You have probably heard or read the statistics about flying and safety: your chances of being in a fatal car accident are much greater than your chances of being in an airplane crash. Your rational mind holds onto this fact, hoping it will work to make you feel less anxious during flight. Yet, the rational fact that flying is safer than driving does nothing to mitigate your anxieties and fears.

Rational and Irrational Fears

You cannot treat your fear of flying rationally, because it is not a rational fear. The anxiety you feel at takeoff or during turbulence is much deeper than the rational mind. It has more to do with your subconscious, and the associations you have built up around the entire idea of flying.

When you have an association, a whole mental network of neurons lights up. Smell roast chicken, and your brain may light up with pleasant associations of home, family, and Sunday dinners. Visit a ballpark, and you may experience enjoyable associations of childhood, vacations or spending time with your father. When the average person boards an airplane, he has an association that includes the excitement of travel and the tedium of airports. The person with a fear of flying, however, has an association of flying that includes terror, panic and anxiety.

To get over your fear of flying, you have to alter your association. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is through hypnosis. You can either visit a trained hypnotherapist, download hypnosis MP3s or order hypnosis cassettes. You may even wish to try a combination of the two, by first visiting a hypnotherapist, then listening to an MP3 before subsequent flights.