When Your Holiday Starts with Anxiety
Fiona Campbell Arrand
As summer approaches, many people are looking forward to a well-earned holiday. The enjoyment of spending time with family, exploring new places and taking a break from everyday routines is something most of us enjoy.
For some people, however, a holiday poses a problem of its own – the flight.
Fear of flying affects thousands of people every year. Some avoid flying altogether, while others spend weeks feeling anxious before they travel. They may find themselves checking weather forecasts, worrying about turbulence, imagining worst-case scenarios or struggling to sleep as the departure date gets closer.
What’s interesting is that most people with a fear of flying know that flying is statistically one of the safest forms of travel. Yet despite knowing this, the anxiety remains.
One of the principles I often talk about in coaching, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and hypnotherapy is that all behaviour comes from a thought.
Before you can feel anxious, worried or fearful, something has usually has to happen in your thinking first. We create pictures in our minds, imagine situations, remember past experiences or focus on what might go wrong. Those thoughts then create feelings, and those feelings influence our behaviour.
I recently worked with someone who hadn’t flown for several years. The moment a holiday was mentioned, they immediately began imagining turbulence, panic and being trapped on the aircraft. By the time the holiday arrived, they had already mentally rehearsed the flight dozens of times – unfortunately, they had only rehearsed everything going wrong.
Their anxiety wasn’t being caused by the flight itself. It was being caused by the thoughts and images they were creating beforehand.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the fear isn’t real. The physical symptoms can feel very real indeed. A racing heart, sweaty palms, tension, shallow breathing and a feeling of panic are common responses. The challenge is that once those physical feelings begin, they can reinforce the fearful thoughts, creating a cycle that feels difficult to break. The more often this happens, the stronger the association between flying and anxiety can become, even when there is no actual danger present.
This is where clinical hypnotherapy can be particularly helpful.
Hypnotherapy works by helping people access a deeply relaxed state where they can begin to change some of the automatic thought patterns and emotional responses linked to flying. Rather than focusing on fear and danger, the mind can learn to associate flying with calmness, confidence and safety.
Many people are surprised to discover that once they change the way they think about flying, their emotional response begins to change as well.
The same principle applies to many other fears and anxieties. Whether it’s public speaking, interviews, exams or flying, our minds are often responding to what we imagine might happen rather than what is actually happening.
As holiday season gets underway, it may be worth remembering that sometimes the biggest barrier isn’t the plane.
It’s the thoughts you are having about it.
Fiona Campbell Arrand
Clinical Hypnotherapist, NLP Trainer,
Coach and Author of Working with Trust
www.fionacampbellhypnotherapy.co.uk
www.theprofessionalgrowthcompany.com
