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Kanchan Rai |663 Answers |Ask -Follow

Relationships Expert, Mind Coach - Answered on Aug 25, 2025

Kanchan Rai has 10 years of experience in therapy, nurturing soft skills and leadership coaching. She is the founder of the Let Us Talk Foundation, which offers mindfulness workshops to help people stay emotionally and mentally healthy.
Rai has a degree in leadership development and customer centricity from Harvard Business School, Boston. She is an internationally certified coach from the International Coaching Federation, a global organisation in professional coaching.... more

Question by krish on Aug 22, 2025Hindi

Off late ( 4-5 months ) iam experiencing extreme anxiety during flying. It was not there before. Also the recent airline accident and reading news reports about flight technical snags are adding to my worry. My job profile requires me frequency travel and i cannot avoid it. Can you pls advice me on some relaxation techniques or methods to calm myself while flying.

Ans: Hello Krish,
The important thing to remember is that flying itself remains one of the safest modes of travel, and your anxiety, while very real, is more about perception than actual risk.
When you notice anxiety rising before or during a flight, try focusing on your breathing first. A simple technique is the 4–7–8 method: inhale through your nose for 4 counts, hold for 7 counts, and exhale slowly through your mouth for 8 counts. This helps calm the body’s stress response. Pairing this with progressive muscle relaxation — gently tensing and releasing muscles from your feet upwards — can give your mind something to focus on and reduce the physical tension that comes with anxiety.
Visualization also works well. Before your flight, close your eyes and imagine yourself boarding calmly, settling into your seat, and landing smoothly at your destination. During the flight, picture a safe, steady path in the sky, like a road, reminding yourself that turbulence is just like bumps on that road — uncomfortable, but not dangerous.
Practical steps help too. Limit caffeine or heavy news consumption before you fly, carry calming music, podcasts, or even guided meditations on your phone, and try to keep your mind occupied with a book, work, or even puzzles. Some people find comfort in talking briefly to flight attendants — their calm and routine presence can be reassuring.
If your anxiety feels overwhelming or keeps getting worse despite these methods, it may help to work with a therapist trained in cognitive-behavioral techniques for phobias. Even a few focused sessions can equip you with tools to manage the fear more effectively.

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Anu Krishna |1794 Answers |Ask -Follow

Relationships Expert, Mind Coach - Answered on Oct 27, 2020

Question by SD - Oct 27, 2020Hindi

Dear Anu, my problem is that from many years I suffer from fear of flying. I had discussed this issue with one of my acquaintance who is a pilot. He has helped me a lot in coming out of this fear and I must say I am 65 percent cured now. Main issue begins here. Whenever I have to travel through flight, anxiety overwhelms me, I start getting negative thoughts about flying, and I just keep sitting in airport and plane and don't talk to anybody and this anxiety goes only when plane lands. I know the technicalities of flying but still I am not able to control my mind and keep getting so much and many negative thoughts. I fly regularly but not able to come out of this due to which I never enjoy flying and always become tense and this anxiety is at very high level. Kindly help how can I divert my mind toward positivity and how can I stay away from all these terrible thoughts..

Ans: Dear SD, Welcome to this Fear of Flying Club! Many of us, and that once included me as well have certain fears when it comes to flying.

When I went deeper into my mind to lay these fears to rest once and for all, it was no surprise to see that for me, it was about not having control. Now obviously, what control am I going to have mid-air?

Like on roads, we are familiar with driving and have full view of the traffic ahead and this feels comfortable as we have a certain degree of control.

Mid-air, we suddenly are pushed out of our comfort zones. Ask yourself: What can I do to have the same level of familiarity? What you can model of the roads in air, is only through your imagination.

Since you have some hands-on-experience as I understand through your friend who is a pilot, imagine being one and taking charge.

Yes, though you are far away from the cockpit and in the passenger seat, your mind can frame you as a pilot sitting and having the control in his hands.

Go through an entire flight recreating the thrill that a pilot has when he/she takes charge right from entering the cockpit to landing the plane.

You may actually talk to your friend and ask him this entire experience. Simply mimic that feeling in your mind’s eye as the flight takes off the ground.

Does this help? Oh yes! Because fear crops in the mind as stories that we fuel; which means we are definitely in a position to extinguish this fuel by doing just the opposite and giving the mind a different experience that will lead to a calm and happier experience. Happy Flying!

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