts. It takes practice and patience, but you'll find how free you can be from fear when you learn to reject these thoughts.
Why don't you try to take flying lessons ? Or at least the basics:
- Weather
- How a plane works, flies and such
- Wind, current, clouds, etc.
Often times your local flight school will offer an inexpensive "discovery" flight lesson for <= $100.
Alternatively, if you're in the SF area I've heard these folks are fantastic: https://www.fofc.com/
It taught me two things: what some of the noises, the vibrations, and the movements were; and how hard it is to actually crash a plane. Once you made it in the air, you'll want to try crashing your plane in the game (explosions! fun!), and it will be undoubtedly harder than you imagine.
I now have zero fear of flying. Before playing the sim, I knew rationally what you're also pointing out - that flying is extremely safe, yet I was still afraid. But after playing the sim, I actually believed it.
It's been probably 10 years since I played the simulator, but the effects last.
http://home.flightgear.org/
I've been told that the anxiety was created by my nearly passing out when getting blood drawn but the mechanism for nearly passing out is different from panic or anxiety. Still, my "exposure therapy" worked. The last time I had my blood drawn I watch a couple of videos the night before but probably didn't even need to.
I wonder if the visualization aspect of jumping out of a plan would also help my nerves. Maybe set a date and then watch YT videos for a few minutes a day on tandem jumping.
Put another way; you become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Believe it or not, you can actually enjoy those feelings.
For 2 out of the 3 people profiled, the OCD stemmed from a fear of something bad happening and that was their way to cope. For one specifically, her mother had a surgery gone wrong and almost died.
The therapy was to have a mock funeral for her mother, go to the hospital and watch her mother have blood drawn and essentially go through all of the motions of having her mother die so that she could process it.
By the end of the treatment (which seemed to be a little ad for only a few weeks) her symptoms were drastically reduced.
Flight Simulator X is more than a decade old but it's still decent and has an unbelievably large third party library of aircraft, scenery, and other add-ons. The Lockheed Martin developed Prepar3d is an attempt to update the FSX code base and by all accounts is quite good but i haven't tried it myself.
A proper flight sim isn't much fun without at least a stick and it's worth buying one even if it's cheap and doesn't have a throttle.
My first demo flight in a real plane, the flight instructor told me to do the takeoff. My hand was literally shaking as I advanced the throttle (this was in a Piper Cherokee). I don't think I even got us to full power, but it was enough for us to take off. Then we just buzzed around the Santa Cruz mountains (in the Silicon Valley) and I was pretty hooked after that. I don't even get fazed by big jolts on turbulence any more.
-Repeated exposure to a realistic flying experience (in our case, it goes gradually since it's designed for people with a fear)
-Specifically learning about some of the different noises planes make
-Getting exposure to the vibrations, noises, turbulence, etc that you'll encounter on a real flight
And on top of that, we teach various techniques for overcoming the fear, give new logical/rational approaches to reinforce how safe flying is, understanding the underlying anxieties and emotions involved in fear of flying, etc.
But we don't teach you how to fly! That would be a very neat addition.
The company is called Fearless. I put up a little Fearless for Flying survey here for anyone interested: https://goo.gl/forms/11dINvQlgSnvOaQE2
Another major marketing platform is becoming a sponsor of height-based sports, such as rock-climbing and paragliding competitions, or their respective national organizations (such as USHPA).
Hell, some organizations like USHPA may even want to partner with you instead of necessarily you becoming a sponsor. A lot of these organizations could bolster their memberships using new methods of outreach with your help. USHPA is one of the many organizations that I can think of that has a hard time getting peoples' new interest because people think of hang gliding and paragliding as "crazy". Most people, when asked why they don't want to do it, have fear of flight or heights as the main reason.
In short, look to the industries that would benefit from people overcoming their fears. Partner with them, sponsor them, whatever. Create outreach material with them, such as brochures or videos about their sport or niche, and have a plug for your software. Offer a free x-month subscription to your VR app with all new organization memberships. Or do it the other way around: getting a subscription or purchase to your VR app automatically gets you X% discount with partnered trainers in multiple sports: paragliding, hang gliding, sky-diving, GA, etc. Have partnerships with trainers where you send referrals to each other. Use marketing terms like "Always wanted to try X but were always too afraid? Start living life!" I could see that being a successful Facebook or Instagram ad.
I just recalled I wrote an article[0] about my vision of the future in which I mentioned using VR for overcoming fears. If you ever want to chat feel free to reach out to me via the contact details there. Good luck!
[0] https://medium.com/@eblanshey/the-world-is-undergoing-massiv...
I have an Oculus Rift, and would happily pay for such a simulator.
It's a good thing you didn't try flying a virtual helicopter then, those things are deathtraps. I have some experience flying the KA-50 "Black Shark" in DCS and before you get a feel for it is very easy to make your rotors bump into one another and break (mostly due to its weird double rotor), get in a vortex ring state, or simply bump into stuff horizontally while landing.
Crashing is still fun, it just waaaay easier than with a plane. At least the board computer will whisper sweet nothings to you after you've lost most of your rotors and are once again falling like a brick... "watch EKRAN".
Imagine I asked you "Here's a 100 kg object, and it can produce 10 kg of thrust. Can it fly?" It seems miraculous that the answer is yes. I had always known this, but thinking about it anew was amazing to me.
the fear will decrease once the thing you are afraid of becomes more clear/detailed (as opposed to vague.)
Like in all thriller/horror movies, the less you see of the "scary creature" (in a dark place, behind other objects blocking your view, etc.) , the more your imagination will process the scary thoughts and amplify things.
"The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day, when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears, and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day, without fail, one should consider himself as dead. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai."
For dealing with turbulence, I gain an amazing amount of comfort by holding onto something rigid- the armrest, the tray table, or if all else fails the front of the seat between the legs. The higher brain functions know better, but this seems to soothe the beast within.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stall_(flight)
2) Airliners are designed as stable instrument platforms, so it's unlikely you've been in an airliner that stalled.
For your flying example, that might mean to sit and think about just packing for a trip. How does that make you feel?
Then think about driving to the airport. How does that feel?
Then think about boarding the airplane.
Then think about flying calmly.
Finally, think about really rough turbulence.
The idea is to think about each step several times (over many weeks/months) until you are progressively more and more comfortable with the entire process. Often, anxiety about a specific event (turbulent flying) will start well before you experience the turbulence - so by progressively visualizing each step in the process, your mind will begin to better control your body over the entire experience.
This process works for all types of fears: spiders, bridges, going underwater, etc.
However! I’m not a professional - so if it is really bad, then I would recommend going to a therapist - even for just a few sessions - and they can better walk you through the process. Search for “CBT in [your area]” if you don’t know where to start.
Also - if you can’t get over it with just mental exercises, and you really need to fly somewhere - a doctor can prescribe medication that will relax you for the flight (though there are potential side effects - including addiction - so talk that over with your doctor).
Great comment!
But you have no control, and you're going to die. So both fears are irrational.
How do you defeat them? Nobody else owns your brain. It's your brain. People condition you with the things they say and teach you, but it's still yours. Re-wire it. It's no different than operating your limbs, in a manner of speaking. The connections are there, you just need to use them.
I also had the luck with learning about flight dynamics, airplanes, and how most unpleasant sensations during flight are well within operational parameters for an aircraft.
If they are worried though... well.. then.. yeah. Also, if you do this, and your daughter is with you, even if you are worried, try and stay calm and not show it. This will comfort your daughter as she is looking to you first.
Edit: One more bonus! If you know someone who flies military aircraft, or know somebody who knows someone, try and talk with them sometime. Take them out for a beer. They'll tell you some things that will make bad turbulence in a commercial jet seem very minor =p Might give you a good relative scale of things.
Also, I always remind myself that the higher up the plane is from the ground, the longer the pilot has to correct things or come up with a plan to land safely if something does end up happening. This won't help with anxiety about takeoffs and landings, but it may help for the large majority of the flight spent cruising at high altitude.
Planes are built for turbulence- passengers are not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_training
I ended up missing weddings and job opportunities because the fear of flying was so intense.
I now fly regularly, and without issue. It took a long time, but I've found a few things that worked for me:
1. No caffeine on a flight day. This helps for any anxiety that may start to build for me.
2. Noise cancelling head phones w/ ear plugs. A lot of my anxiety came from paying attention to the sound of engines. Was something odd happening? Keeping the sound of the engine drowned out helped keep my mind off the mechanics of the airplane.
3. Neck pillow / comfortable clothing. Being warm and comfortable lets me fall asleep, completely avoiding any anxiety that may have otherwise come.
4. Timing flights to avoid common storm times. I'm in Florida, and the afternoon thunderstorms can be extreme. If I can, I try to fly out early in the morning, or late at night when the storms tend to not occur.
This was a big one for me. I'd also add a 1(b): no alcohol the night before. I'm ok having a glass of wine or something while on a flight, but drinking the night before definitely has the same anxiety-inducing affect that caffeine the morning of has for me.
I went of my first flight recently, that was the bit that really stood out to me - a little before landing the engines sounded like they powered down to nothing. I had an (internal) freak out, while I watched everyone else continue on like nothing happened. After we landed safely I learned that same lesson - don't listen to the engine. Someone else is driving, and listening won't help.
In addition a couple strong cocktails right before the flight goes a long way to help me relax during take off. That's when I tend to be the most anxious.
Also getting a couple big bottles of water at the airport and bringing them on the plane helps me stay hydrated/comfortable and forces me to stand up and stretch in order to get to the restroom a few times during the flight.
My advice is learn and think about this on the ground, when you're not getting ready to take a flight, or at the airport, or on a plane - that way you're not having a psychological response and can think more rationally about these things. There's nothing worse than having a panic attack on a plane and having your companion urge you to think about probabilities :p
Of course, I can't travel with my own therapist so now I take a half gram of Lorazepam at the start of each flight, a drug that magically removes my fears. I also always get an aisle seat.