Episode 368: How to Overcome Anxiety About Flying
The Hardcore Self-Help Podcast with Duff the Psych
Robert Duff, Ph.D.
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hello, friends! I hope everyone is doing well.
In today's episode, we take a deep dive into a pressing concern from a listener who's experiencing heightened flight anxiety, especially after a recent panic attack. Having flown multiple times without issues, the sudden resurgence of this anxiety, coupled with the responsibility of traveling with her two kids, has intensified her worries. We discuss the nature of panic attacks, the paradox of fearing anxiety itself, and the importance of anchor thoughts. By understanding the physiological similarities between anxiety and excitement, one can redirect their focus to positive anticipations. We also emphasize the pitfalls of safety behaviors and the significance of relying on support systems, even those onboard. Lastly, we highlight the importance of self-compassion, preparation, and recognizing one's resilience in facing such challenges.
Additionally, we touched upon the value of grounding techniques like box breathing, the potential of distractions, and the concept of transforming anxiety into excitement using anchor thoughts. We also explore the idea of viewing each phase of the flight as milestones rather than triggers.
As always, if you have questions or topics you'd like discussed on the show, please send them to duffthepsych@gmail.com. Be sure to check out the show notes for this episode at http://duffthepsych.com/episode368.
Links mentioned:
Pilot walks you through the sounds of a plane
Mel Robbins discusses her strategies for overcoming plane anxiety
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well good that's great news. It's great news that you can't escape because you're never going to get to your anchor thought you're never going to get that big hug from your family if you jump out of the fucking plane. |
| 0:10.0 | Hey everybody, before we start the show I want to make a couple disclaimers. |
| 0:13.9 | This show does cover a wide variety of topics related to mental health and life in general, |
| 0:18.1 | and some of those could be sensitive for you. |
| 0:20.3 | I want to simultaneously encourage you to be brave in consuming difficult content, but also respect and recognize your limitations. |
| 0:27.0 | So please use your best judgment. I will never be offended if you need to skip a question or an episode entirely but feel free to feel it out |
| 0:34.4 | check out the episode and just see what happens if you need to skip that's okay |
| 0:37.5 | but you know feel free to give it a shot first I also need to say that while I am a |
| 0:41.8 | psychologist I'm not your psychologist and I'm not your therapist. |
| 0:45.0 | This is not intended to be direct medical advice and you should not use this as a substitute for professional help. |
| 0:50.0 | So with those said let's go ahead and get into the show. All right, hello friends of all varieties, This is the Hardcore Health Podcast episode 368. |
| 1:15.6 | I'm your host Dr. Robert Duff, aka Duff the Psych. |
| 1:18.8 | I make mental health content for real people, just like you. |
| 1:22.4 | And today we're doing just a deep dive on one |
| 1:24.6 | question I figured this would be a good week to do that there's no you know ads or |
| 1:29.5 | anything so I can kind of just roll through it'll be probably probably pretty short and sweet, but I got a really good |
| 1:34.1 | question that I think a lot of people could benefit from hearing an answer to. I think I've probably |
| 1:39.5 | talked about this here and there on the show, but I'm not sure if I've done a full dedicated |
| 1:44.3 | episode to it so why don't I just jump in I'll read the question and then I'll go |
| 1:48.1 | through and you know give my best answer to it so the question hi Robert, I read your book, |
| 1:54.0 | Fuck Anxiety, a few years back, and I found myself reading it again |
| 1:57.1 | since my anxiety has reared its ugly head. I had a panic attack recently, |
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