A quick glance at my blog and Instagram will tell you that I love to travel and have been very lucky in that I've actually travelled more this year than any other, but what you might not be able to tell is that I am a very nervous flyer. I haven't always been scared of flying though, when I was younger I travelled a good few times to America, and never really even noticed that I was almost 42,000 feet in the air. It's only been in the last couple of years that I've become rather scared of flying which isn't ideal as travelling is my absolute favourite thing and almost all of the places I want to visit require a plane journey of some kind. Since I'm never one to let things hold me back, I've come up with a few little tricks that help me to get through the flight without completely panicking and thinking that we're all going to die. I'm finding that every new flight I go on, the less nervous I feel and who knows, maybe I can even train myself out of this fear of flying!
1. Pretend you're not even on the plane.
This might sound ridiculous but bear with me as it's the tip that has helped me the most with flying. Get yourself an eye mask and a good pair of headphones or earphones and just completely tune out the fact that you're flying. I find that when I can't see or hear the plane, I'm a lot more relaxed and not overthinking every little sound, or watching out of the window as the plane turns. The headphones I have actually have something called Active Noise Cancellation which basically creates an "anti noise" to combat the sound waves from external noise so it's almost completely silent with the headphones on. This does an amazing job of getting rid of the plane's loud engine noises and I find myself falling asleep almost instantly on flights, which brings me onto my next tip...
2. Go to sleep.
This might sound easier said than done, especially if you're super nervous about flying but if you can get your head down for a bit of shut eye it helps the flight just fly by, if you'll pardon my pun, and you'll wake up at your destination relaxed and well rested. I used to always get a coffee before I flew as my flights were usually quite early in the morning but I found it was keeping me up for the entire flight and if anything, making me a lot more anxious too. Now, I just get a water in the airport, wear a nice comfy outfit and pop on my headphones and eyemask the minute I get on the plane and usually I can drift off pretty easily.
3. Watch a film or a tv show or read a good book.
I am going to preface this tip by saying do not watch a scary film on a plane, even if you're not that scared of flying because last month I very nearly boxed the man sitting next to me straight in the face after jumping out of my skin watching a horror movie... With that being said, like the other tips in this post, I find if I can't sleep, watching a film or a tv show is the next best thing to help me zone out and it also helps the time to just fly by too. If you have Netflix they have a very handy feature where you can actually download movies and tv shows onto your phone/iPad/tablet to watch whilst you're offline, so I always download lots to keep me occupied. The same goes for reading a book, it helps me to focus on the story I'm reading rather than the fact I'm on a plane.
I know most of these tips are just distraction methods and don't actually combat the actual fear itself but I've found that by flying enough times and not being completely terrified, it's actually helping me to overcome my fear, so hopefully these tips will help you too! What are your tips for overcoming a fear of flying?