Self Hypnosis for Fear of Flying

For those who are afraid of riding on airplanes, there thankfully exists the practice of self hypnosis for fear of flying. Now, you won’t even have to go see a hypnotherapist and pay their exorbitant fees because you can do this yourself. I will give a basic outline of the practice and different techniques you may want to implement during this article. With a fair amount of hard work on your part you can start to eliminate your phobia.

I know many people who are so terrified of being on airplanes, flying through mid-air at dizzying heights, that they either completely avoid plane travel or they have to eat a bunch of Xanax before it takes off for their destination or else they can’t do it. they end up knocked out the whole time. I guess this is a better solution than not going anywhere at all, but it still seems to lack something, doesn’t it?

Before we go into the actual process of effective self hypnosis for fear of flying, I want to just go over one point which I’m sure most of you aviophobes have already heard (maybe countless times). Nevertheless it bears repeating. Over any significant long distance, taking an airplane is a much safer way to travel than driving. Now, of course your fear is based in irrationality so this doesn’t really do anything for you, but it should motivate you. The fact is that if you are going a couple hundred miles or more, it is more likely you will die in a car accident than if you take a flight.

The other point of motivation is that once you overcome this fear of flying you will literally have the whole world at your fingertips. Airplane flight is the only practical way to see much of the world. Even to go from one coast of the US to the other is a huge undertaking if you aren’t making use of airplane travel. So let that motivate you, too! It’s good to remember the positive goal here. Anyway, onto the hypnotherapy process…

For this you are going to need to master the art of stress management. That is really the key to effectively doing self hypnosis for fear of flying. If you can’t do one, you can’t do the other. They really are like two different terms for the same thing. You also may want to look into some phobia-releasing aspects of mind body medicine. This may not be necessary but is helpful in some cases.

What I suggest is basically a two-prong process of both reminding yourself over and over again of the safety of flying, and simultaneously letting go of your hold on the future. I do not suffer from your same fears (at least not to a paralyzing degree), but sometimes I do get a little worried. For instance, during take-offs, landings, and during turbulence especially I sometimes can’t help but think, “What if this thing goes down?”

Here is how I handle that through my own self hypnosis: First of all I remind myself that despite what the news would have you believe, airplane crashes almost never happen. When you look at the number of flights happen on a daily basis, it is really astonishing that more planes don’t crash. It is very rare. Thousands upon thousands of successful flights happen each and every day; bar none.

Then, if during turbulence my fears are still choking me up, I simply mentally let go of everything. I actually make peace with the fact that I could very well die. Accept your own death (it could happen at any instant no matter what you’re doing) and the fear goes away. What is there to fear if you have no attachment to your own life? I suspect this is what a lot of old people have to do while they are lying in their death beds. It’s the only way to escape from the useless and paralyzing fear of airplanes (and death) that you have.

I know this may not be your typical advice for how to apply self hypnosis for fear of flying, but it is definitely what has worked for me. And I know this: if it works on smaller fears then it will work on bigger ones. That’s just how it is. It is the same hypnotic self-process.

You may also want to tap into some of the broader work that people have done on this issue. Whether that be in mind body medicine or hypnotherapy or wherever, it is helpful to know what has worked for a range of others who have in the past suffered from the same phobias; except they escaped them somehow. Listen to your intuition and try out some of the techniques that seem to call to you. You may be surprised to someday find yourself at ease thousands of feet above the ground.