What Should You Worry About?

So, how do you decide whether to pay attention to your fearful thoughts about the dangers of flying?

To help you sort through what your concerns are regarding flight safety, you can turn to the section called "Handling Worries" in the Don't Panic Self-Help Kit (see Resources). You will learn about handling worries as 'signals.' Here is an example of how you might use that process.

Imagine some new event has occurred that causes you to question whether you should fly again. Perhaps the newspapers have reported some concerns about a particular airline in the industry. You begin to have questions about whether you should be flying on that carrier. Or maybe there has been a recent accident, and it has raised issues in your mind about safety. Or there have been threats of terrorist attacks. You will probably begin to worry any time there has been a recent incident that calls into question your ability to feel safe on a flight.

When you have concerns like this, you need to slow down a little bit, think through exactly what those concerns are, and figure out what actions you need to take in light of these questions. It's not going to be helpful for you to simply ask over and over again in your mind, "Should I fly? Should I fly? Should I fly?" All that will do is stir you up and make you anxious. But that's what worrying does: you keep defining the problem in your mind, you keep throwing the question up to the front of your consciousness, and you get anxious again and again.

What you need to do is to put some of your creative intelligence to work to respond to this problem that you are worrying about, to answer these anxiety-provoking questions your mind asks.

Whatever the issue is, your first step is to set aside time devoted to looking at it. Define specifically what the problem is. For example, your definition of the problem might be, "there was an incident last month involving the airline I'm flying on Friday. That makes me question whether I should fly." Identify what that problem is, then sit down with paper and pencil, and write down all the components of the problem, everything that you feel concerned about.

Second, write down all possible solutions. Can you get more data about this? What do experts say is the probability of this problem recurring? What actions are being taken to solve this problem? How successful have those actions been, or will those actions be? Where can I gather information to help me answer these questions?

Third, go about the process of answering these questions. Turn to the FAA, the airline industry, consumer watch groups, and gather information as necessary.

And, fourth, use that information to make your decision. If your conclusions, based on evidence and data, are that flying is unsafe and you shouldn't trust the industry, then by all means don't bother flying. Certainly, if you don't rationally believe it is safe to fly right now, you have the right to cancel your plans. Canceling will have consequences, of course. You may inconvenience yourself or others. But you are the one in control, and you get to decide what action is best for you.

If you feel it is necessary, postpone flying until you feel safe again. But make sure you are using information that is going to help you decide logically whether flying is safe. Don't simply respond to sensationalism and emotionalism. If you choose to make your decision based on your emotions alone, your fears and anxiety are going to win out, because they are the most powerful of all your emotions in these situations, and they'll run the show.

Keep in mind that your fears may not be directly related to the safety of flying, even though your mind focuses on the safety issues. As I mentioned before, when you choose to learn to fly comfortably, you are confronting some common, basic fears that are built into all of us, such as fear of heights; being closed in, crowded or trapped; and the fear of not being in control. It's no surprise so many people have trouble flying; we are challenging some primitive survival instincts. Be careful that you don't blame the industry for your discomfort when you actually need to be paying attention to issues unrelated to the industry.

Here's another example of how you may focus on the wrong concerns when you fly. Let's say you are about to fly to your family's home for the holidays. In the back of your mind, you are worried about the health of one of your family members, but you are not consciously aware of that worry as you are boarding the plane. You just notice that you are beginning to feel nervous.

Instead of realizing that you are nervous about your family member, you think you are scared of the plane. We call this misattribution: you attribute your discomfort to the process of flying instead of to your family. Then you focus all your worries on whether this flight will be safe. And, of course, since that's not the real problem at the moment, you will have a hard time calming yourself down by reassuring yourself about airline safety. If your discomfort continues despite your reassurances, then you'll become more worked up. And that will be the vicious circle we have talked about.

For this reason, it's important for you to use logic and intellect as you respond to such worries. Take time to really think through all that could be influencing your worries. Then take action to learn more, and to think clearly about what you learn. Don't just dwell on your worries. Doing nothing is going to be the least successful avenue in solving this particular problem.

That's why I want to congratulate you on working with this material. You know you have been having some troubles, and you have decided to take a good long look at all that could be affecting you. Now you can make the leap from learning about your new choices to actually practicing them.

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