How to Overcome the Fear of Flying, According to the Pilot
It is estimated that 25 million Americans are afraid to fly . And although fear is completely natural – how does it stay there , especially in turbulence? – it can have a significant negative impact on a person’s life. But there’s a simple mental imagery trick devised by an airline pilot and shared on TikTok that might help you the next time you find yourself on a bumpy plane ride.
How to overcome fear of flying
Australian TikTok star Anna Paul recently demonstrated a way of thinking about airplanes that offers an intuitive explanation for how they can stay airborne even during turbulence. In the video, Paul sticks a piece of crumpled tissue paper into a bowl of jelly. Pointing to the napkin (the “airplane”), which remains motionless, she explains that the pressure of the jelly (“air”) applied from all sides holds the napkin in place, just like an airplane can stay in place. sky.
Paul shakes the cup, showing how the napkin stays in place, which is also true for an airplane in turbulence. “It won’t fall automatically just because it’s shaking,” Paul said. “Do not be afraid”.
Is air really like jelly?
It might be a bit of a stretch to imagine the air surrounding an airplane as jelly, but it’s closer to reality than you think. As the airline pilot and licensed therapist Tom Bunn , who invented the exercise, explains in his bookSoaring: A Breakthrough in the Treatment of Fear of Flying , the faster we fly, the more pressure the air exerts on us until, once we reach a high enough speed, the pressure becomes equivalent to jelly.
As Bunn writes in his book: “As the speed in the air increases, the passage becomes more difficult. When you’re walking through the air at five miles an hour, it’s effortless; Riding a bike through the air at 25 mph requires every effort a non-racer can put in. In a car at 50 mph, if you stick your hand out the window and push forward, it takes the same amount of effort as sticking your arm under the water in a pool and pushing forward. This means that for a vehicle driving into it, the air at 50 miles per hour will be as thick as pool water. At 80 miles per hour, the air becomes like butter or molasses. At takeoff speeds between 140 and 200 miles per hour, the air turns into something solid, like gelatin.”
The next time you find yourself sitting on a plane waiting for takeoff, imagine the air getting thicker and thicker the faster it moves down the runway, until finally when it takes off it gets just as thick. like jelly.