An interview with Duane Brown, Ph.D., author of Flying without Fear, Second Edition

New Harbinger published the first edition of Flying without Fear. Why did you write this second edition?

The primary reason for writing a second edition was to include all of the steps that have been taken to combat terrorism.

What is the difference between fear and anxiety?

Fear is an adaptive mechanism that pertains to real dangers such as being attacked by a mountain lion when hiking in the California mountains. Anxiety results from fears for others (parents are anxious about their teenage driver). Anxiety can also be caused for concerns about unrealistic dangers such as bugs, elevators, and so forth.

What are some methods for physically and emotionally calming yourself on an airplane?

The single best way to clam yourself is to slow your breathing to less than twenty times per minute and to force your self to breathe diagrammatically.

How do airplanes stay in the air?

Airplane wings compress air into cones of support and these provide lift as they move through the air. People interested in a detailed explanation can go to the NASA website.

What is anticipatory anxiety? What are some strategies to overcome it?

The fear of fear. Many people begin to worry about their flights days or weeks in advance. Sometimes this worry results in flight cancellations. The oddest cases of anticipatory anxiety I have encountered were in people who worried days before the flight, but once they boarded the flight, their anxiety dissipated.

What are some of the points during takeoff that can be potentially triggering for a person who is anxious about flying?

Takeoff is probably the most fearful time for most flyers. The noise of the plane plus the sensations they experience evoke fear. Fearful flyers cannot imagine how anything as heavy as a modern jetliner can fly. Turbulence is another cue that the plane is about to fall out of the sky for fearful flyers.