I haven’t always been panicky on airplanes. When I was a kid and well into adulthood, flying was just another exciting mode of transportation that I used in my mission to see the world. In fact, I still do enjoy airports, especially really nice ones, like Amsterdam and Salt Lake City. It was probably 9/11 that flipped a switch in me. After that, I became acutely aware of every news story about terrorist acts, specifically those involving airplanes, and then any report of a plane crash, until, whenever I flew, I became very tuned in to every bump, thud, and unidentified sound from the plane. I looked for signs, good and bad. Youngish (ie too young to make consistently good choices) guy in a black track suit with new white sneakers? Bad sign. Lots of kids or babies? Good sign; because surely a loving God would watch over such a concentration of innocent souls. These are the things I would tell myself anyway.
When the panic attacks started to become unmanageable, I tried a trick my brother taught me during a strenuous (for me) hike in the Desolation Wilderness near Lake Tahoe. The high altitude had left me winded, and the narrow trail high along a mountainside that dropped into a deep valley beside me was taking the fun out of it for me. He said, “Count to a hundred. Most things are over by the time you get to a hundred.” So, when whatever plane I was on hit “unexpected turbulence”, I forced myself to breathe slowly and count my breaths to 100. It’s a good trick. I still use it sometimes when I can’t get myself into a state of visualization, which is what I tried next.
Around 2008, I discovered a series of hypnosis apps by Andrew Johnson.
The main thing that worked for me with these, was Andrew’s voice itself. He speaks in a soothing baritone Scottish brogue (I’m guessing) that I found, well, quite distracting. There are several that he does, but for plane panic, I most often turned to “Don’t Panic”. Andrew would talk me through a couple of minutes of deep relaxation, breathing, then count down, and then begin a visualization exercise. The exercise tells the listener to first visualize a garden, and as you walk into the garden, “deeper and deeper” as he would say, there are levels of different colored flowers, lots of calm peaceful feelings, etc. By then I was such a nervous flyer, I would put my headphones on almost as soon as I sat down and let Andrew talk me all the way through take off. Sometimes, I would start the app again later if we hit rough air during the flight. It was so effective that it even got me up almost two flights of stairs in a lighthouse (my nemesis) once; when I had never made it that far up before. I listened to Andrew so often, that I became able to visualize the garden on my own at a moment’s notice.
After a couple of years practicing with Andrew Johnson, I learned to visualize on my own. I eventually made the connection in my mind, on a very turbulent transatlantic flight, that the plane was rolling like a boat caught sideways in the wake of a bigger boat. It was the middle of the night, so I couldn’t see anything, but I imagine there was quite a storm raging outside to rock such a large plane. After that, when flights got bumpy, I started closing my eyes and visualizing a fast boat ride on a perfect, sunny day. Usually it was my grandpa’s purple ski boat, where my siblings, cousins and I spent so many hours in the summer, attempting to water ski or riding at the bouncing bow of the boat, with the mist in our faces and wind in our hair. I found that with one memorable exception, a terrifying roller coaster of a flight out of Chicago, almost no turbulence in a plane is rougher than a fast boat ride across a choppy lake.
Recently, memories of my grandpa’s boat have been replaced by a fresher memory of riding in a blue and white panga, Chachito III, on the Sea of Cortez, on a gorgeous sunny day.
There were four of us on the boat that day: Jac, my instant BFF for the week, the boat captain, Angel, and our guide Miguel (Angel and Miguel, courtesy of Mar y Aventuras). Jac and I were enjoying the sun on the flat bow of the boat and hardly noticed Angel picking up speed. The water was choppy and the boat bounced a little at first, and then increasingly more wildly. We screamed and laughed each time the bow rose and fell. I said, “I’m staying up here! I won’t back down! I refuse!” I know Angel was grinning even though he kept his face completely covered under buffs, and his eyes behind shades at all times. I don’t know if he took my declarations as a challenge, but he continued to speed up. I don’t remember which of us, Jac or I, backed off of the bow and down to the safety of the seats first, probably me because I am a big chicken. That boat ride is what I visualize now, when a plane I am on starts to bump and bounce, the four of us laughing and bouncing along the water in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Jac, Angel and Miguel have seen me through several nerve-wracking flights, like the one I’m on as I write this, and in the unlikely event I ever do go down in a crash caused by extended turbulence, they will likely have been with me to the bitter end.
What are your tricks for getting through turbulence? Or does it not bother you at all? Let me know in the comments section!
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