Phobia

High anxiety: how I use mental exercises to ease my fear of flying James Kirby, The University of Queensland In the last five years, I’ve become quite anxious during flights – especially when turbulence hits. And while my wife Cassie never feared turbulence before, she has recently “caught” my anxiety, for which I feel inherently guilty. Now, we’re as bad as each other, and that can make for some terrible flight experiences. A recent case in point was our return flight from an otherwise lovely holiday in Bali. It certainly didn’t help that Mount Raung’s ongoing eruptions clouded the air with volcanic ash. This led to many cancelled flights and scores of tourists stranded at airports. When some flights finally did resume, the ashy air made the journey more turbulent than usual. We’re both clinical psychologists, so you would think we’d easily be able to manage our turbulence-related anxiety. But counselling others is one thing; applying the same strategies to yourself is another. I know how anxiety works and practise the commonly taught technique of controlled breathing in anxiety-provoking situations. It works sometimes, but I still feel on edge during turbulence. During this flight, I employed a different strategy to…