WEBVTT - Fear of Flying 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.400 This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host, 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:17.360 Jen Kirkman. Hi, Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.119 I am your host, Jen Kirkman. Today is a little 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.240 bit different. I'm doing a solo episode. I will be 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.400 doing a few of these throughout the season, but I 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.160 thought it would be fun. I guess to drop this 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.680 episode on this particular Wednesday, which is known as the 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.879 busiest travel day of the year. Maybe some of you 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.920 are out there right now flying and you have a 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.600 phobia of air travel like I did, and maybe maybe 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.600 this will help. Maybe it won't. But I have a 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.360 feeling that I have a lot to offer because I 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:54.200 had a massive phobia of air travel for decades, and 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.560 it is nothing short of a miracle to me that 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:02.440 I am truly not a phobia flyer anymore at all. 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:08.479 I can't believe it. In fact, how this podcast started 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:11.759 was an idea that I had a couple of years 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:16.080 ago where I wanted to be a fear of flying 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.160 coach and I wanted to not not people who are 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.280 afraid to fly coach. Don't don't misunderstand me. I wanted 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:24.759 to be a coach for people who have a fear 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.120 of flying, and I thought it would be cool to 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.000 travel with people. I'd pay my own way and I 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.959 would fly with you if you were a fearful flyer. 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:36.959 And I thought, wouldn't that be kind of interesting to 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.440 record that as a podcast or I don't know, as 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.640 videos or something. And as I started to seriously think 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:48.000 about how would I do this, uh, coronavirus hit and 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.240 we were locked down, and I had no desire to 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.360 get in a plane with strangers. And then so during 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:57.200 that lockdown of when the idea for this podcast really 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.000 was born. But it did kind of start with my 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.680 desire to really help people who have a fear of flying. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.760 So I we'll break this podcast down into a few parts. 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:10.800 I'm going to spend a lot of this podcast telling 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.520 you my story of my fear of flying, what it 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.720 was like, all of the ridiculous moments I had on 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:22.560 airplanes because of this phobia, all of the things I 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.600 gave up in life because I didn't want to get 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:29.320 on a plane, the attempts I made at getting some 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:34.120 recovery in this area that just didn't work. And what 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.520 led me to, finally, I don't know, gain control of 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.519 this that that's a bad term to use, but to 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:45.400 master this. I will also provide statistics and tips and 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.600 information about airplanes and about what's actually happening to us 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.680 when we're on planes, whether it's claustrophobia or something else. 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.760 And then I will end the episode with a progressive 0:02:54.800 --> 0:03:00.320 muscle relaxation. But let's just begin with my story. I 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.120 don't really remember the first moment that I realized I 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:06.720 had a phobia of flying. I really don't know, but 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.280 I know that the beginnings of it all went something 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.000 like this. I was about seven or eight years old. 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.160 I kept seeing commercials for Disney World on TV. I 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.320 lived in Massachusetts. I have two older sisters. They were 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:22.840 so much older than me that they already weren't living 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.160 at home anymore. My parents and my sisters used to 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.040 vacation down in Florida once in a while. They would 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.400 drive all the way from Massachusetts to Florida. But in 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.120 the eighties, I feel like air travel was starting to become, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.760 you know, not something that just rich people did. And 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.440 so I think I asked my parents can we fly 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.720 to Disney World? And I'd never been anywhere before outside 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:49.160 of Massachusetts and maybe New Hampshire, but they said yes, 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:51.560 and I think I was excited, and I know that 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.920 the whole thing was my idea. And then I think 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.000 by the time that trip was over, I had a 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:02.800 full blown phobia of air travel. I do remember my 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.880 first flight. I remember my my dad being fascinated with 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:09.960 the cockpit that you know, again this is the early eighties. 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.360 The pilot would stand there in front of the cockpit door. 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.240 The door would be open and you could basically walk 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:17.720 into the cockpit if you want to do. And my 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.000 dad asked the pilot and can we get a little tour? 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:25.919 And I think I remember feeling anxious then that was 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.160 overwhelmed by all the buttons and dials, as though they 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:30.240 were going to ask me to fly the plane. And 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.960 then I swear I'm not making this up. There was 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.159 a spiral staircase on on the airplane. I think it 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.279 was Eastern Airlines. I mean, I know that staircases on 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.760 planes are a thing on some flights. Uh, It's just 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.719 one of those weird memory things. Did did that really 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:46.760 happen on my first flight or did I make that up? 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.320 I don't know, but in my memory, I think I 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.159 did see a spiral staircase and I just thought, well, wait, 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.240 what like, this is too many this is too many 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.000 things in the in the plane. What do you mean 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.960 there's a first class lounge up there, that there's stairs? 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:02.920 I mean, isn't this too heavy? How's it gonna stay 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:05.120 in the air? All that kind of thing. And you know, 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.400 I don't know where the you know, I don't know 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.919 about what what's going on in my brain. Where I 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.640 see a cockpit and I immediately think the pilot's going 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:15.719 to be too overwhelmed to fly. Where I see a 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:20.360 glamorous nighties spiral staircase on a plane and I think 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.040 that there's too many levels on this plane, it's too 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:24.760 heavy to stay in this guy, I don't know where 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:31.040 that negative thought pattern came from. It it's not important 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.960 to my recovery in a way. But one thing I 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.440 do remember, and again I think I remember this. I 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.360 swear my mother took out her rosary beads during takeoff. Now, 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.920 my parents did not have a fear of flying, as 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.919 far as I knew, but they didn't fly often. It 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.560 might have even been my mom's first flight as well. 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:54.520 I said, don't remember. But we weren't very religious Catholics. 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:56.080 We went to church once a week and then that 0:05:56.160 --> 0:06:00.320 was it. We don't talk about God outside of the church, 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.440 and you know, the rosary beads only came out in 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:07.719 an emergency, you know, and so that signaled to me 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.280 that something was maybe an emergency. And then my dad 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.880 was clutching the seat during takeoff, going here we go, 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.000 here we go, here we go. You know, was he 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.840 trying to act excited, was he really anxious? Was my 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.160 mom anxious or did she find it normal to take 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.760 out the rosary beads. I don't know, but I don't 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:28.320 think their behavior is to blame, because I really think 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:32.280 I'm on a plane. I'm a tiny person, right, I'm 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.359 seven years old, and I had never been in a 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.039 vehicle that was moving so fast. I mean, these things 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.159 are speeding down the runway, and then sounds are so loud, 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.080 and their new sounds, and they're not sounds I'm used to. 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:51.760 And then that feeling of this big thing rising off 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.680 of the ground and you hear the wheels coming up 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:59.080 and clunking, and it's a very strange feeling. I mean, 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.480 now to me it's like, oh yeah, whatever. But back then, 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.760 I'm sure it caused as a lot of things do. 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.120 The first time we feel them, a little bit of sensations, 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:13.240 a little bit of sweaty palms, my heart's racing. It 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:20.400 could have just been excitement, but it immediately went to anxiety. 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.280 And I'm pretty sure I probably had a panic attack. 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:27.640 I just don't remember, but I do know that ever 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:33.160 since that first round trip flight, I identified as someone 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.720 with a fear of flying, and I thought it was 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:41.400 very normal. I talked about it as though, well, we 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:43.520 should have a fear of flying. I talked about it 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.600 like it was a fear of I don't know, jumping 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:49.600 out of an airplane without a parachute, as though that 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.000 was the same thing, you know. And every year we 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:54.720 went to Disney World, and that was the only time 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.160 I flew once a year, round trip, three hour flight 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.560 from Boston to Orlando. And every year, the anticipation before 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.720 the flight, I don't know, probably began a month before 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:10.080 every trip, just almost planning to be anxious. Now I 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.280 didn't have the words anxious or panic, but afraid, I 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.040 guess I knew the word afraid. I guess I would 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.840 have put it that way. I'm afraid to fly. And 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:19.640 of course, you know what, what we're all getting wrong 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:21.120 when we say that is we're not afraid to fly. 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.240 We're afraid to feel anxious while in an airplane. We're 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.720 afraid of whatever the unknown. We're afraid of a plane crash. 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.560 But we're really not afraid to fly because flying is 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.480 a great sensation. But I mean, it would just it 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:36.920 got to the point where I couldn't even enjoy my 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.680 time in Disney World because I was worrying about the 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:44.000 flight back. And then when I was about eleven or 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:51.559 twelve years old, maybe thirteen, I would say to my friends, well, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:53.880 I'm probably going to die this week because I'm getting 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:58.079 on a plane. And I don't remember what their reactions were. 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:00.840 I was always the kid that was thinking about that 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.120 kind of thing, so I think they were used to 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.640 it by then, because I'd probably been talking about nuclear war, 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.120 you know, for some all during the eighties as well. 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:13.520 I remember writing a will on a cocktail napkin on 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.800 a flight down to Florida, writing, you know, to my 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.480 friends SHAWNA and Terry, you can have this record of mine, 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:23.959 you can have this T shirt of mine. I don't 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.880 know why I thought if there was a plane crash 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:32.480 that a cocktail napkin would survive, but I don't know 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.080 what a weird thing to do is to sit with 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:41.280 pen and paper and almost um, not glorified, but give 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:45.880 in to your worst fears. And after that trip, I 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.920 just couldn't handle what felt like a three hour I 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.000 can't breathe feeling. And I said to my parents, it's 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.920 not worth it anymore. I don't want to fly. I 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.600 don't want to go on these vacations. And it's I mean, 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.320 it's not tragic story. I was thirteen, it's fine, like, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:04.600 we don't need to keep going to disney World. Now 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:08.120 I'm you know, becoming a teenager. And you know, even 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.240 though I loved disney World and still do you know, 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.640 I gotta actually I think it's corny and all that stuff. 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:14.880 But you know, okay, great, so you say, well, some 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:16.719 people never get to go to Disney World. What's what's 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:17.959 the big issue it is on it? But it was 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.960 just that I had trained myself to believe something that 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.439 totally was not true, that I was participating in something 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.640 very dangerous, and I was tired of risking my life, 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:35.040 you know, And I just continued to have an anxiety 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.480 disorder after that, unrelated to being in airplanes. You'll hear 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.440 me talk about it on other episodes with guests, so 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:44.400 I won't get into it. We'll just stick to the flying. 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.280 But then I went to college, um, you know, only 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.760 twenty minutes away from where I grew up, and there 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.680 were a few things at my college where you could 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.800 go study abroad, and I didn't do that because I 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:57.800 was too afraid to fly. And I just thought, I mean, 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.400 I even looked down on the the other kids that 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.400 went and thought, God, they're risking their life just to 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:08.000 go to Amsterdam. I mean, I mean, I really thought 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.199 this was a risk. Now, I don't know, I don't 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:11.480 know what kind of things got in my head. I 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.360 remember when I was in eleventh grade in high school, 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:19.960 I was taking French as my language elective, and there 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.040 was talk of maybe we go on a field trip 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.920 to France, and the first Iraq War had just started, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.200 and some of the moms got together and talked to 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.600 the principle and they said they were worried about just 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.120 overall terrorism in the world, and and hijacking of planes 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:36.520 was kind of a big thing in the eighties, and 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.520 this was like early nineties. But I don't know if 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:41.160 they were worried about that. So we decided we'll just 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.920 take a bus and go up to Montreal. And I 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.360 was so relieved, and I can't believe I was relieved 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:49.200 and was like, oh good, I'm going to get on 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.240 a Grayhound bus. But you know that's what a fear 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.160 flying will do. So then I get out of college 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:55.800 and I just, yeah, I'm never going to get on 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.600 a plane again, is what I think. And my mom 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.240 found this I don't know article in the Boston Globe 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:08.160 about a class you could take at the airport at 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.400 Logan Airport in Boston, and it was a class for 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:15.439 fearful flyers taught by a psychiatrist named Dr al four 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.440 Gioni Rest in Peace, Dr l And it was called 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:23.160 Logan's Heroes, which, if you don't understand, is a pun. 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.640 There was a TV show, a comedy about Nazis called 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.080 Hogan's Heroes. Anyway, that we were Logan's hero So I 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.200 sign up for the class, and now my fear of 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.560 flying is so bad that I can't even be on 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.360 the highway driving to the airport. And you start to 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.880 see those signs for the airport. That is when the 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.240 insane panic attacks would begin, the kind of panic attacks 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.040 where my entire body. I'm not joking, head to toe, 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.160 violent shaking and shivering. If I were driving a car, 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.920 probably would crash it into the guardrail. And so my 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:01.319 dad would drive me to the airport every Tuesday night 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:04.520 from six to nine pm to take this class with 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.959 Dr Al four GIONI. It was in the Delta Airlines lounge. 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.640 You know, this is pre n eleven, pre security at airports. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:15.400 I mean this is this is almost like right at 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:19.400 the gate, you know. And we met Dr Al and 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.520 I'm the youngest person in class by twenty years. Everyone 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.680 in there, there's probably maybe eight other people, and yeah, 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:27.760 they're all in their forties and their fifties. A lot 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.320 of it is their kids left home for the first time, 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:35.400 their kids, you know, went to college somewhere out of state, 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:37.720 or they got married and moved away, and the parents 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:39.600 are afraid to get on planes to visit them. They 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.079 don't know what's happening. They've never had this fear. It 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.520 was sort of came on them in midlife. And they 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:52.160 all had different things. And yeah, they all had physical 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.360 anxiety like me, but they also had other stuff that 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:59.080 I didn't necessarily have. You know, some of them just um, 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:01.360 I didn't like being strapped in in a seatbelt. That 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.720 didn't bother me. Some of them were really afraid of terrorism. 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.160 I don't think I was totally that afraid of it. 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.120 That we all had different things, but I really felt 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.480 like I was the only one that was sitting there 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:14.680 in the room not able to breathe, just because I 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.559 was simply in the airport. I mean, I was getting 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.400 lightheaded just sitting at the table, and we were in 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.040 this room that was just wall to wall windows. The 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.720 windows were shut, the shades were shut, and Dr L 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.160 opened the shade a little bit and you could see 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.120 the nose of a plane just right there. And I 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:32.840 swear to you it was as though I was on 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.800 a plane that was taking off. The panic was intense. 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.160 And he shut the shade and said, we're not there 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.400 yet where we can look at the planes, but that's 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.360 what's coming, and pretty soon every class the shades will 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:47.440 be open and we'll just be watching planes take off 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.960 in the background. I mean, just that thought to me 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.640 was like, I I can't come back to this class. 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.440 But I loved Dr L. I loved his irreverence, and 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.880 I always think I want to be a doctor al 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.840 in term of the way I approached talking about anxiety. 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.640 He was so well, he just didn't have anxiety, but 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.360 he understood what it was. And again this is you 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.320 could still smoke inside back in those days, and he 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.480 would drink his coffee, he would eat McDonald's and smoke 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:21.000 cigarettes while he taught class. And every week we'd go 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:25.560 over a different aspect of, you know, working on our anxiety, 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.720 and and one of the weeks he talked about the 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:30.960 things we put in our body and how it affects us. 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.760 You know, drinking a pepsi or a coke on the 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.640 plane is just full of sugar and that is going 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:39.760 to go straight to your adrenals and it's going to 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.120 make you anxious. Drinking coffee, I mean, this seems so obvious, 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:45.120 but you know, you might not think about that stuff. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:49.440 Drinking coffee, um, drinking alcohol. You may feel like it's 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.880 calming you down, but it's dehydrating you. It's removing important 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.440 electrolytes from your body, which you know you're you're getting 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.320 dehydrated and kind of losing electrolytes when you're up in 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:00.560 the air anyway, so it's really important to stay hydrated. 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.880 It actually really helps your nervous system, and so alcohol 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.520 can end up feeling a little bit at first like 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.200 it's helping, but then eventually it just turns into sugar 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:14.800 and you're anxious and hydrated and possibly drunk. And so 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.120 he said no alcohol. And again this is I think 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:19.760 you could still smoke on planes at this point, and 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.200 he said no smoking. And so this woman said, well, 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.960 dr al, you're sitting there drinking coffee and smoking. How 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:26.800 come you can do it? And he said, I'm not 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.600 the one who's anxious, and he had the greatest Boxton accent. 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.040 I don't know what you had to be there, but 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:34.640 every week it was a new thing. One week we 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.160 had a pilot come in and answered all of our questions, 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.800 is turbulence? Okay, what about if the plane gets hit 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.840 by lightning? And he explained to us that a plane 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.160 could still get hit by lightning and be okay. In fact, 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.760 some planes, if they get hit on the nose with 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.240 lightning what's called a great ball of fire, can travel 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.160 down the aisle and everything will still be fine. I remember, 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:58.160 I think the movie Apollo thirteen had just come out, 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.080 and this one woman in classed, no, no, what if 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.280 the plane, Um, it just goes too high and and 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.439 and you know, we're trapped in space. And he said, well, ma'am, 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.480 planes can't leave the Earth's atmosphere. And then she she 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:12.320 seemed embarrassed that she'd have been asked, and she want, 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:14.080 are fine, I didn't know. I'm not a pilot, and 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.000 he said, that's okay, ma'am, there's no stupid questions. She 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.159 was like, well, clearly there is. Like I don't know 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.240 what's gone on with her. That day, there was another 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.040 woman in the class who was taking the class because 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.000 she had tickets to fly the Concorde. I don't know 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.920 if you remember that, uh that that plane is not 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.720 in use anymore. It used to fly you from America 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.880 to Europe in three hours and it went like supersonically high, 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.040 and she was afraid of that, and so she wanted 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.200 to take this class in order to get on the Concorde. 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.040 And she was like this fancy, very wealthy woman. And 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.639 you know, one class we learned about progressive muscle relaxation, 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:52.840 which again is my favorite thing in the world for anxiety. 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.280 I can't believe I haven't talked about it more on 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.240 this podcast, but it's basically as simple as tightening musts 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.960 and then releasing them. I did talk about it a 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:07.480 little on the Doctor Lauana Marquez episode, But what Dr 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.800 Al taught us is you can't just go on a 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:16.080 plane with anxiety and start jumping into your solutions thinking 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.320 that the work if you haven't practiced when you're not 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.320 on the plane. And so every night I listened to 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.280 a tape that's right at cassette tape narrated by Dr 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:30.639 Al himself, and I would do progressive muscle relaxation in 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.399 my parents living room. It was about a twenty minute 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.160 tape and I did it every night. And the reason 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.720 you do that is because you're most likely not panicking 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.320 when you're at home in the living room and you 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.840 go through the progressive muscle relaxation and you teach your 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.760 body that first of all, just doing it is relaxing, 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.879 but you do it in a safe space, and you 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.320 do it every night, so that if you have a flight, 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:54.000 you know in six weeks, you do it every night 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:55.840 for six weeks, and then when you get on the plane, 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.160 you start going into your progressive muscle relaxation and something 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.720 in your body kind of clicks and says, this is 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:04.359 what we do in a safe space. And it's not 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:06.480 the only thing. You're not going to be cured of 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:08.440 your fear flying if you do that. But it's a 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:13.359 really good tool. But to really, really really have it work, 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:18.880 you must practice progressive muscle relaxation every day leading up 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.480 to the thing that you're going to use progressive muscle 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.600 relaxation for. We learned about relaxing our bodies. We learned 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.520 about not putting all of you know, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.320 tobacco into our systems. We had the pilot teach us things. 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.920 We learned how to rate our anxiety on a scale 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:42.240 of zero to ten. And throughout this I think it 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:44.720 was an eight to ten week course. Throughout these weeks, 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.760 we began to rate our anxiety at the beginning of 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.159 every class, and mine was still pretty up there. I 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.280 mean mine was a five, and other people would be 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:55.760 like a two. I'm at a two, I'm at a zero. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.399 I loved the class though, and I loved listening to 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:01.760 the relaxation and tapes every night and again that that 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.760 great Boston accent of dr Al. Relax your cobs, relax 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:12.359 your arms. So the class would culminate in a round 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:17.800 trip flight from Boston's Logan Airport, Logan's Heroes to LaGuardia, 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:22.360 New York and back. That's a forty five minute flight 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:28.600 each way, so ninety minutes to and the class before 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.280 the final flight, we just went on a plane and 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:34.359 I was so afraid to get on the plane. I 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:39.480 didn't trust the doctor. I thought that they were going 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:41.480 to somehow get a pilot in there and have the 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:43.800 plane take off. Go ah see. I knew you guys 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.520 could do it. I was terrified. I didn't like being 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.919 on the plane. And everybody else in the class when 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.560 they walked on the plane and we sat down and 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.320 we put our seatbelt on, and we started doing the 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:57.119 progressive muscle relaxation. We started practicing getting used to feeling 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.520 like being on a plane. Everyone else and Dr al 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:01.760 Mans d he's down to a one or two. Mine 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.679 was twenty. And I did not know how I was 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.879 going to handle the flight. The next week and we 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.600 all showed up at the airport again, paid cash for 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.120 our flights. I don't even think you had to show 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.199 your I D. I mean, I feel like it was 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.000 I feel like, how am I not a hundred years old? 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.479 Stories like that, And at the last minute. I got 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:24.159 so scared, I asked my mom to join me on 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:25.879 the flight because my parents were with me at the airport. Now, 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:27.239 I don't know why I asked my mom. Isn't like 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.000 she was some like fearless flying you know, dynamo. I mean, 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.399 she wasn't a fearful flyer, but she wild. She didn't 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:35.439 sit near me, she she just was on the plane. 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.560 I think my reasoning for that was there was something 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:40.680 in the back of my head that's like, I don't 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:42.199 want my mom to dine. If I really thought we 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:43.880 were going to dine in this plane, I wouldn't ask 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:45.120 her to come on. So it was like that kind 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.399 of thing. So I was sitting next to the doctor 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.040 and we get on the plane and there are you know, 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.600 quote normal people on this flight to their business people 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:54.600 going from Boston to New York City in the morning. 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:57.080 This is a weekday morning. And we're sitting there on 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.399 the flight and uh Dr Al says b again the 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.480 relaxation and he is calling out to us the progressive 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.400 muscle relaxation moves and people are turning around, and he goes, 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:11.879 these are fearless flyers. These are Logan's heroes. They have 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.879 taken this class to overcome their fear of flying, and 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:19.080 and everyone started applauding, Oh good for you. So we're 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.320 up there and I am terrified. I mean, I do 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.440 not relate to anyone. I am white knuckling. The doctor 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.919 is taking my hand and trying to un white knuckle it, 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.240 and he's saying, Jennifer, are you really this afraid? And 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:34.480 I said yeah, and he's like, you know, he seems 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:38.199 so disappointed. Now as a hyper vigilant, anxious person, I 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:40.920 was counting down these seconds until the flight was going 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:43.200 to land, and I knew we were over New York City, 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.800 and I'm thinking, why aren't we landing? And nobody else 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:49.600 is noticing. They're all looking out the window. They're they're 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:52.480 like practically like face smosh, like like they're trying to 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.840 jump out the window. Doctor. All my anxiety is a zero. 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:58.520 I love it up here. I love it, and I'm like, 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:00.520 I hate the right brothers. Why did they have to 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.520 invent flight? We should all just stay on the ground. 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:05.720 It's so much easier. I am freaking out and I 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:08.359 am saying why aren't we landing? And the pilots like 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:10.040 we're going to circle the airport and I don't want 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:12.520 why why are we circling? Why? What's going on? I'd 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:14.840 never been in a plane that had to circle before. 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:17.920 It seemed like something really bad must be happening, which 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:20.080 if your pilot ever has to circle the airport, that 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:23.639 thing bad is happening. But anyway, we landed late. But 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:26.480 when we got to the airport there was a different 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:30.280 vibe than had been at the Boston airport. And again 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:33.920 this is so pre nine eleven, well but five years. 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:39.000 But there was no going through our bags or metal detectors. 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:43.280 That was not a thing. But there was some It 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:47.639 wasn't the National Guard, but it was some uniformed people there, 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:51.000 and we had to, you know, go back in the 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:55.320 airport and get our boarding pass for the flight back 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:58.600 to Boston, and you know, get back in line. And 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:01.520 and they went through our purses, and it was like 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:03.720 the injustice of it. What don't mean you're going through 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:07.160 my things? And that the fancy woman had this really 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:11.280 elaborate pen, and I remember that they're dismantling my pen. 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:13.159 They were taking her pen apart. And I said to 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:17.320 the doctor, why is this like weird swat team going 0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:19.879 through our things? What is going on? Why was the 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:23.320 why was the flight circling? And uh? Because I saw 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:26.439 the doctor talking to one of these security guys. And 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:29.760 the doctor was like, alright, alright, don't tell the other people. 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:32.680 There was a little incident with a bomb threat. It's fine. 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:34.600 I'm like, a bomb threat. What happened? And he's like, 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:36.760 I don't know. There was a bomb threat in the 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:39.320 parking garage, but it's all set. And I said, well, 0:24:39.359 --> 0:24:41.960 did they find a bomb? No? And I said, well 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:44.239 did they find the person? He said no. I said, well, 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:46.560 wait a minute. I'm supposed to feel better that there 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:49.320 was a bomb threat, but no bomb or person was found. 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:51.880 So we just keep going. I mean, we don't shut 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:54.000 it down until we absolutely find a bomb. If we 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:57.000 have to take apart the entire airport, brick by brick, 0:24:57.359 --> 0:24:59.119 what if what if the bomb is on a plane. 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:01.320 That's so that's where the guy put it. He was 0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:04.080 hiding in the parking garage and and the you know, 0:25:04.160 --> 0:25:06.000 the authorities were called, and then he went, oh, I 0:25:06.040 --> 0:25:08.080 gotta go, and he ran then put it on a 0:25:08.080 --> 0:25:10.680 plane when no one was looking, and the doctor was like, Jennifer, please, 0:25:15.440 --> 0:25:31.199 we'll be right back. So we get back on the 0:25:31.240 --> 0:25:33.200 flight or not get back on the flight. But we 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:35.720 go in the next plate, flying home again. Everyone's like, Doctor, 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:37.680 my anxiety is at a zero. My anxiety is nine 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:41.360 billion trillion now at this point, because I am convinced 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:44.399 there's a bomb on the plane and that nobody looked 0:25:44.440 --> 0:25:47.400 thoroughly enough, and I am just I mean, I can't 0:25:47.400 --> 0:25:49.800 believe it didn't break Dr Alfour June's arm. I am 0:25:49.840 --> 0:25:51.600 just gripping his arm. My mom's in the back of 0:25:51.600 --> 0:25:55.600 the plane waving high. I'm trying to do my breathing, 0:25:55.600 --> 0:25:59.560 but it's coming out, and I'm staying to the doctor. Basically, 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:02.920 I'm saying, look at these idiots with their anxieties at 0:26:02.920 --> 0:26:09.639 a zero. You know, they should know that they're sitting 0:26:09.720 --> 0:26:13.040 here not feeling anxious, but there was a bomb threat 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:15.199 at the airport. They need to know the truth. And 0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:17.040 he's like, they don't need to know the truth. It 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:20.800 makes no difference. You know, these things happen sometimes. You 0:26:20.800 --> 0:26:24.040 you still, this is not an excuse to be anxious, 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:26.440 you know what I'm yelling. They need to know the truth. 0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:30.560 I'm not yelling it. So we land and then I 0:26:30.600 --> 0:26:33.399 tell I said, can I tell the class can't find it. 0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:36.159 I'm like, there was a bomb threat LaGuardia just and 0:26:36.160 --> 0:26:40.000 they're like, they're even more delighted that. I don't know, 0:26:40.040 --> 0:26:42.920 I don't know, they're more delighted that they heard about 0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:44.919 it and went, oh well, I mean I think I 0:26:44.920 --> 0:26:46.520 still would have gotten on the plane because I wasn't 0:26:46.520 --> 0:26:48.560 anxious and I thought I was gonna I don't know 0:26:48.600 --> 0:26:50.000 what I was trying to do. I was just trying 0:26:50.040 --> 0:26:52.960 to get someone to be anxious because I thought it 0:26:53.000 --> 0:26:55.000 was I thought it was such a freak for being anxious. 0:26:55.440 --> 0:26:57.000 And the doctor took me aside and said, I think 0:26:57.040 --> 0:26:58.880 you have more than a phobia of flying. I think 0:26:58.880 --> 0:27:02.000 you have an anxiety to order. And you know, I 0:27:02.000 --> 0:27:03.760 don't know if he used those exact words, but I 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:06.040 think he said, like, you're anxious. And we did use 0:27:06.080 --> 0:27:08.639 the word anxiety in the in the Fear of Flying class, 0:27:08.640 --> 0:27:11.600 but but he he got it through my head that 0:27:11.640 --> 0:27:14.520 I maybe just anxious in general. And you know, I 0:27:14.560 --> 0:27:19.119 started going to talk therapy and I learned, how do 0:27:19.160 --> 0:27:20.880 you know not really have panic attack? I was having 0:27:20.880 --> 0:27:23.760 panic attacks everywhere, So I was trying to deal with 0:27:24.160 --> 0:27:27.160 places I went to every day. First, before I thought 0:27:27.200 --> 0:27:30.520 about going to therapy for this fear of flying. I mean, 0:27:30.800 --> 0:27:33.119 honest to God, after that class, I thought it didn't 0:27:33.200 --> 0:27:36.760 work for me. So I will stay put where I 0:27:36.800 --> 0:27:40.120 am in this abject fear of flying. And I don't 0:27:40.119 --> 0:27:41.840 need to fly anywhere, and I don't have any money 0:27:41.880 --> 0:27:44.720 anywhe I'm a broke post college student with student debt 0:27:44.760 --> 0:27:47.560 and a degree in theater. So here I am a 0:27:47.640 --> 0:27:50.480 waitress and you know where are my flying Cut to 0:27:50.560 --> 0:27:52.560 maybe five years later and living in New York City, 0:27:52.640 --> 0:27:55.280 I'm a you know, working a day job as a 0:27:55.359 --> 0:27:58.280 temp and I'm doing stand up at night and uh 0:27:58.560 --> 0:28:02.080 dating this guy and his friend is getting married in Italy. 0:28:02.280 --> 0:28:05.040 They're they're having some kind of you know, he's marrying 0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:07.600 some fancy lady. And the whole thing is paid for. 0:28:08.040 --> 0:28:11.040 My boyfriend at the time was in the wedding party. 0:28:11.200 --> 0:28:13.800 He got a free flight, including my ticket. If I 0:28:13.840 --> 0:28:17.399 had gone to pose Atano, Italy, staying in like a 0:28:17.400 --> 0:28:21.639 little cottage, just first class all the way flight to Italy. 0:28:21.760 --> 0:28:24.439 Now I wouldn't go. Now. The reason I wouldn't go 0:28:25.160 --> 0:28:27.600 is because of a few things I had flown since 0:28:27.640 --> 0:28:32.840 the fear of flying. Class. I had flown to and 0:28:32.960 --> 0:28:36.880 from Los Angeles. I had been booked to perform stand 0:28:36.960 --> 0:28:39.800 up comedy on this little Comedy Central show that hasn't 0:28:39.800 --> 0:28:43.640 been on the air in twenty years, and I knew 0:28:43.800 --> 0:28:46.800 I have to get on this plane. I nothing more 0:28:46.840 --> 0:28:50.360 than to do my first television appearance. And I was 0:28:50.400 --> 0:28:52.840 seeing a talk therapist at the time and a psychiatrist 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:57.320 because I was on antidepressants, and he prescribed at a 0:28:57.400 --> 0:28:59.720 van I think it was zan X for the flight, 0:29:00.240 --> 0:29:03.520 and I swear I don't remember any instructions about how 0:29:03.600 --> 0:29:06.960 to take the Zanex. I just knew how many you 0:29:07.000 --> 0:29:08.960 could take, and then you stop at that certain amount, 0:29:09.000 --> 0:29:11.640 don't take more than that. And I go to the airport. 0:29:11.680 --> 0:29:15.680 I mean, by myself. It was terrifying, and I can't 0:29:15.720 --> 0:29:20.880 swallow when I'm anxious, and so I couldn't take the Zanex. 0:29:21.000 --> 0:29:23.520 I hadn't thought to take it before going to the airport. 0:29:24.280 --> 0:29:26.719 I I don't know what I thought. I wasn't thinking 0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:30.120 preventatively about, oh, the anxious feelings will come. I just 0:29:30.640 --> 0:29:32.239 I don't know. It's out of my mind, and so 0:29:32.280 --> 0:29:35.440 I couldn't swallow. I could not get that pill down. 0:29:36.720 --> 0:29:41.240 I was just like, I'm going to die. I can't breathe. 0:29:41.280 --> 0:29:44.000 I feel feelings of unreality. I feel like I'm fainting. 0:29:44.440 --> 0:29:47.680 My heart is racing, my palms are sweaty. I feel 0:29:47.720 --> 0:29:49.960 like I'm going crazy. I'm just going to explode. I'm 0:29:50.000 --> 0:29:52.240 just going to die. This is unsafe. I'll never be said. 0:29:52.280 --> 0:29:57.200 I mean, just intense. And I just remember seeing a 0:29:57.240 --> 0:30:00.440 pilot sitting in a restaurant at the airport and I 0:30:00.480 --> 0:30:02.360 went up to him and said, I mean, I couldn't 0:30:02.360 --> 0:30:04.560 even speak, and I said, it's flying really safe? Is 0:30:04.560 --> 0:30:07.960 flying really safe? I was acting like I don't even 0:30:07.960 --> 0:30:10.520 know what a child maybe, and He's like, yeah, yeah, 0:30:10.520 --> 0:30:12.360 it's very safe. And I have to go to l 0:30:12.400 --> 0:30:16.120 A and I, I mean, I was just like that, 0:30:17.280 --> 0:30:19.560 and um, he said you might want to go up 0:30:19.560 --> 0:30:21.400 to the gate and ask them for help getting on 0:30:21.440 --> 0:30:24.200 the plane. I said, I'd take this medication. He said 0:30:24.200 --> 0:30:26.880 you should take it now, and maybe he was basically suggesting, 0:30:26.880 --> 0:30:28.400 like maybe someone canna help you walk on the plane. 0:30:28.400 --> 0:30:30.760 You can get a little wheelchair thing, And so I 0:30:30.800 --> 0:30:32.800 felt safe next to him. So I took one of 0:30:32.800 --> 0:30:35.560 the Zanex and I swallowed it down and almost choked. 0:30:35.600 --> 0:30:37.880 And then I because my throat was so closed up 0:30:37.880 --> 0:30:39.280 and then I went to the gate and I said, 0:30:39.440 --> 0:30:41.880 I'm sorry to bother you. Can you look up is 0:30:41.920 --> 0:30:45.560 there anything to look up? Trains? Trains to um Los Angeles? 0:30:46.240 --> 0:30:48.640 Is there an amtrak? I mean literally asking the gate 0:30:48.680 --> 0:30:51.160 agent she's taking tickets, I mean the plane is boarding, 0:30:51.680 --> 0:30:54.320 and she's like no, and I'm like, I think, you 0:30:54.320 --> 0:30:56.720 know there's no internet back that this is like I 0:30:56.800 --> 0:30:59.360 think I could I think I could him. I think 0:30:59.400 --> 0:31:02.160 I could take trying to California. And you know, I 0:31:02.240 --> 0:31:04.000 was working it out in my head, and you know, 0:31:04.040 --> 0:31:05.480 the t V taping was the next day, so I 0:31:05.520 --> 0:31:07.120 don't think I get the train would get there in time. 0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:09.520 And I just find myself on the plane and it's 0:31:09.880 --> 0:31:12.360 huge the plane. I'm one of these weird people that 0:31:13.240 --> 0:31:15.600 when I'm anxious, I don't like big, wide open spaces. 0:31:15.600 --> 0:31:17.960 So some people might like a big plane with um 0:31:18.000 --> 0:31:20.320 you know, this plane was like three seats than an aisle, 0:31:20.360 --> 0:31:23.200 than five, than an aisle, than three or two five 0:31:23.280 --> 0:31:25.960 and two or something like that. But I'd rather get 0:31:25.960 --> 0:31:28.080 on something smaller that just feels like, hey, we're all 0:31:28.120 --> 0:31:30.360 in this together, you know. I just want that tight, 0:31:30.600 --> 0:31:34.280 compressed feeling. And I was in the middle seat of 0:31:34.320 --> 0:31:37.920 the five seats, and it just felt, oh god, so untethered. 0:31:38.720 --> 0:31:41.080 And I'm sitting there and I had bought a stuffed 0:31:41.080 --> 0:31:44.840 animal at the airport and I'm I'm just hugging this 0:31:45.080 --> 0:31:47.400 duck and and had a tag on it that said, Hi, 0:31:47.480 --> 0:31:50.080 my name is Honks, and I'm whispering to it hawks 0:31:50.080 --> 0:31:54.320 Hong songs like that, and I want to take another 0:31:54.400 --> 0:31:57.680 dand next, but I can't swallow. I have no idea 0:31:57.720 --> 0:31:59.160 when is the first one going to kick in. I 0:31:59.200 --> 0:32:03.240 don't have any idea that it takes, you know, thirty minutes. 0:32:03.360 --> 0:32:06.560 I the first one still hadn't kicked in, and I'm 0:32:06.600 --> 0:32:08.600 sitting there and the plane is starting to TAXI, and 0:32:08.640 --> 0:32:11.320 I again, as though it's this feat of bravery, I 0:32:11.360 --> 0:32:13.840 swallow down another Zanex because again, my throat is so 0:32:13.840 --> 0:32:16.080 close up it feels like to swallow any water is 0:32:16.080 --> 0:32:19.440 to choke. And I'm just I'm getting to the point 0:32:19.520 --> 0:32:21.640 where I don't know how my heart could beat any faster. 0:32:21.720 --> 0:32:23.880 I don't know how these feelings of unreality could not 0:32:23.920 --> 0:32:27.080 Just how did I not faint? I don't know. And 0:32:27.120 --> 0:32:29.360 the plane is taxing down the runway and I just think, Okay, 0:32:29.400 --> 0:32:30.959 I can't do it. I gotta get off. If I 0:32:31.000 --> 0:32:33.880 get to the cockpit, I can just be like, can 0:32:33.920 --> 0:32:35.320 you just slow down? I'm just gonna get off. I 0:32:35.320 --> 0:32:37.040 need to get off. It's an emergency. I was gonna 0:32:37.160 --> 0:32:38.800 even lie and say I was having a heart attack. 0:32:39.480 --> 0:32:42.360 And I run up the aisle as the plane is 0:32:42.400 --> 0:32:46.080 starting to go faster and faster, as it's almost lifting 0:32:46.760 --> 0:32:48.840 it's wheels off the ground, and it is going faster 0:32:48.920 --> 0:32:51.320 and faster, and the flight attendants, two of them, these 0:32:51.320 --> 0:32:54.160 two women, see me. And again, these are when flights 0:32:54.280 --> 0:32:56.800 used to be pretty empty. There was not that many 0:32:56.800 --> 0:32:59.920 people on it. My entire row was empty. They came 0:33:00.320 --> 0:33:03.080 and not tackled me. This this you know again you 0:33:03.560 --> 0:33:05.760 hear a story about someone running up towards the cockpit. 0:33:05.800 --> 0:33:07.560 It sounds like these people that are getting duct taped. 0:33:07.600 --> 0:33:11.040 I mean, this is just not that world. Uh. This 0:33:11.160 --> 0:33:13.160 is back when you could run up on a on 0:33:13.200 --> 0:33:15.600 a on a takeoff and and they kind of went 0:33:15.640 --> 0:33:18.840 and mam, sit down, sit down, I said, reading And 0:33:18.880 --> 0:33:21.120 they never being a heart attack, and uh, you know, 0:33:21.440 --> 0:33:23.360 they know panic when they see it. So I couldn't 0:33:23.400 --> 0:33:25.120 get them to stop the plane. And I asked politely, 0:33:25.160 --> 0:33:26.640 I said, do you think if there's any chance, but 0:33:26.640 --> 0:33:29.680 like it's still really really again. And I told them 0:33:29.720 --> 0:33:31.800 the zand X isn't working, so it must be really bad. 0:33:31.840 --> 0:33:34.240 I don't think it's anxiety, think it's a heart attack, 0:33:34.280 --> 0:33:37.800 because they still feel this and and uh, I took 0:33:37.840 --> 0:33:42.280 one more and they sat with me. Um. I might 0:33:42.320 --> 0:33:44.640 be getting this a little wrong because but I feel 0:33:44.640 --> 0:33:48.040 like they they sat with me on takeoff. I might 0:33:48.080 --> 0:33:51.160 be wrong, but if not, it was one second after takeoff, 0:33:51.160 --> 0:33:54.440 once they were able to stand up, and they lifted 0:33:54.520 --> 0:33:56.520 up all of the arm rests and they got pillows 0:33:56.520 --> 0:33:59.320 and blankets and this is not first class. And they 0:34:00.120 --> 0:34:02.520 kind of tucked me in and let me lay down 0:34:03.320 --> 0:34:06.880 and gave me my duck. How humiliating. That's how scared. 0:34:06.880 --> 0:34:10.279 I wasn't even care. And they put the seatbelt around me, 0:34:11.239 --> 0:34:15.200 and one of them sat with me and kind of 0:34:15.320 --> 0:34:18.200 like patted my hand, and I just at that point 0:34:18.320 --> 0:34:20.160 all three of the Zanex must have kicked in and 0:34:20.200 --> 0:34:23.800 I passed out and I woke up in Los Angeles 0:34:24.000 --> 0:34:27.759 and I was really pretty drugged. And that was how 0:34:27.800 --> 0:34:31.160 I flew. So that was and the flight back. I 0:34:31.560 --> 0:34:33.640 literally when I say I don't remember, I mean I 0:34:33.680 --> 0:34:37.640 must have come back, but I must have just you know, 0:34:38.360 --> 0:34:40.920 taken a much bills fallen asleep. So when my boyfriend 0:34:40.960 --> 0:34:43.200 said we can go to Italy, I said, I'm never 0:34:43.280 --> 0:34:45.399 doing what I did again, and I'm not flying over 0:34:45.440 --> 0:34:47.200 the ocean, like in my mind, flying over the ocean 0:34:47.239 --> 0:34:49.200 is more dangerous than land. You know, had all these rules, 0:34:49.800 --> 0:34:52.200 and so I missed out on that trip. And uh, 0:34:52.760 --> 0:34:54.839 there were a few times when I did have to fly. 0:34:55.560 --> 0:34:58.319 I had another day job in New York City where 0:34:58.520 --> 0:35:01.080 we had to fly to Boston on biz nous and 0:35:01.200 --> 0:35:03.560 I held it together a little better, I learned than 0:35:03.719 --> 0:35:05.560 by talking to my doctor. No, you take a zanex 0:35:05.560 --> 0:35:08.160 an hour before, and that really helped, Like, oh, I'm 0:35:08.200 --> 0:35:11.160 actually at the airport and not in a panic because 0:35:11.600 --> 0:35:13.840 I had taken the zanex an hour before, so I 0:35:13.880 --> 0:35:17.800 was just a little relaxed. And the pressure of saving 0:35:17.840 --> 0:35:22.040 face in front of my bosses that really helped too, 0:35:22.320 --> 0:35:24.319 and just sitting with people and so I just tried 0:35:24.320 --> 0:35:26.560 to act like I wasn't scared and it sort of worked. 0:35:27.560 --> 0:35:29.640 But when I moved to l A, I did take 0:35:29.640 --> 0:35:32.760 a train. I took an amtrap and thus began living 0:35:32.800 --> 0:35:36.240 in l A. In two thousand and two and coming 0:35:36.280 --> 0:35:39.319 back for Christmas to my family Massachusetts once a year. 0:35:39.360 --> 0:35:42.879 So it became this, I fly once a year and 0:35:43.040 --> 0:35:47.720 I spend oh, I don't know, seven months obsessively thinking 0:35:47.760 --> 0:35:51.920 and talking about the flight and and just you know, 0:35:52.960 --> 0:35:57.839 booking the flight and thinking, well, I could either take 0:35:57.880 --> 0:36:00.440 the ten thirty am flight or the noon. I think 0:36:00.440 --> 0:36:02.120 I went to do the noon, but what if the 0:36:02.160 --> 0:36:03.960 ten thirty am is the safe one and the noon 0:36:04.000 --> 0:36:05.200 is the one that's going to crash? You know that 0:36:05.239 --> 0:36:08.080 I would call friends, do you think I'm gonna be 0:36:08.120 --> 0:36:10.200 okay on the flight tomorrow, which now you know is 0:36:10.600 --> 0:36:14.040 known as a reassurance seeking doesn't work at all. But 0:36:14.160 --> 0:36:18.759 I had my I think I was prescribed KONA been 0:36:18.840 --> 0:36:21.239 at that point, and so I had my drugs. I mean, 0:36:21.560 --> 0:36:24.000 I don't mean that to sound awful, but it did help. 0:36:24.480 --> 0:36:27.600 But it was again this um. You know, I took 0:36:27.640 --> 0:36:30.680 the most that I was allowed to take, and I 0:36:30.719 --> 0:36:33.200 didn't need to be that asleep, but it was it 0:36:33.280 --> 0:36:35.880 was almost like I need to be asleep before the 0:36:35.880 --> 0:36:38.600 plane takes off, and then I need to wake up 0:36:38.640 --> 0:36:40.840 as we're landing. I didn't want to have one second 0:36:40.920 --> 0:36:43.080 of consciousness. And I would I somehow worked that out, 0:36:43.120 --> 0:36:45.400 But I mean I would wake up drooling on the 0:36:45.440 --> 0:36:47.080 person next to me. I mean one time I woke 0:36:47.160 --> 0:36:50.719 up and I was fully asleep on the shoulder of 0:36:50.800 --> 0:36:53.160 this old man next to me. And I woke up 0:36:53.200 --> 0:36:55.560 and his sleeve was wet from my drool, and he 0:36:55.600 --> 0:36:57.080 said that was nice. I felt like I had my 0:36:57.120 --> 0:36:59.680 granddaughter with me for six hours. Six hours I laid 0:36:59.680 --> 0:37:02.320 on this man's arm. It probably fell asleep, it probably 0:37:02.320 --> 0:37:05.560 fell off. I probably gave him a blood clut, and 0:37:05.640 --> 0:37:11.440 so it It really never dawned on me that my 0:37:11.520 --> 0:37:14.759 life would involve flying. And one of the reasons I 0:37:14.880 --> 0:37:16.800 became a comedian is I wanted to do comedy, but 0:37:16.840 --> 0:37:18.520 I lived in New York City and I didn't know 0:37:18.560 --> 0:37:21.920 that you don't really get paid to do comedy clubs locally. 0:37:22.000 --> 0:37:23.799 Like the work is on the road, you know. And 0:37:23.800 --> 0:37:27.839 if you do some television work, you you do that 0:37:27.960 --> 0:37:29.759 because you want people to find out about you so 0:37:29.800 --> 0:37:31.759 they come see you in their city. You've got to 0:37:31.800 --> 0:37:36.360 get on planes and travel. And I lived in l 0:37:36.360 --> 0:37:39.719 A for a while. I I had a manager and 0:37:39.800 --> 0:37:43.920 she had some clients that were comedians and they needed 0:37:43.960 --> 0:37:46.520 an opening act, you know, and I would go on 0:37:46.560 --> 0:37:49.400 the road as an opening act for people, and I 0:37:49.440 --> 0:37:51.200 would have to book flights and I would have to 0:37:51.239 --> 0:37:57.520 fly across the country, and it forced me to start practicing. 0:37:57.560 --> 0:38:01.920 And again, I I was in therapy. I knew about breathing. 0:38:01.960 --> 0:38:04.440 I had my doctor for gione tips and tricks, but 0:38:04.480 --> 0:38:06.600 I wasn't doing them because I thought, well, they don't 0:38:06.640 --> 0:38:09.880 work obviously, well, yeah, they don't work, or not doing them, 0:38:09.920 --> 0:38:12.600 you know. I would maybe do them halfheartedly, but I thought, well, 0:38:12.600 --> 0:38:14.520 I've got the pills and those work really well, but 0:38:15.200 --> 0:38:17.200 they don't really because I was always sort of you know, 0:38:17.280 --> 0:38:20.600 exhausted for for days after and again I would just 0:38:21.239 --> 0:38:23.840 it's like almost like putting yourself under anesthesia when you 0:38:23.920 --> 0:38:25.719 don't have to, you know, like I didn't have to 0:38:25.800 --> 0:38:28.960 be that lights out about everything. And and when you 0:38:29.040 --> 0:38:32.239 start to fly more often, you can't really live that way. 0:38:32.239 --> 0:38:33.920 You know, once a year is fine. But it was 0:38:33.960 --> 0:38:36.080 starting to be like, oh, maybe once every two months, 0:38:36.120 --> 0:38:40.479 I would have to fly. And I started to kind 0:38:40.600 --> 0:38:42.160 of see a light at the end of the tunnel 0:38:42.200 --> 0:38:45.120 in the sense that I was starting to just have 0:38:45.200 --> 0:38:48.200 more experiences where I'm in more airports, I'm noticing how 0:38:48.200 --> 0:38:50.440 many flights are going out. At the same time, I'm 0:38:50.760 --> 0:38:55.719 realizing this is something thousands of people do all day 0:38:55.920 --> 0:38:59.359 long in just in this airport alone, and I just 0:38:59.400 --> 0:39:01.280 came from another airport and there are thousands of people 0:39:01.280 --> 0:39:04.080 doing that to No planes are crashing, Everything's going fine. 0:39:05.560 --> 0:39:07.840 You know, at a certain point, I'm like choosing to 0:39:07.880 --> 0:39:09.960 believe something that's not true. It's like I'm choosing to 0:39:10.000 --> 0:39:12.200 believe the Earth is flat. I think I'm choosing to 0:39:12.239 --> 0:39:15.320 believe that this thing is not safe based on nothing. 0:39:15.320 --> 0:39:21.800 I'm just a dumb comedian. So I start to practice flying. 0:39:22.280 --> 0:39:24.759 I get a job writing on this TV show called 0:39:24.800 --> 0:39:27.560 Chelsea Lately on the E Network, and you know, it's 0:39:27.560 --> 0:39:30.239 a bunch of comedians making jokes, and it helped all 0:39:30.280 --> 0:39:33.759 of our comedy careers. So now I'm starting to fly 0:39:33.800 --> 0:39:36.600 around the country a little more, and it's getting a 0:39:36.640 --> 0:39:39.120 little easier, and I'm flying with comedian friends, and I'm 0:39:39.440 --> 0:39:42.960 still using the pills as needed. I now have a routine. 0:39:43.000 --> 0:39:45.000 I take it when I leave the house, I take 0:39:45.040 --> 0:39:47.120 one at the airport, and then if I'm still panicking, 0:39:47.120 --> 0:39:49.640 I take one on the plane. And so it actually 0:39:49.719 --> 0:39:52.560 would help I would not panic. I would just have 0:39:53.360 --> 0:39:55.799 kind of circular thinking anxiety and spend a lot of 0:39:55.800 --> 0:39:58.160 the flights saying to my friends, is this okay? Is 0:39:58.200 --> 0:40:00.960 that okay? Is that? But deep down I actually knew 0:40:01.000 --> 0:40:04.160 I think I enjoy this, This could be fun if 0:40:04.200 --> 0:40:06.480 I could just chill for a minute. But it was like, 0:40:06.560 --> 0:40:08.560 I can't chill because if I chilled, then the panic 0:40:08.600 --> 0:40:11.480 will find me. And the one thing is I started 0:40:11.520 --> 0:40:13.480 to get used to flying around the country. The one 0:40:13.560 --> 0:40:18.680 thing I said to myself is okay, but I'm never 0:40:18.760 --> 0:40:22.480 going to fly to Europe. And then I got a 0:40:22.480 --> 0:40:25.240 gig in London and I had to fly to Europe. 0:40:25.880 --> 0:40:29.080 And I made it through that flight. I was I 0:40:29.120 --> 0:40:31.280 think I had what I call a week long panic 0:40:31.280 --> 0:40:35.520 attack in London. I was hyper ventilated, breathing the entire time. 0:40:35.719 --> 0:40:38.799 I was so freaked out that I was all the 0:40:38.840 --> 0:40:41.439 way what felt like all the way across the world. 0:40:41.440 --> 0:40:43.359 I wasn't it was just across the pond, but all 0:40:43.360 --> 0:40:47.400 the way across into a different land mass. It just 0:40:47.520 --> 0:40:50.400 everything seemed the world still seemed huge to me, that 0:40:50.440 --> 0:40:53.279 everything seemed so scary. Okay, So I made it on 0:40:53.320 --> 0:40:56.200 the trip to London, still flying around the country here 0:40:56.200 --> 0:40:58.960 and there. And I said, okay, but the one thing 0:40:59.000 --> 0:41:02.120 I will never do is fly to Australia. That is ridiculous. 0:41:02.120 --> 0:41:04.920 That is a seventeen hour flight that is ocean the 0:41:04.920 --> 0:41:07.000 whole time. I don't need to go. I don't know 0:41:07.000 --> 0:41:09.080 why I would just make up things. I'm never going 0:41:09.120 --> 0:41:12.520 to Australia. Well, the show I wrote on was kind 0:41:12.520 --> 0:41:15.640 of a hit in Australia and the network offered to 0:41:15.760 --> 0:41:18.200 pay all of us to fly to Sydney now first 0:41:18.280 --> 0:41:21.160 class flight on a flight to Australia from Los Angeles. 0:41:21.239 --> 0:41:24.160 That is that was nicer than my apartment at the time. 0:41:24.560 --> 0:41:28.120 I mean it was. And my boss he called me 0:41:28.160 --> 0:41:30.720 aside and he said, you know, I get your intense 0:41:30.800 --> 0:41:33.200 fear of flying. You don't have to come with us 0:41:33.239 --> 0:41:35.279 to Australia. But there would be no way that I 0:41:35.320 --> 0:41:37.320 wouldn't have missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime. 0:41:37.320 --> 0:41:42.160 And I knew I have to do this, and I 0:41:42.200 --> 0:41:45.600 did it. I mean, I'm gonna be totally honest, it's 0:41:45.640 --> 0:41:48.319 kind of easy not to have anxiety. I'm not going 0:41:48.360 --> 0:41:51.200 to say in first class because I can have anxiety anywhere. 0:41:51.239 --> 0:41:53.520 But you know, you get this free flight, I had 0:41:53.560 --> 0:41:56.440 my meds. The flight attendants looked out for me. It's 0:41:56.480 --> 0:41:58.799 a lay down bed. I mean, I just slept a 0:41:58.800 --> 0:42:02.359 lot of the way. When we landed, I still felt 0:42:02.400 --> 0:42:05.200 that same feeling of hyper ventilated breathing. For about a week. 0:42:05.239 --> 0:42:09.040 I was anxious just being there. It felt scary and dangerous. 0:42:09.080 --> 0:42:12.160 And then I made it through it. I made it 0:42:12.160 --> 0:42:14.640 through it again on the flight home. And when I 0:42:14.719 --> 0:42:17.000 landed on the flight home, I felt like a changed person. 0:42:17.280 --> 0:42:20.440 Something cracked open in me and I said, I have 0:42:20.719 --> 0:42:23.840 to keep doing this. I have to keep practicing. I 0:42:23.840 --> 0:42:26.920 should go to Europe again for fun. I should book 0:42:26.960 --> 0:42:28.920 a trip with a friend, and I did and we 0:42:28.960 --> 0:42:32.759 went a few months later, I started to fly more 0:42:32.800 --> 0:42:36.319 and more for stand up and I it's almost like 0:42:36.400 --> 0:42:41.080 I made a decision. Okay, Jen, you keep doing the 0:42:41.120 --> 0:42:42.640 thing that you say you're never going to do. You 0:42:42.760 --> 0:42:44.319 keep doing the scariest thing in the world, and you 0:42:44.400 --> 0:42:47.160 keep surviving. At what point do you want to thrive 0:42:47.200 --> 0:42:50.960 and enjoy this? Can you make a decision that you're 0:42:51.000 --> 0:42:54.640 going to start releasing this identity as a fearful flyer 0:42:54.719 --> 0:42:59.200 because it has not served you. And then I started 0:42:59.200 --> 0:43:03.040 flying around the count Tree regularly. I started getting gigs 0:43:03.040 --> 0:43:10.800 in other countries. I got gigs in Ireland, Sweden, London again, Amsterdam, Norway, 0:43:10.920 --> 0:43:14.920 and then I started to become a regular at this 0:43:14.960 --> 0:43:18.560 festival in Melbourne, Australia. I flew to Australia four times 0:43:18.640 --> 0:43:22.319 round trip by myself. That was never an option in 0:43:22.320 --> 0:43:24.880 my life New Zealand. I I started to love the 0:43:24.880 --> 0:43:26.759 flight to Australia so much that when it landed, I'd 0:43:26.800 --> 0:43:29.280 be like, oh, I could have done eight more hours, 0:43:29.400 --> 0:43:32.160 you know, because it becomes an entire day up there. 0:43:31.640 --> 0:43:34.879 I rena turn some emails and then gonna watch a movie. Oh, 0:43:34.880 --> 0:43:37.080 and here's dinner. Oh, and then I'm going to read 0:43:37.080 --> 0:43:40.560 a book. I became addicted to the bravery that I felt, 0:43:40.560 --> 0:43:43.239 even though there's nothing to be I wasn't feeling brave 0:43:43.280 --> 0:43:45.720 anymore like I cheated death, the plane was going to crash. 0:43:45.760 --> 0:43:47.960 I just mean I felt brave that I was confronting 0:43:48.000 --> 0:43:51.680 my fears. And I got addicted to feeling good about flying. 0:43:51.800 --> 0:43:55.239 I got addicted to the power trip of look at me, 0:43:55.320 --> 0:43:58.799 I'm have grown up flying. And by the way, this 0:43:58.960 --> 0:44:01.040 one day I said I'm not going to take the 0:44:01.320 --> 0:44:04.279 clono bin. I'm just gonna get on a plane and 0:44:04.360 --> 0:44:07.239 I have it in case I'm panicking like crazy, and 0:44:07.520 --> 0:44:10.200 guess what, I didn't need it. And so then I 0:44:10.239 --> 0:44:13.239 just started flying around the country fifty times a year, 0:44:13.640 --> 0:44:16.759 no drugs at all, and I think, I think I 0:44:16.800 --> 0:44:20.919 had actually trained my body by using by using that 0:44:21.360 --> 0:44:24.120 um klono bin, and people can use an X out 0:44:24.120 --> 0:44:26.560 of it by using it once you leave the house, 0:44:26.640 --> 0:44:28.279 once you get to the airport, it's like it's like 0:44:29.040 --> 0:44:30.920 now when I fly. I swear it was like a 0:44:30.960 --> 0:44:33.640 Pavlovian response, where now I'm at the airport, no drugs 0:44:33.640 --> 0:44:36.880 in my system at all, and I feel relaxed. Now. Again, 0:44:37.520 --> 0:44:39.359 the use of drugs may not be for everyone. Maybe 0:44:39.400 --> 0:44:40.799 you need a beta block or maybe you don't need 0:44:40.800 --> 0:44:42.319 a drug at all. But I'm just telling you this 0:44:42.400 --> 0:44:45.279 is just my story. But I think the drugs helped 0:44:45.280 --> 0:44:48.239 me in the sense that I was able to experience 0:44:49.320 --> 0:44:53.400 um no symptoms of anxiety in the airport enough times 0:44:53.440 --> 0:44:57.399 that it became routine. And then I took the training 0:44:57.400 --> 0:44:59.840 wheels off, didn't take the pills, and went, yeah, this 0:45:00.080 --> 0:45:05.120 is real. I actually feel relaxed. So that is my story. 0:45:05.200 --> 0:45:09.560 I now get on planes all the time I have 0:45:09.719 --> 0:45:12.840 feelings of discomfort on flights. I don't like turbulence. It 0:45:12.960 --> 0:45:17.080 bothers me. It I live in in Los Angeles, UM 0:45:17.120 --> 0:45:20.880 as well, and I don't like earthquakes. It reminds me 0:45:20.920 --> 0:45:23.360 of earthquakes where it's like, I'm not scared. I know 0:45:23.400 --> 0:45:25.799 it's not the big one, but it does something to 0:45:25.800 --> 0:45:28.959 my nervous system. That's not my favorite, but that that's 0:45:29.000 --> 0:45:33.279 not a phobia. That's just like, yeah, turbulence is uncomfortable, 0:45:33.960 --> 0:45:37.400 but my mind doesn't tell a story anymore. Do I 0:45:37.719 --> 0:45:41.440 like the feeling sometimes of when the plane's first taking 0:45:41.440 --> 0:45:43.759 off and you kind of your your brain might go 0:45:43.840 --> 0:45:46.040 up your trapped now for six hours. I don't love it, 0:45:46.080 --> 0:45:47.719 but I don't let my brain do that to me. 0:45:47.880 --> 0:45:51.319 Like you know, my brain is gonna think thoughts. I 0:45:51.360 --> 0:45:54.280 can't stop them from happening, but I can stop myself 0:45:54.280 --> 0:45:56.200 from going Oh, let me think that over and over. 0:45:57.600 --> 0:45:59.239 So in the next part of this episode, and I 0:45:59.280 --> 0:46:01.760 know this is a long or one, I will talk 0:46:01.800 --> 0:46:05.799 about my personal tips and tricks for when I get 0:46:05.840 --> 0:46:08.759 on a flight and what I do during a flight. 0:46:09.000 --> 0:46:13.120 Then I will talk about what actually is happening to 0:46:13.160 --> 0:46:15.960 your body when you're on a plane. I will talk 0:46:16.000 --> 0:46:18.160 a little bit about the realities of turbulence and some 0:46:18.239 --> 0:46:20.799 of the just the mechanics of flying, and then we'll 0:46:20.880 --> 0:46:23.560 end with a progressive muscle relaxation. But I will say 0:46:23.640 --> 0:46:25.719 to just to wrap up my story, part of it 0:46:25.760 --> 0:46:29.799 all is that it's really hard to be someone who 0:46:29.840 --> 0:46:32.120 has a phobia of flying, who only gets to fly 0:46:32.239 --> 0:46:34.400 once a year, if it's because that's when your business 0:46:34.400 --> 0:46:36.560 trip is or you go home for the holidays. It 0:46:36.719 --> 0:46:39.319 is something that takes practice. And if you don't have 0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:41.200 that opportunity where you have a job where you have 0:46:41.280 --> 0:46:44.160 to fly, you may not have the same story as 0:46:44.160 --> 0:46:47.280 me where you get better due to having to practice. 0:46:47.280 --> 0:46:50.279 But I think there are ways to cheat that, and 0:46:50.320 --> 0:46:54.520 you can practice without actually having to get on a plane. 0:46:54.520 --> 0:46:57.680 You can practice thinking about being on a plane. You 0:46:57.719 --> 0:47:01.160 can practice the kind of thoughts that you think. So 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:13.239 I'll get into that next. So let's just get to 0:47:13.280 --> 0:47:17.000 some facts about this very real phobia. According to very 0:47:17.040 --> 0:47:20.600 well mined dot com, aero phobia that is the fear 0:47:20.640 --> 0:47:23.800 of flying. It's also known sometimes as a vio phobia. 0:47:23.880 --> 0:47:25.800 Now I'm not going to get into right now, the 0:47:25.840 --> 0:47:29.640 statistics that air travel is actually safer, which is that 0:47:29.680 --> 0:47:32.080 does not sue anyone right now. But let's just name 0:47:33.239 --> 0:47:35.799 what you might have, what we might have, and move 0:47:35.880 --> 0:47:38.800 on from there. So lots of people are afraid to 0:47:38.840 --> 0:47:43.000 fly to some degree, but a smaller portion of people 0:47:43.040 --> 0:47:47.279 actually meet the criteria for a phobia diagnosis. The symptoms 0:47:47.440 --> 0:47:51.200 of a vio phobia or aerophobia people who are traveling 0:47:51.200 --> 0:47:54.680 by air or even sometimes just thinking about flying, which 0:47:54.760 --> 0:47:58.040 is known as the anticipatory anxiety. And that doesn't just begin, 0:47:58.640 --> 0:48:00.239 you know, as you're driving to the air part. You 0:48:00.239 --> 0:48:03.720 can have anticipatory anxiety about a flight three months in advance, 0:48:03.719 --> 0:48:06.239 while you're just sitting at home watching a movie. The 0:48:06.280 --> 0:48:11.320 symptoms of aerophobia, including even the anticipatory anxiety on the ground, 0:48:11.320 --> 0:48:17.800 are chills, choking sensations, clouded thinking, disorientation, flushed skin, gastro 0:48:17.840 --> 0:48:24.360 intestinal upset, increased heart rate, irritability, nausea, shaking, shortness of breath, sweating, 0:48:25.160 --> 0:48:28.400 and in some instances, people will experience a full blown 0:48:28.400 --> 0:48:32.960 panic attack that's accompanied by more symptoms of heart palpitations, 0:48:33.000 --> 0:48:37.040 feeling detached from reality, and a fear of dying. I 0:48:37.040 --> 0:48:38.960 wouldn't even say it's a fear of dying. I would 0:48:39.000 --> 0:48:41.320 say it's a certainty in that moment that you are dying. 0:48:41.520 --> 0:48:43.880 I mean a fear of dying. Yeah, who doesn't. But 0:48:44.160 --> 0:48:46.080 for me, when I've been in a panic attack, I 0:48:46.200 --> 0:48:49.440 know I'm dying in that moment, even though I'm not. Now. 0:48:49.480 --> 0:48:53.160 There's related conditions that also clog up the works here. 0:48:53.200 --> 0:48:57.319 If you also have caustrophobia, that can affect you having 0:48:57.320 --> 0:48:59.840 a fear of flying because you are in confined quarters 0:48:59.840 --> 0:49:02.359 and there's a lack of personal space. If you have 0:49:02.480 --> 0:49:06.360 a fear of heights, that can also exacerbate a fear flying. 0:49:06.719 --> 0:49:10.080 And if you have social or germ phobias, social anxiety 0:49:10.120 --> 0:49:14.680 disorder or fear of germs, well, that could also go 0:49:14.719 --> 0:49:16.600 into your fear of flying because you are spending a 0:49:16.640 --> 0:49:18.839 lot of time with strangers on planes that might talk 0:49:18.880 --> 0:49:22.920 to you and their germs. There are also physical disorders 0:49:22.960 --> 0:49:25.759 that can contribute to a phobia flying. If you have 0:49:26.120 --> 0:49:32.080 sinus issues, vertigo, chronic sinus problems, ear disorders, you might 0:49:32.160 --> 0:49:35.000 have this very real fear that you're going to develop 0:49:35.080 --> 0:49:37.920 discomfort on the plane, which can give you anticipatory anxiety. 0:49:38.200 --> 0:49:40.960 It can lead to symptoms of anxiety on the plane 0:49:41.000 --> 0:49:44.399 or even a full blown panic attack. If you have 0:49:44.640 --> 0:49:48.000 cardiovascular disease or other conditions that increase your risk of 0:49:48.000 --> 0:49:51.680 blood clots, you may be anxious about flying and start 0:49:51.719 --> 0:49:54.560 to you know, fantasize I'm gonna get deep vein thrombosis 0:49:54.640 --> 0:49:57.120 on a flight. So obviously, talk to your doctor about 0:49:57.160 --> 0:49:59.239 any of these conditions you have. In your doctor can 0:49:59.360 --> 0:50:02.160 explain the acts to you. This is how safe it 0:50:02.200 --> 0:50:05.160 is to fly. Here's how you overcome some of these symptoms. 0:50:05.400 --> 0:50:09.759 Blah blah blah. Now, according to this website, the causes 0:50:09.800 --> 0:50:12.879 of fear flying are not known, but some things can 0:50:12.880 --> 0:50:15.680 play a role. Obviously, I mean this is my favorite one. 0:50:15.880 --> 0:50:18.799 If you've experienced a traumatic flight or plane crash, well, yet, 0:50:18.840 --> 0:50:24.640 no duck, and most people I know, and myself, my 0:50:24.760 --> 0:50:27.400 phobia of flying had zero to do with a plane crash, 0:50:27.480 --> 0:50:29.800 and in fact I had the opposite of plane crashes. 0:50:29.880 --> 0:50:34.840 I had dozens of successful flights, and yet I insisted 0:50:35.120 --> 0:50:38.880 what I was doing was abnormal, not safe, very dangerous, 0:50:38.960 --> 0:50:42.560 very traumatizing. But I get it. Of course, that can happen, 0:50:43.080 --> 0:50:45.560 they say, even if you watch extensive news coverage of 0:50:45.560 --> 0:50:48.480 airline disasters, that can be enough to trigger a fear 0:50:48.480 --> 0:50:50.880 of flying. And of course, I mean when I was 0:50:50.960 --> 0:50:52.880 growing up again, as I said, in the eighties, there 0:50:52.920 --> 0:50:55.919 was always a news story. You know, it probably wasn't 0:50:55.920 --> 0:50:58.440 even as often as it felt, but once every few 0:50:58.520 --> 0:51:01.840 years there was a flight that blew up overseas or 0:51:01.960 --> 0:51:04.880 there was a hijacking. And they don't do news stories 0:51:04.920 --> 0:51:07.640 about every single successful flight around the world every day. 0:51:07.640 --> 0:51:09.839 There's not enough hours in the day to cover those. 0:51:10.680 --> 0:51:13.600 And so you see a story, you know, one, two, 0:51:13.600 --> 0:51:16.120 three times in a period of a few years, that's 0:51:16.320 --> 0:51:18.759 all you think about when you think about flying. Oh, 0:51:18.880 --> 0:51:22.120 the Lockerbie tragedy, Oh the time this plane was hijacked. 0:51:22.520 --> 0:51:25.000 And at that point it's hard to convince you, well, 0:51:25.040 --> 0:51:27.759 there's forty million other news stories about flights that don't 0:51:27.760 --> 0:51:29.600 get hijacked and don't crash, and I don't want to 0:51:29.600 --> 0:51:31.520 hear about those because we start to think, well, what 0:51:31.600 --> 0:51:34.920 about me, What if I'm on one of those flights. 0:51:35.800 --> 0:51:37.960 Environment if your parents had a fear flying, if anyone 0:51:37.960 --> 0:51:40.399 you know how to fear flying, you may internalize their 0:51:40.400 --> 0:51:44.600 trepidation and then other related circumstances. Now this for me, 0:51:45.080 --> 0:51:46.719 you know, because if I go okay, I watched too 0:51:46.800 --> 0:51:48.960 much news about plane crashes. Okay, my parents had a 0:51:48.960 --> 0:51:52.080 fear flying. What does that get me? I can't work 0:51:52.160 --> 0:51:56.000 on that per se, But other related circumstances is something 0:51:56.000 --> 0:52:01.000 I find very interesting about anxiety on flights. So it 0:52:01.040 --> 0:52:03.120 says that a fear flying that develops soon after a 0:52:03.200 --> 0:52:06.680 job promotion, for example, that requires travel, could be caused 0:52:07.160 --> 0:52:09.719 by concerns about the job itself or its impact on 0:52:09.760 --> 0:52:12.959 your daily life. Or children who fly frequently to visit 0:52:12.960 --> 0:52:17.680 divorced parents sometimes develop aerophobia as a coping mechanism for 0:52:17.719 --> 0:52:23.560 the trauma of the divorce. So two things here. One, 0:52:23.719 --> 0:52:26.640 I mean, I think you've I think you've heard this before, 0:52:26.640 --> 0:52:29.319 but you have no control over life to a point, right, 0:52:29.360 --> 0:52:33.360 I mean you you were born without your consent and 0:52:33.520 --> 0:52:39.000 you will someday die. That is for me, a giant 0:52:39.239 --> 0:52:45.680 existential what the fuck? That is? Wow? That one just 0:52:45.840 --> 0:52:49.600 silently plagues me. Right, So I had to do work 0:52:49.680 --> 0:52:53.200 on that notion because I don't walk around thinking that, 0:52:53.920 --> 0:52:56.000 but maybe I should because it helps. Now I don't 0:52:56.040 --> 0:52:59.200 walk around thinking about it obsessively, but I note, oh yeah, 0:52:59.200 --> 0:53:00.960 that gives me a little bit of angst. So what 0:53:00.960 --> 0:53:04.440 do I do about it? I get into acceptance. I breathe, 0:53:04.560 --> 0:53:08.440 I meditate, I I accept the thoughts. I let them stay, 0:53:08.480 --> 0:53:11.080 but I don't ruminate and go down a rabbit hole, 0:53:11.200 --> 0:53:14.360 which then goes into I'm completely out of control and 0:53:14.360 --> 0:53:16.120 I'm going to have a painful, lonely death and I'm 0:53:16.120 --> 0:53:17.960 gonna be gasping for bread and everything is terrible. I 0:53:17.960 --> 0:53:20.560 don't go there, but I let myself just with a 0:53:20.600 --> 0:53:24.359 sense of humor saying it's crazy wow. And then I 0:53:24.400 --> 0:53:29.080 get into wonderment and gratitude, where it's like, wow, well, 0:53:29.560 --> 0:53:31.719 how the how did that happen? I did I win 0:53:31.760 --> 0:53:33.440 some kind of lottery. I get to be one of 0:53:33.480 --> 0:53:38.040 the souls on this earth. Wow, that is wild. And yeah, 0:53:38.080 --> 0:53:42.600 nobody gets out of here alive, including you know, insert 0:53:42.680 --> 0:53:47.400 the name of your favorite person here and uh uh cool. 0:53:47.400 --> 0:53:50.000 Well you know what, Wow, you know, I just I 0:53:50.080 --> 0:53:52.239 just get into that kind of wonderment instead of getting 0:53:52.239 --> 0:53:54.920 into this doom and gloom. Now. But that whole notion, right, 0:53:54.960 --> 0:53:58.359 the whole existential notion of lack of control, I don't 0:53:58.360 --> 0:54:00.360 think we bring it to the forefront of our minds, 0:54:00.400 --> 0:54:02.200 and so it just runs around in the back of 0:54:02.200 --> 0:54:06.000 our head until we get on something like an airplane 0:54:06.040 --> 0:54:09.440 which somebody else is flying, were in the air and 0:54:09.520 --> 0:54:12.200 we really have no control. Now it's hard to believe 0:54:12.760 --> 0:54:15.040 we have the same amount of no control up there 0:54:15.120 --> 0:54:18.319 as we did in the airport. It just it's just 0:54:18.400 --> 0:54:20.520 more heightened and we're more aware of it. I mean, 0:54:20.560 --> 0:54:22.160 there was even a study that came out that said 0:54:22.200 --> 0:54:25.960 people tend to enjoy movies more that they watch on airplanes. 0:54:25.960 --> 0:54:29.439 There's this like heightened intensity going on in your body, 0:54:29.480 --> 0:54:32.919 even if it's not a bad thing, and people tend 0:54:32.960 --> 0:54:35.719 to cry more at movies on planes that in you know, 0:54:35.840 --> 0:54:38.000 on the ground they would just be like, oh, those 0:54:38.000 --> 0:54:41.040 are okay movie. But we're so emotional and affected by things. 0:54:41.760 --> 0:54:43.520 So when I'm in a plane, or when I used 0:54:43.520 --> 0:54:45.480 to be in a plane and have this phobia, it 0:54:45.600 --> 0:54:49.359 was like that notion of just the utter lack of 0:54:49.400 --> 0:54:53.200 control that life itself is. It would come to not 0:54:53.320 --> 0:54:56.360 quite the forefront, but it would get activated and I 0:54:56.360 --> 0:54:59.480 wouldn't know why I was panicking, Which leads to what 0:54:59.640 --> 0:55:02.840 this are Well just said about kids who are, you know, 0:55:02.920 --> 0:55:07.000 kind of traumatized by a divorce. They're traveling by by 0:55:07.040 --> 0:55:09.880 plane to visit their parents, and now they're having panic 0:55:09.920 --> 0:55:14.560 attacks anxiety attacks developing a phobia of flying, and that 0:55:14.800 --> 0:55:20.240 is called avoidance coping. It's a maladaptive form of coping 0:55:20.600 --> 0:55:24.520 in which a person changes their behavior to avoid thinking about, 0:55:24.600 --> 0:55:28.560 and feeling or doing difficult things. So, in a weird way, 0:55:28.960 --> 0:55:32.640 developing a phobia of flying lets you concentrate on that. 0:55:33.480 --> 0:55:35.120 You know, Oh my god, what's going on the plane? 0:55:35.160 --> 0:55:36.600 What's going on the pilot? You know, I think he 0:55:36.600 --> 0:55:38.480 looked kind of shady. What's that noise? I don't know 0:55:38.480 --> 0:55:40.360 what that is? Should we really be flying? It's a 0:55:40.360 --> 0:55:42.840 little turbulent up here. Oh my god, I can't breathe. 0:55:42.880 --> 0:55:46.319 You know, all of that takes you away from the 0:55:46.400 --> 0:55:49.759 real thing underneath, which is in the example that they 0:55:49.800 --> 0:55:52.080 gave this this kid that needs to cope with their 0:55:52.120 --> 0:55:54.719 feelings about their parents divorce. For me, it was I 0:55:54.760 --> 0:55:57.120 needed to cope with the overall lack of control I 0:55:57.160 --> 0:55:59.560 have in life. I hadn't really in a mature way, 0:55:59.719 --> 0:56:02.879 look did that. And so once they started looking at 0:56:02.960 --> 0:56:06.560 things in therapy that really don't have anything to do 0:56:06.640 --> 0:56:09.480 with aerophobia, you know, I didn't do I did the 0:56:09.480 --> 0:56:12.280 exposure therapy in the fear flying course. That didn't quite 0:56:12.280 --> 0:56:16.120 work for me. As the only tool because I had 0:56:16.160 --> 0:56:18.480 other things to address, and so as I just went 0:56:18.520 --> 0:56:21.120 through therapy and learned. I don't know how to say this, 0:56:21.160 --> 0:56:24.200 but terra lax a little bit in life and to 0:56:24.360 --> 0:56:28.600 bring what's really underneath it to the forefront. Then I 0:56:28.640 --> 0:56:31.640 could cope with it and learn thoughts stopping and replacing 0:56:31.719 --> 0:56:36.320 thoughts that did help. I think that's where it ultimately 0:56:37.360 --> 0:56:41.480 things started to get underway. Now. Obviously, the treatment for 0:56:41.640 --> 0:56:47.080 a phobia of flying is cognitive behavioral therapy, systematic desensitization. 0:56:47.120 --> 0:56:48.680 That's sort of what I went through with having to 0:56:48.719 --> 0:56:51.840 fly for work, gradually progressive exposure to a fear or 0:56:51.880 --> 0:56:55.640 the situation, and then there is even hypnotherapy people can do. 0:56:55.760 --> 0:56:58.080 There are group classes, and I, by the way, I 0:56:58.200 --> 0:57:00.919 highly recommend those group classes. I just had a little 0:57:00.920 --> 0:57:03.799 more than a phobia going on, but it was incredibly 0:57:03.840 --> 0:57:06.000 helpful and it's one of the tools in my tool kit. 0:57:06.120 --> 0:57:11.040 Everything I learned in Logan zeroes. Obviously, there's medication, and 0:57:11.080 --> 0:57:13.400 medication does help. I mean, obviously, as I've told you, 0:57:13.440 --> 0:57:15.160 it was a big part of my story, but I 0:57:15.200 --> 0:57:17.760 don't think I would have ever gotten to the point 0:57:17.840 --> 0:57:21.680 where I can fly without medication without also the talk therapy. 0:57:22.040 --> 0:57:25.240 It really is a little bit of everything for me. 0:57:25.800 --> 0:57:29.760 And of course, um putting together a relaxation toolkit, which 0:57:29.800 --> 0:57:33.040 I will tell you about in a moment about my 0:57:33.120 --> 0:57:36.280 tool kit, and I'll give you some you know, advice 0:57:36.360 --> 0:57:39.480 on what you might want to do. Now. It's so 0:57:39.600 --> 0:57:41.880 different now to that than you know, I mean in 0:57:41.880 --> 0:57:43.880 my day. But I mean, I'm I was reading an 0:57:43.960 --> 0:57:46.919 article that that flights Now, Um, you know, there's gonna 0:57:46.960 --> 0:57:50.600 be stretching and meditation classes added to some Delta Airlines flights. 0:57:50.640 --> 0:57:53.480 Peloton will be doing this. Um, you know, it's going 0:57:53.560 --> 0:57:56.320 to be on the seat, the screen under your Seat's 0:57:56.360 --> 0:57:59.480 not like a teacher's gonna come in higway, buddy, but um, 0:57:59.520 --> 0:58:01.360 Peloton on which normally you have to have one of 0:58:01.360 --> 0:58:04.200 those you know, Peloton machines. And this is the first 0:58:04.200 --> 0:58:06.960 time Peloton content will be available outside its app or 0:58:07.040 --> 0:58:09.920 utilities and it will be on the back of your 0:58:09.920 --> 0:58:12.560 seat in a Delta flight. So just the even the 0:58:12.640 --> 0:58:17.160 notion that the airlines recognized that people need to relax 0:58:17.200 --> 0:58:20.720 on planes was something that I didn't have the luxury of, 0:58:21.240 --> 0:58:22.880 you know, coming up with during my years of a 0:58:22.920 --> 0:58:25.400 fear flying I would look around and everyone seemed to 0:58:25.400 --> 0:58:29.480 find me. Everyone seemed quote normal, not worried. So the 0:58:29.480 --> 0:58:32.000 fact that you can just get on a plane and 0:58:32.040 --> 0:58:34.240 there's there's this, you know. And on some of the 0:58:34.280 --> 0:58:37.280 Jet Blue flights now they have these almost like radio 0:58:37.320 --> 0:58:40.280 stations as part of their in flight entertainment. You can 0:58:40.280 --> 0:58:44.160 put on headphones and listen to a meditation. I mean that, 0:58:44.720 --> 0:58:48.560 the fact that that's even being recognized as something everyone 0:58:48.600 --> 0:58:52.880 needs to me is a big part of being able 0:58:52.920 --> 0:58:56.560 to say some feelings of discomfort and anxiety are normal. 0:58:56.720 --> 0:59:00.480 It's okay, I'm not dying. My thoughts about how unsafe 0:59:00.480 --> 0:59:04.320 airline travels are not true. So according to the Anxiety 0:59:04.400 --> 0:59:07.320 and Depression Association of America website a d a a 0:59:07.640 --> 0:59:10.680 dot org, overcoming a fear flying takes a lot of 0:59:10.840 --> 0:59:15.840 courage and practice. Fear of flying is not a single phobia. 0:59:15.920 --> 0:59:19.480 Most people who fear flying have a bunch of different 0:59:19.480 --> 0:59:21.560 phobias working at once. Like we talked about, it could 0:59:21.560 --> 0:59:24.720 be claustrophobia, could be a bunch of different things. But 0:59:24.760 --> 0:59:27.240 a phobia is an intense fear that is out of 0:59:27.240 --> 0:59:31.200 proportion to the danger. Most flight phobics agree that flying 0:59:31.240 --> 0:59:33.880 is safe yet frightening, and they have a hard time 0:59:33.960 --> 0:59:38.960 reconciling their fear with safety statistics. Although we know our 0:59:39.000 --> 0:59:42.919 phobias are not logical, we cannot reason ourselves out of one. 0:59:43.120 --> 0:59:45.320 And it's true because we didn't reason ourselves into one, 0:59:45.360 --> 0:59:49.920 because our phobias are not reasonable. But our flying phobias 0:59:49.920 --> 0:59:53.880 have triggers. Those are thoughts, images, sensations, and memories to 0:59:54.000 --> 0:59:57.680 which we have become sensitized. A person who is sensitized 0:59:58.080 --> 1:00:01.440 to certain bodily feelings might fee or turbulence or normal 1:00:01.480 --> 1:00:05.000 takeoff and landing. The list of triggers can be long. Turbulence, 1:00:05.040 --> 1:00:08.760 takeoff landings, terrorism crashes, social anxiety, being too far from home, 1:00:09.840 --> 1:00:12.040 you know, using the toilets, what if there's violence on 1:00:12.040 --> 1:00:14.680 a plane. Others just have a random bad feeling about 1:00:14.720 --> 1:00:17.120 their flight. That is mine, Oh, I have a bad feeling, 1:00:17.160 --> 1:00:20.280 like suddenly I'm psychic, and it's so interesting when I 1:00:20.480 --> 1:00:22.080 you know, I had to look at some of the 1:00:22.560 --> 1:00:27.080 not actual narcissistic personality disorder, but for lack of a 1:00:27.080 --> 1:00:30.080 better word than narcissism, the self involvement of thinking that 1:00:30.600 --> 1:00:32.480 here I am on a flight and I've got a 1:00:32.560 --> 1:00:34.880 bad feeling about this flight. You know, I'm getting on 1:00:34.920 --> 1:00:37.160 that plane going I think this thing is going down. 1:00:37.400 --> 1:00:41.880 I don't give a deep about anyone else on the flight. 1:00:41.920 --> 1:00:43.520 I'm not going to the person next to me, you 1:00:43.520 --> 1:00:46.440 should really get off this plane. Um, I have a 1:00:46.440 --> 1:00:48.240 bad feeling about this flight. We're going down. I don't 1:00:48.280 --> 1:00:50.080 say to the pilot, I have a bad feeling about 1:00:50.080 --> 1:00:52.200 this flight. You should really check the brakes. I don't. 1:00:52.320 --> 1:00:54.520 I don't care about the other people. And if I 1:00:54.560 --> 1:00:58.240 take apart that thought process, if I really hone in 1:00:58.280 --> 1:01:00.000 on it, which I did one time on a plane, 1:01:00.040 --> 1:01:03.320 and it kind of blew my mind, it's that. Well, 1:01:03.360 --> 1:01:06.160 I don't think. I'm not worried for them. It's a 1:01:06.240 --> 1:01:08.720 cognitive it doesn't make sense. Well, I don't think it's 1:01:08.760 --> 1:01:10.400 going to happen to them. Wait wait, wait, wait, wait, 1:01:10.400 --> 1:01:12.480 So you have a bad feeling about this flight, it's 1:01:12.480 --> 1:01:15.600 gonna crash and not affect anyone. But you wait, this 1:01:15.640 --> 1:01:18.400 isn't rational, you know. You start to here, you start 1:01:18.400 --> 1:01:21.800 to just instead of quickly believing your thoughts, you start 1:01:21.840 --> 1:01:23.520 to I mean, imagine if someone knocked on your door 1:01:23.640 --> 1:01:26.120 right now and said your house is on fire and 1:01:26.160 --> 1:01:29.560 then ran away, would you run after that person and 1:01:29.600 --> 1:01:31.560 go tell me more about my house being on fire, 1:01:31.720 --> 1:01:33.960 tell me every detail you know, or would you look 1:01:34.000 --> 1:01:36.440 around at the house you're standing in and go, it's 1:01:36.480 --> 1:01:39.080 not on fire. You know. It was like my thoughts 1:01:39.080 --> 1:01:42.560 were this runaway neighbor saying weird things to me, and 1:01:42.600 --> 1:01:44.920 I followed them instead of following my own thought process, 1:01:44.920 --> 1:01:47.040 which is looking around and going, okay, wait, so if 1:01:47.080 --> 1:01:49.120 I really think something bad is going to happen, why 1:01:49.240 --> 1:01:50.920 don't I care about the person next to me that's 1:01:50.920 --> 1:01:54.440 not like me? Okay, So this is disordered thinking something's 1:01:54.480 --> 1:01:57.600 going on here. Now. I can't exactly just get over 1:01:57.640 --> 1:02:00.720 my phobia in that second, but it and it helps 1:02:00.800 --> 1:02:05.280 to start to question yourself and not take your fear 1:02:05.400 --> 1:02:07.480 so seriously. Because I know a lot of people say 1:02:07.560 --> 1:02:09.400 I have a fear of flying. It's like, have you 1:02:09.400 --> 1:02:12.640 made a decision, just even just making the decision. I 1:02:12.680 --> 1:02:14.880 do not want to have one, and I'm in control 1:02:14.920 --> 1:02:18.480 of that. Just saying that I want to love flying, 1:02:18.560 --> 1:02:20.240 or I know that I do love flying, it's just 1:02:20.320 --> 1:02:23.360 being covered up by this bizarre fear. It can be 1:02:23.400 --> 1:02:25.400 hard to say because I used to identify with my 1:02:25.440 --> 1:02:27.640 fear of flying. No, no no, no, I need to keep it. 1:02:27.640 --> 1:02:30.560 It's it's charming, it's my identity, or it keeps me safe. 1:02:30.640 --> 1:02:34.000 You know. Somewhere in that spectrum is where I lived. 1:02:44.600 --> 1:02:46.840 What's also behind the phobia and the fear, the common 1:02:46.880 --> 1:02:49.480 denominator from where the nine of flight phobics is the 1:02:49.520 --> 1:02:51.840 fear they will be overwhelmed with anxiety during the flight. 1:02:51.880 --> 1:02:54.640 And that that's what mine has become as a fear 1:02:54.680 --> 1:02:57.800 of fear. So when I'm tired, when I'm a little 1:02:57.800 --> 1:03:00.920 bit maybe I'm hungry, maybe I'm just you know, just 1:03:00.960 --> 1:03:04.480 a little bit out of sorts physically, I will have 1:03:04.600 --> 1:03:06.480 a fear of fear of getting on a flight. I mean, 1:03:06.480 --> 1:03:08.280 when I flew for the first time after not ha 1:03:08.320 --> 1:03:10.560 been flown for a year and a half during the 1:03:10.720 --> 1:03:15.160 lockdown part of the pandemic and pre vaccine, I I wondered, well, well, 1:03:15.480 --> 1:03:17.680 well my fear flying does come back? You know, if 1:03:17.720 --> 1:03:20.000 I lost it, I I lost all my coping mechanisms, 1:03:20.000 --> 1:03:22.880 and you know, and then I little fear of fear. 1:03:23.040 --> 1:03:27.520 But it was okay. It was not a full blown phobia. 1:03:27.600 --> 1:03:29.120 It was just, yeah, we had a little bit of 1:03:29.120 --> 1:03:34.400 a fear of fear. It says people who experienced unexpected 1:03:34.400 --> 1:03:40.080 panic while flying, then fear that's something unexpected like panicking 1:03:40.080 --> 1:03:43.480 will happen again on their next flight. These panics typically 1:03:43.480 --> 1:03:47.040 emerged between the ages of seventeen to thirty four, and 1:03:47.080 --> 1:03:49.760 they are around the time of a significant life change 1:03:49.760 --> 1:03:52.840 could be birth, death, marriage, divorce, or graduation. This is 1:03:52.880 --> 1:03:55.080 why a lot of times with flying phobias that come 1:03:55.120 --> 1:03:56.920 at you at a certain point in life, they wonder 1:03:57.360 --> 1:03:59.800 why have they been able to fly so comfortably before? 1:04:00.520 --> 1:04:03.360 And that was what I experienced. In my Logan's heroes classes. 1:04:03.400 --> 1:04:06.000 These were adults who were kind of going through empty 1:04:06.040 --> 1:04:08.760 nest syndrome. Their kids weren't at home, they were probably 1:04:08.760 --> 1:04:11.280 a little bit of a midlife That was why for 1:04:11.360 --> 1:04:15.000 me it was more of an intense phobia and anxiety disorder. 1:04:15.720 --> 1:04:19.520 Um and experts have divided fearful flyers into three main groups. 1:04:19.640 --> 1:04:21.720 One those who don't fly or haven't flown for more 1:04:21.720 --> 1:04:24.720 than five years despite the opportunity to do so. To 1:04:25.040 --> 1:04:28.440 those who fly only when absolutely necessary with extreme terror, 1:04:28.880 --> 1:04:32.000 and three those who fly when required but with anxiety. 1:04:32.040 --> 1:04:34.640 I was all three in that order and then became 1:04:35.200 --> 1:04:39.760 number four unafraid to fly. So the elements of successful treatment, 1:04:39.760 --> 1:04:42.320 according to the a d A, is that any successful 1:04:42.360 --> 1:04:47.000 treatment will help fearful flyers manage anticipatory anxiety as well 1:04:47.040 --> 1:04:50.840 as the anxiety during a flight. Obviously, there's cognitive behavioral 1:04:50.880 --> 1:04:54.240 therapy that is tailored to flying, diaphgmatic breathing to use 1:04:54.280 --> 1:04:58.000 on the flight. Um education how the plane flies, facts 1:04:58.000 --> 1:05:01.000 about turbulence, the meaning of various bumps and sounds during 1:05:01.000 --> 1:05:05.400 a flight. So let's get into that. Let's just get 1:05:05.440 --> 1:05:07.640 into the safety. I know nobody wants to hear this, 1:05:07.920 --> 1:05:10.280 but we have to because these are facts and you're 1:05:10.320 --> 1:05:14.200 not allowed to ignore facts. So any time you board 1:05:14.200 --> 1:05:16.760 a flight on a major carrier, your chance of being 1:05:16.760 --> 1:05:19.200 in a fatal accident is one in seven million. And 1:05:19.240 --> 1:05:21.640 that doesn't matter whether you fly once every three years 1:05:21.760 --> 1:05:23.640 or every day of the year. Your odds don't go 1:05:23.760 --> 1:05:26.120 up the more you fly. If you did fly every 1:05:26.200 --> 1:05:28.960 day of your life, the probability indicates it would take 1:05:28.960 --> 1:05:31.520 you nineteen thousand years before you would succumb to a 1:05:31.520 --> 1:05:35.360 fatal accident. Nineteen thousand years. Your chances of dying on 1:05:35.400 --> 1:05:39.120 a train are one in one million. Those are great odds, 1:05:39.200 --> 1:05:41.920 but flying coast to coast is ten times safer. Than 1:05:41.960 --> 1:05:45.640 the train. One hundred and thirty people are killed daily 1:05:45.640 --> 1:05:49.720 and auto accidents that's every day, and that's forty seven 1:05:49.720 --> 1:05:53.560 thousand a year. A sold out jet would have to 1:05:53.600 --> 1:05:56.640 crash every day of the week with no survivors to 1:05:56.720 --> 1:05:59.400 equal the highway deaths per year in this country. Now, 1:05:59.400 --> 1:06:02.160 I have to be really honest. Once I really let 1:06:02.200 --> 1:06:04.640 the facts sink in, I did develop a little phobia 1:06:04.840 --> 1:06:09.360 of driving. Um that I don't have anymore. It's not 1:06:09.400 --> 1:06:11.200 a phobia, but I don't love it because I am 1:06:11.320 --> 1:06:14.520 so well aware, you know. I mean, I'm you're driving 1:06:14.520 --> 1:06:16.600 on the freeway and there's traffic. Why because there's an 1:06:16.640 --> 1:06:18.480 accident up ahead. I mean, may not be fatal, but 1:06:18.520 --> 1:06:22.160 it's at the very least annoying, and you gotta keep driving. 1:06:22.200 --> 1:06:23.880 I mean, when we're flying in the air, it's not 1:06:23.960 --> 1:06:26.200 like folks were gonna circle for a while. There's two 1:06:26.240 --> 1:06:28.880 plane crashes of a had that never happens. You are 1:06:29.000 --> 1:06:31.600 nineteen times safer in a plane in a car. So 1:06:31.760 --> 1:06:34.920 here's here's what's crazy. So whenever we fly, we have 1:06:34.960 --> 1:06:38.320 a one one hundred thousand of one percent chance of dying. 1:06:38.320 --> 1:06:43.080 That's point zero zero zero zero one death by odds 1:06:43.280 --> 1:06:48.200 smoking by or before at five one and six hundred. 1:06:49.160 --> 1:06:52.280 Look at your Facebook or your your social media. You 1:06:52.360 --> 1:06:54.800 know six people, even if you don't know all of 1:06:54.840 --> 1:06:58.240 them personally. One in six hundred. I used to smoke 1:06:58.840 --> 1:07:01.360 a half a pack to a pack good day during 1:07:02.440 --> 1:07:04.240 the times when I wouldn't get on a plane because 1:07:04.240 --> 1:07:09.920 I was too phobic. I'm killing myself slowly smoking and 1:07:10.000 --> 1:07:12.680 thinking it won't get me and I won't get on 1:07:12.720 --> 1:07:16.880 a plane, which is actually not at all a threat, 1:07:17.080 --> 1:07:19.800 thinking ah ha, I'm cheating death by not getting on 1:07:19.800 --> 1:07:22.720 that plane. I mean, this is where it's important to go. See, 1:07:22.800 --> 1:07:25.760 this just doesn't make sense. We're holding on two things 1:07:25.800 --> 1:07:29.240 that don't make sense because we're either getting something out 1:07:29.240 --> 1:07:32.160 of it. For me, it was putting everything into My 1:07:32.200 --> 1:07:36.040 phobia of flying was my avoidance of looking at actual 1:07:36.080 --> 1:07:38.560 issues in my day to day life. A car trip 1:07:38.600 --> 1:07:41.320 coast to coast one and fourteen thousand, bicycle accident one 1:07:41.360 --> 1:07:43.080 in eighty eight thousand. It keeps going up and up 1:07:43.080 --> 1:07:46.760 till we get to commercial jet airline one in seven million. 1:07:47.760 --> 1:07:50.080 And you guys can do your own research on turbulence. 1:07:50.080 --> 1:07:51.280 Oh my god, I didn't mean to say do your 1:07:51.280 --> 1:07:54.040 own research like a conspiracy theorist. But um, you know, 1:07:55.040 --> 1:07:58.280 turbulence is really just air moving from one place to another. 1:07:58.920 --> 1:08:01.440 It's sort of like being on a ship that's you know, 1:08:01.560 --> 1:08:04.560 in some rough seas. But again, the planes are built 1:08:04.600 --> 1:08:08.840 and designed to withstand turbulence. They can withstand so much 1:08:08.880 --> 1:08:12.160 more than you've seen. Honestly, the probability that you would 1:08:12.160 --> 1:08:14.400 get hurt during turbulence is if you've got out of 1:08:14.440 --> 1:08:17.160 your seat and bump your head. Like that's what they're 1:08:17.160 --> 1:08:20.000 worried about when they're like, sit down, stay stay buckled. 1:08:20.000 --> 1:08:22.880 They don't want you hitting your head. They're not like, 1:08:23.080 --> 1:08:26.040 sit down, stay buckled, because this is very dangerous. The 1:08:26.080 --> 1:08:28.280 plane is going to break apart. That's not what they're saying. 1:08:28.840 --> 1:08:31.000 Their job is to keep you safe while you're on 1:08:31.040 --> 1:08:33.680 the plane. And they're probably thinking, oh god, we might 1:08:33.720 --> 1:08:37.400 have some unruly passengers that are having anxiety or whatever, 1:08:37.560 --> 1:08:40.559 and we've we just we have this sort of alarm 1:08:40.560 --> 1:08:43.639 in our voices. Everybody, sit down, strap in. It's really 1:08:44.040 --> 1:08:47.840 to prevent you from harming yourself, because then they've got 1:08:47.840 --> 1:08:50.559 to go take care of you, or god forbid, land 1:08:50.560 --> 1:08:53.599 the plane somewhere and get you to a hospital. Or 1:08:54.000 --> 1:08:56.760 even worse, some mass hysteria breaks down on the plane 1:08:56.760 --> 1:08:59.759 because someone hits their head. They're trying to keep things going. 1:08:59.840 --> 1:09:02.200 That's why you have to sit down and strap in. 1:09:02.320 --> 1:09:04.880 It's not because there's any inherent danger with the plane. 1:09:05.000 --> 1:09:07.200 Is fine, you are not. The plane will be fine. 1:09:07.680 --> 1:09:10.679 But you cannot walk around a plane while it's bopping 1:09:10.680 --> 1:09:13.240 around in the air because you will lose your balance 1:09:13.320 --> 1:09:16.479 and you will fall down and you will hit yourself 1:09:16.520 --> 1:09:18.839 in the face on the arm of someone's chair. That's 1:09:18.880 --> 1:09:21.320 that's the real danger. So you can prevent that by 1:09:21.360 --> 1:09:24.920 sitting down and buckling up. But otherwise they are not 1:09:24.960 --> 1:09:27.799 trying to imply in any way the plane is in danger, 1:09:27.840 --> 1:09:29.759 because if it was, they'd be like, you know what, bucket, 1:09:30.400 --> 1:09:33.559 this plane is going down. Have fun, smoke him while 1:09:33.600 --> 1:09:36.320 you got him, take the seatbelt off. Who gives a ship? 1:09:36.400 --> 1:09:37.800 You know? I mean, I don't think they would do that, 1:09:38.240 --> 1:09:40.360 But if it helps you to think of funny things 1:09:40.439 --> 1:09:42.800 like that, then then let it help you. So I 1:09:42.800 --> 1:09:44.439 will give you my tool kit. Now, I know this 1:09:44.520 --> 1:09:47.960 sounds crazy, but I had a what I'm about to 1:09:48.000 --> 1:09:50.040 say with sound crazy. I had a psychiatrist that I 1:09:50.080 --> 1:09:52.879 saw for twenty years and he would prescribe my medication 1:09:52.920 --> 1:09:56.200 as needed for flying, and you know, it just it's 1:09:56.200 --> 1:09:58.639 a certain point it just got to think exhausting for him, 1:09:58.640 --> 1:10:01.280 where he's like, do you ever just think I don't 1:10:01.280 --> 1:10:03.200 want this phobia anymore? And I was like yeah, and 1:10:03.240 --> 1:10:06.160 he's like, well, then let's go from that point. Instead 1:10:06.160 --> 1:10:08.280 of your this victim of a phobia, what do we do? 1:10:08.600 --> 1:10:11.120 How about your an active partner in wanting to get 1:10:11.200 --> 1:10:14.200 rid of it? And in that mind shift, I felt 1:10:14.240 --> 1:10:17.200 this sense of control that I've been so lacking, you know. 1:10:17.280 --> 1:10:19.840 And I remember Dr Forgioni from Logan's Heroes used to say, 1:10:19.920 --> 1:10:22.639 get mad at the fear. I like that. That gives 1:10:22.680 --> 1:10:24.599 me something to do. You know, I'm a creative mind 1:10:24.640 --> 1:10:26.800 and I wasn't using my creativity for so many years. 1:10:27.560 --> 1:10:30.519 I remember my psychiatrist was suggested things I thought were stupid, 1:10:30.520 --> 1:10:31.960 but I would think about them on the plane and 1:10:31.960 --> 1:10:34.040 I would start laughing and I kind of enjoyed it. 1:10:34.240 --> 1:10:37.880 He was like, think about you know, your anxiety is 1:10:37.960 --> 1:10:41.559 just it's like it's like imagined. Some mobsters got on 1:10:41.560 --> 1:10:44.800 the plane and they and they went over to you 1:10:44.840 --> 1:10:47.600 and said, hey, you always a hundred thousand dollars and 1:10:47.640 --> 1:10:50.479 you go, what are you talking about. I don't owe 1:10:50.520 --> 1:10:53.200 you anything. You've got the wrong girl. And he's like, 1:10:53.640 --> 1:10:55.760 can you think of your anxiety like that? Like it's 1:10:55.800 --> 1:10:58.519 just interrupting you and saying crazy things that aren't true. 1:10:58.520 --> 1:11:01.160 And you'd be like, no know, And I was like what. 1:11:01.280 --> 1:11:03.840 I tried to make that analogy work in my head 1:11:03.840 --> 1:11:06.080 so many times, and usually I just ended up laughing 1:11:06.080 --> 1:11:08.040 at how dumb it I thought it was. And then 1:11:08.439 --> 1:11:10.160 at least that was a relief, you know, to to 1:11:10.200 --> 1:11:12.920 be able to laugh at something. But I did start 1:11:13.000 --> 1:11:15.320 to realize what he was saying, like, we've got to 1:11:15.400 --> 1:11:18.200 use our creative minds because our minds are going just 1:11:18.560 --> 1:11:21.600 nuts in those moments, you know, go right, go right, 1:11:21.640 --> 1:11:24.599 a disaster movie, you know, like that's creative, But in 1:11:24.640 --> 1:11:27.280 that moment, can you use your creative mind to think 1:11:27.280 --> 1:11:31.080 about other things? And there's also something called is that 1:11:31.120 --> 1:11:33.880 all you Got? It's a it's a type of coping 1:11:33.880 --> 1:11:36.960 with panic attacks. A lot of times in my panic 1:11:37.000 --> 1:11:40.519 attack recovery, I would try to make myself panic. That 1:11:40.600 --> 1:11:44.880 was actually something that was prescribed to me, and you 1:11:44.920 --> 1:11:48.160 can't really make yourself panic, but it helps you to 1:11:48.200 --> 1:11:51.880 realize that panic attacks do just come out of nowhere. 1:11:51.920 --> 1:11:54.400 But when you're having one, if you say to yourself, 1:11:54.880 --> 1:11:56.600 come on, let's try to panic more. Let's try to 1:11:56.600 --> 1:11:59.280 panic more, it actually does the opposite. It's kind of 1:11:59.280 --> 1:12:02.880 a neat trick. When there's turbulence. My psychiatrists recommended that 1:12:02.920 --> 1:12:06.920 I think this, this isn't turbulence. This is nothing. I 1:12:06.920 --> 1:12:09.120 can handle so much more than this. You know, even 1:12:09.160 --> 1:12:10.759 if you go but that's not true, I can't handle 1:12:10.760 --> 1:12:14.080 any whatever. It's just your brain. Just let your brain think, 1:12:14.520 --> 1:12:17.320 think thoughts. If your brain is going to think thoughts 1:12:17.360 --> 1:12:19.320 that aren't true, why can't they be in the more 1:12:19.360 --> 1:12:23.280 positive end of things instead of Oh, this, this turbulence 1:12:23.320 --> 1:12:25.519 is going to break the plane apart. Why not this? 1:12:25.520 --> 1:12:28.080 This isn't turbulence. I can take so much more than this. 1:12:28.720 --> 1:12:32.400 Both may not be true, but what what one is 1:12:32.439 --> 1:12:36.160 going to stir up your nervous system more so, in 1:12:36.200 --> 1:12:40.200 addition to my huge recommendation of finding some kind of 1:12:40.240 --> 1:12:44.760 cognitive behavior therapy, even just googling that and finding some 1:12:44.840 --> 1:12:48.240 free worksheets online and doing those if you can't afford therapy, 1:12:49.080 --> 1:12:51.640 doing a progressive muscle relaxation and I will lead you 1:12:51.720 --> 1:12:54.320 in one at the end of this exercise, doing that 1:12:54.360 --> 1:12:57.400 every day, learning about breathing exercises you can do on 1:12:57.439 --> 1:12:59.920 the plane. In addition to all of that, I also 1:13:00.040 --> 1:13:02.800 have a tool kit and I will share that with 1:13:02.840 --> 1:13:06.559 you now. No one quick thought on the breathing. Don't 1:13:06.600 --> 1:13:09.360 forget when you feel like you're short of breath, you 1:13:09.400 --> 1:13:13.559 are not actually lacking in oxygen, but there is a 1:13:13.640 --> 1:13:16.160 little bit of an imbalance of your carbon dioxide. So 1:13:16.600 --> 1:13:20.320 what you need to do is not try to suck 1:13:20.320 --> 1:13:25.120 in more air. It's actually about regulating what you've already got. 1:13:25.240 --> 1:13:28.599 So one tip that I learned for when you're feeling 1:13:28.640 --> 1:13:31.840 anxious is wherever your breath is right at that moment, 1:13:31.920 --> 1:13:34.960 just blow it out slowly through your mouth. So here 1:13:34.960 --> 1:13:36.360 I am right now, I have a certain amount of 1:13:36.360 --> 1:13:40.920 breath in me, and then you'll feel your body want 1:13:41.000 --> 1:13:43.920 to naturally start breathing again. And just let your body 1:13:43.920 --> 1:13:46.360 start breathing again. Doesn't have to be a big As 1:13:46.400 --> 1:13:49.120 long as you're breathing, we're good. The notion of deep 1:13:49.120 --> 1:13:51.800 breath I sort of fight against. It might be nice 1:13:51.800 --> 1:13:53.920 if you're perfectly calm and you're taking a yoga class, 1:13:53.960 --> 1:13:57.519 that's fine. Deep breath. Oh, that feels kind of nice. 1:13:57.600 --> 1:14:00.840 But when we're anxious, it's almost like I don't want 1:14:00.840 --> 1:14:02.559 to hear about deep breaths. I just want to hear 1:14:02.600 --> 1:14:06.760 about regulated breathing. I don't want to breathe deep necessarily. 1:14:06.800 --> 1:14:09.240 I just want to not breathe in a hyperventilated way. 1:14:09.640 --> 1:14:12.920 And when we are taking those short, shallow breaths like that, 1:14:12.960 --> 1:14:16.599 we're breathing in a hyperventilated way. It's screwing up our 1:14:16.680 --> 1:14:20.919 chemistry and it's actually causing our nervous system to go haywire, 1:14:21.400 --> 1:14:25.120 and we're just breathing normally. Then we're regulated. So I 1:14:25.120 --> 1:14:27.920 don't think we have to jump from hyperventilated breathing to 1:14:28.080 --> 1:14:30.920 this deep breathing. We just have to regulate the breathing. 1:14:30.920 --> 1:14:32.840 And so that is one of my favorite tips, is 1:14:32.880 --> 1:14:35.960 just that release of air. And I tend to think 1:14:35.960 --> 1:14:38.400 of the breath as something that expands from left to right. 1:14:38.439 --> 1:14:41.000 I think of my ribs. I don't think about my lungs, 1:14:41.080 --> 1:14:43.639 which I tend to think of as like in the chest, 1:14:43.760 --> 1:14:47.840 But the lungs actually expand around our back, and i'd 1:14:47.840 --> 1:14:50.479 picture my ribcage expanding. I don't try to picture my 1:14:50.560 --> 1:14:53.679 lungs filling with air. And there are many breathing techniques 1:14:53.720 --> 1:14:56.240 you can do. In episode one of this podcast, Dr 1:14:56.320 --> 1:14:58.880 Judd taught us his five finger breathing technique for panic. 1:14:59.439 --> 1:15:02.519 There's count breathing, where you breathe in for four counts, 1:15:02.600 --> 1:15:04.519 you hold your breath for four accounts, and then you 1:15:04.600 --> 1:15:07.880 breathe out for four accounts. There are many breathing exercises 1:15:07.920 --> 1:15:12.000 that involve more of an exhale. I prefer those. You 1:15:12.080 --> 1:15:15.280 might breathe in for four accounts, hold your breath for 1:15:15.280 --> 1:15:18.519 four accounts, and then breathe out for seven. It's really 1:15:18.560 --> 1:15:21.240 the exhale that's going to regulate our breathing, and I 1:15:21.280 --> 1:15:24.240 feel like that's just a well kept secret. So here 1:15:24.439 --> 1:15:27.440 is my tool kit. Now. I don't do this anymore 1:15:27.560 --> 1:15:30.000 every time I fly, because I really just to me, 1:15:30.160 --> 1:15:32.559 flying is as normal as like hopping on the subway. 1:15:32.560 --> 1:15:36.040 But this tool kid is there. So first of all, 1:15:36.120 --> 1:15:40.000 let's just decrease our anxiety by what I call like 1:15:40.120 --> 1:15:45.600 realistic travel tips. Don't get drunk the night before or 1:15:45.720 --> 1:15:48.320 use drugs and think, fuck it, I might die tomorrow 1:15:48.320 --> 1:15:50.439 in a plane crash. Let's live it up tonight. Take 1:15:50.760 --> 1:15:53.400 really good care of yourself twenty four hours before the flight. 1:15:53.680 --> 1:15:58.639 Keep that nervous system humming. Don't come at it with 1:15:58.680 --> 1:16:00.479 a lack you know what I mean. If you if 1:16:00.520 --> 1:16:02.479 you get on a plane hungover, your nervous system is 1:16:02.479 --> 1:16:06.040 already at a deficit. Avoid caffeine for twenty four hours 1:16:06.080 --> 1:16:08.200 before your flight. Do not drink caffeine the morning of 1:16:08.200 --> 1:16:10.960 your flight or at all. Don't drink it on the flight. 1:16:11.439 --> 1:16:14.120 Alcohol if you can avoid it, if it is really 1:16:15.160 --> 1:16:17.120 the only thing that works for you on a flight, 1:16:17.400 --> 1:16:19.160 then do what you need to do until you can 1:16:19.200 --> 1:16:22.719 start to to let that one go. But in general, 1:16:22.840 --> 1:16:25.400 just know that it will probably cause you more anxiety 1:16:25.400 --> 1:16:28.400 about an hour into the flight. Stay hydrated, Drink a 1:16:28.439 --> 1:16:31.880 lot of water. If your phobia involves, you know, using 1:16:31.920 --> 1:16:34.160 the toilet on the plane, I understand, Maybe don't, but 1:16:34.280 --> 1:16:38.080 just you know, happy medium. The realistic travel tips. Arrive 1:16:38.240 --> 1:16:41.000 early at the airport, even if you hate being at airports, 1:16:41.000 --> 1:16:42.760 even if it freaks you out. I will help you 1:16:42.800 --> 1:16:45.680 with that in a minute. But get there early so 1:16:45.720 --> 1:16:48.519 that you're not rushing around and being anxious. Oh my god, 1:16:48.520 --> 1:16:50.599 there's this long line. Oh my god, everyone called in sick. 1:16:50.600 --> 1:16:53.559 There's only one person that's you know, printing boarding passes 1:16:53.640 --> 1:16:55.360 and the kiosk isn't working and I don't know my 1:16:55.960 --> 1:16:58.599 you know, just have all of that. Have your frequent 1:16:58.640 --> 1:17:02.160 flyer number, have your boarding pass on your phone if 1:17:02.200 --> 1:17:06.320 you can, or at least no, your confirmation number. Have 1:17:06.520 --> 1:17:08.760 all of your details ready so that when you walk 1:17:08.760 --> 1:17:10.960 into the airport you can print that boarding pass or 1:17:11.000 --> 1:17:14.240 get in line and give them all the information they need. Obviously, 1:17:14.400 --> 1:17:17.960 if you're checking a bag packed properly, don't overpack. When 1:17:18.000 --> 1:17:19.880 you get to the thing, they're gonna say this weighs 1:17:19.920 --> 1:17:21.360 too much and you might have to pay more. If 1:17:21.360 --> 1:17:23.200 you want to pay more, that's fine. If you don't 1:17:23.200 --> 1:17:25.439 want to get into the situation where you're opening your bag, 1:17:25.720 --> 1:17:28.639 you know, and trying to take things out, get details 1:17:28.640 --> 1:17:31.960 of parking. Are you driving to the airport, leave yourself 1:17:32.000 --> 1:17:34.320 extra time because there is always a situation in the 1:17:34.320 --> 1:17:36.360 parking garages at the airport. There's a lot of people 1:17:36.360 --> 1:17:39.200 trying to park or get a ride from someone that 1:17:39.320 --> 1:17:42.880 really makes you calm, someone that you can confide in, 1:17:43.080 --> 1:17:46.120 but not someone that's going to do reassurance seeking, someone 1:17:46.160 --> 1:17:48.160 that can just validate for you that you need to 1:17:48.800 --> 1:17:51.439 close your eyes, put on your headphones, and do you 1:17:51.479 --> 1:17:53.880 know some kind of meditation in the car? Do you 1:17:53.880 --> 1:17:55.559 want to take an uber or some kind of car 1:17:55.600 --> 1:17:57.559 service where you can do that and you can shut 1:17:57.600 --> 1:18:00.320 your eyes and do some kind of for us of 1:18:00.560 --> 1:18:04.559 muscle relaxation or listen to a guided meditation. Listen to 1:18:04.760 --> 1:18:08.320 music that suits you. But think of the flight as 1:18:08.400 --> 1:18:12.080 beginning right when you leave for the airport. If you 1:18:12.120 --> 1:18:14.360 are taking a medication like a Xanex or Klono bin 1:18:14.439 --> 1:18:17.040 and you're not driving yourself, can you take it on 1:18:17.120 --> 1:18:19.439 the way to the airport. Now once you get to 1:18:19.439 --> 1:18:22.120 the airport, have something to look forward to. Is there 1:18:22.120 --> 1:18:24.600 a favorite food that you like to indulge in? I 1:18:24.640 --> 1:18:27.080 know a lot of it does involve sugar, so trying 1:18:27.080 --> 1:18:29.680 to stay away from sugar. But you know, is it 1:18:29.720 --> 1:18:32.120 a cheeseburger? Is it a slice of pizza? Do you 1:18:32.560 --> 1:18:37.000 do you just like to get you know, stupid gossipy, 1:18:37.120 --> 1:18:39.439 trashy magazines at the airport that you would normally not 1:18:39.520 --> 1:18:41.519 read quote in real life. It's just something to look 1:18:41.520 --> 1:18:43.559 forward to. Do you like to shop? Is there a 1:18:43.600 --> 1:18:46.799 shop at the airport? Some airports now have manicure pedicure 1:18:46.840 --> 1:18:49.439 places where you can also get a neck massage, you know, 1:18:49.520 --> 1:18:52.040 a back massage. Is that something that you want to do? 1:18:53.120 --> 1:18:56.320 Just make it like, oh, the vacation is begun when 1:18:56.320 --> 1:18:58.360 I get to the airport, and there's fun things in 1:18:58.360 --> 1:19:02.240 this little indoor Vaca Shian wonderland, this adult playground. There's 1:19:02.280 --> 1:19:05.800 there's trashy magazines. You know. I can maybe get a 1:19:05.840 --> 1:19:10.040 manny petty, I can get a massage. Incorporate all five 1:19:10.080 --> 1:19:13.120 senses if you can. So have things on the plane 1:19:13.120 --> 1:19:15.640 that you like to taste, feel, touch here and smell? Right? 1:19:16.120 --> 1:19:19.000 Do you have a little essential oil thing? You can 1:19:19.000 --> 1:19:21.559 put a little bit of it on a handkerchief. You 1:19:21.560 --> 1:19:23.760 can bring a little bottle with you. Do you want 1:19:23.800 --> 1:19:26.559 to smell lavender? Does that calm you down? Do you 1:19:26.600 --> 1:19:30.360 like the taste of gum? You know? Or just a 1:19:30.400 --> 1:19:35.040 favorite food? Or allow? Isn't anything something to touch? Do 1:19:35.080 --> 1:19:38.799 you want to bring a small, you know, cozy blanket 1:19:38.840 --> 1:19:41.880 on the plane with you, or some kind of big scarf, 1:19:42.000 --> 1:19:45.080 some kind of cashmere wrap. Anything do you want to bring? 1:19:45.120 --> 1:19:46.559 I mean, I don't mean a bed pillow, but do 1:19:46.600 --> 1:19:48.479 you want to bring one of those neck pillows with you? 1:19:48.600 --> 1:19:54.000 Just something anything soothing? And plush. Do you want to 1:19:55.120 --> 1:19:56.800 listen to something? I mean, to me, that's the most 1:19:56.800 --> 1:19:58.880 important thing. What is going on between your ears, not 1:19:58.960 --> 1:20:00.320 just in your head, but what is going on in 1:20:00.320 --> 1:20:03.080 your ears? So do you want to make a playlist 1:20:03.120 --> 1:20:05.599 of your favorite songs? And I mean like just dumb 1:20:05.720 --> 1:20:07.680 songs that you'd be embarrassed for anyone to find out 1:20:07.720 --> 1:20:10.800 you're listening to, you know, just make yourself happy listen 1:20:10.800 --> 1:20:14.320 to those songs, or and maybe make a playlist of 1:20:14.479 --> 1:20:17.960 relaxing music, whether it's classical music or something you might 1:20:18.000 --> 1:20:20.400 just hear at a spa. Make a playlist of your 1:20:20.439 --> 1:20:23.639 favorite podcast that aren't about upsetting things like the news, 1:20:23.760 --> 1:20:26.240 but just anything, you know, can you get involved in 1:20:26.320 --> 1:20:29.479 a more of a narrative podcast that tells the story 1:20:29.520 --> 1:20:31.920 of something, or an interview, you know, with your favorite 1:20:31.920 --> 1:20:34.960 actors or whatever. But I try to, you know, I 1:20:35.000 --> 1:20:38.120 try not to ingest news when I'm on an airplane, 1:20:38.800 --> 1:20:41.040 because even though I feel like I'm not afraid to fly, 1:20:42.520 --> 1:20:46.840 sometimes that news stuff gets upsetting and it gets in 1:20:46.880 --> 1:20:49.680 there and you never know. If I'm on a six 1:20:49.720 --> 1:20:52.120 hour flight and our one I'm spending it watching news, 1:20:52.200 --> 1:20:55.479 who knows by our four something could have been rolling 1:20:55.520 --> 1:20:57.559 around in my brain and I might be priming myself 1:20:57.600 --> 1:21:00.000 for a panic attack because that, you know, I'm I'm 1:21:00.040 --> 1:21:03.040 I'm keening into that lack of control feeling that obviously 1:21:03.040 --> 1:21:06.599 the news does give me. Now, something that I do 1:21:07.040 --> 1:21:09.880 when I get on an airplane, I don't do it anymore, 1:21:09.880 --> 1:21:13.479 but I used to do it every time, and you know, 1:21:13.640 --> 1:21:15.400 it's kind of embarrassing, but I would go right up 1:21:15.439 --> 1:21:18.360 to the flight attendant and I would say, Hi, I 1:21:18.520 --> 1:21:21.840 have a phobia of flying. I have a bunch of 1:21:21.880 --> 1:21:25.160 things that I'm doing. I'm breathing, I'm meditating, I'm fine. 1:21:25.240 --> 1:21:27.479 But part of my recovery is saying it out loud 1:21:27.520 --> 1:21:30.599 to someone and I'm just telling you and they'll say okay, 1:21:30.720 --> 1:21:32.479 and they might check in on you, they might not. 1:21:32.640 --> 1:21:37.320 But getting over that fear of looking stupid, of being 1:21:37.360 --> 1:21:44.000 different than other people, that really helped me. You know. Meanwhile, 1:21:44.160 --> 1:21:45.960 I'm on stage every night as a comedian. I don't 1:21:45.960 --> 1:21:47.439 care what people think of me. But I'm on the 1:21:47.439 --> 1:21:49.120 flight and I think, oh my god, if anyone knows 1:21:49.160 --> 1:21:51.000 I'm having a panicchotect would be the most embarrassing. Then 1:21:51.040 --> 1:21:52.760 they could happen in the world and so I had 1:21:52.800 --> 1:21:55.040 to get over that by saying that to the flight attendant, 1:21:55.080 --> 1:21:57.720 and every single time everyone was so cool to me, 1:21:57.760 --> 1:21:59.439 to the point where it was like, no, I you 1:21:59.479 --> 1:22:01.000 don't have to keep checking in on me. I'm fine. 1:22:01.720 --> 1:22:04.360 But there's something about during a panic attack as well. 1:22:04.439 --> 1:22:08.320 I would even this just it still makes me embarrassed, 1:22:08.320 --> 1:22:10.559 and I'm sitting alone recording this, but I would turn 1:22:10.600 --> 1:22:13.720 to the person next to me and say, I'm I'm 1:22:13.760 --> 1:22:16.080 sorry if I'm acting a little strange. I'm having a 1:22:16.120 --> 1:22:19.599 panic attack, but I'll be okay now. I nobody wants 1:22:19.600 --> 1:22:21.160 to talk to the person next to them on a plane, 1:22:22.080 --> 1:22:26.400 but the adrenaline will drain from your body so fast 1:22:26.600 --> 1:22:30.400 if you do that, just let the embarrassment take over. 1:22:30.439 --> 1:22:33.000 It really helps with the panic, even if you're not 1:22:33.040 --> 1:22:34.840 acting strange. It's just a way to reach out to 1:22:34.880 --> 1:22:36.639 someone or don't say that, or just say to someone 1:22:36.640 --> 1:22:38.720 I'm so sorry to bother you. I I promised I 1:22:38.760 --> 1:22:42.360 won't talk to you the rest of the flight, but um, 1:22:42.400 --> 1:22:45.040 just make up something. Um, do you know what time 1:22:45.120 --> 1:22:50.200 this flight lands or anything? Just say words. You might 1:22:50.240 --> 1:22:52.479 want to change your atmosphere if you know, if it's 1:22:52.560 --> 1:22:54.320 that part of the flight where you can get up 1:22:54.320 --> 1:22:56.680 and walk around, Just get up and walk around, just 1:22:56.880 --> 1:22:59.759 anything to feel like you have a sense of control. 1:23:00.439 --> 1:23:04.599 I also bring a list of affirmations and you can 1:23:04.640 --> 1:23:06.559 hold them on a note card, put them in the 1:23:06.600 --> 1:23:11.960 notes section of your phone. But you need to replace 1:23:12.360 --> 1:23:16.599 the thoughts that are running through your head, and you 1:23:16.640 --> 1:23:20.519 need to replace them with things that are habitual. You know, 1:23:20.600 --> 1:23:23.519 in that in that way that these thoughts that you 1:23:23.560 --> 1:23:26.000 think are habitual, oh my god, the plane's gonna crash, 1:23:26.439 --> 1:23:31.040 but you need to replace it with things that are 1:23:31.960 --> 1:23:36.000 um that become as route to you. So it's really 1:23:36.000 --> 1:23:39.320 good to pick like five affirmations to say over and 1:23:39.439 --> 1:23:41.840 over instead of just trying to think up ones on 1:23:41.880 --> 1:23:45.080 the flight, because you probably think of some pretty disordered ones, 1:23:45.120 --> 1:23:47.000 like even though the plane's gonna crash, him at peace. 1:23:47.000 --> 1:23:50.400 It's like, no, that is not an affirmation. So you 1:23:50.439 --> 1:23:54.040 could say something to yourself like do not believe the 1:23:54.160 --> 1:23:59.240 things you tell yourself when you are afraid. Um, you know, 1:23:59.280 --> 1:24:01.240 I've been here for I'm trying to find some that 1:24:01.439 --> 1:24:03.840 I have right here. I am safe, I am calm. 1:24:04.040 --> 1:24:06.000 Even if you're not calm, just say you're calm. You 1:24:06.040 --> 1:24:08.320 will become calm. I am safe. I am calm. You 1:24:08.320 --> 1:24:11.080 can write that one down. You can write down one's like, 1:24:12.160 --> 1:24:15.400 this is just a little anxiety. I am uncomfortable. I've 1:24:15.400 --> 1:24:18.720 been uncomfortable before. I'll be okay. You know something in 1:24:18.760 --> 1:24:22.040 that realm, even if you want to write something cheesy 1:24:22.120 --> 1:24:25.400 like I'm a grown as person on a flight. You know, 1:24:25.439 --> 1:24:28.120 if you're going to a work conference or vacation or 1:24:28.439 --> 1:24:32.760 I am going to enjoy myself on this vacation. And 1:24:32.840 --> 1:24:35.800 when you're in the air, think of things that you're 1:24:35.800 --> 1:24:39.200 looking forward to when you land. If there's anything you know, 1:24:39.240 --> 1:24:41.160 if it is a vacation, think of that, and then 1:24:41.160 --> 1:24:44.120 you'll realize, wait, I'm looking forward to something when I land, 1:24:44.200 --> 1:24:46.040 So there's no way I actually think this flight is 1:24:46.040 --> 1:24:50.040 going to crash. Another great affirmation is I feel anxious, 1:24:50.080 --> 1:24:51.640 but so what, I know what that feels like, and 1:24:51.680 --> 1:24:55.280 I'll get through it. Anxiety isn't dangerous. I'm just uncomfortable. 1:24:55.320 --> 1:24:57.840 I'll make it through this. It's only a thought, and 1:24:57.880 --> 1:25:00.640 a thought can be changed. The feeling of panic are 1:25:00.720 --> 1:25:04.679 leaving my body. I breathe in relaxation, I breathe out tension. 1:25:05.840 --> 1:25:08.920 I've conquered every attack so far, and this one will 1:25:08.960 --> 1:25:13.559 be no different. Your friends can write you letters of 1:25:13.600 --> 1:25:17.519 support emails, whether they're actually little cards, take them with you. 1:25:18.760 --> 1:25:21.479 It has to feel like you've got to be your 1:25:21.520 --> 1:25:23.760 own cheerleader and cheer yourself on, and you can't be 1:25:23.800 --> 1:25:26.840 embarrassed about needing a little extra care. I mean, think 1:25:26.840 --> 1:25:29.920 of all the times you've burdened friends with am I 1:25:29.920 --> 1:25:32.479 gonna be okay what's going on and burden them with 1:25:32.520 --> 1:25:34.240 something positive? Say hey, can you write me a few 1:25:34.280 --> 1:25:36.439 words of encouragement. I'm gonna keep it in my purse. 1:25:36.640 --> 1:25:39.360 If you have a lucky stone or some kind of 1:25:39.360 --> 1:25:42.320 crystal or some kind of religious object, but but not 1:25:42.520 --> 1:25:45.360 because you're in imminent danger. You know, you're not carrying 1:25:45.400 --> 1:25:47.799 around those things for good luck in case the plane crashes. 1:25:47.840 --> 1:25:49.960 That's not what we're doing here. You're carrying around those 1:25:49.960 --> 1:25:54.920 things because you're saying, I want some extra support in 1:25:55.000 --> 1:25:57.479 self soothing. I I don't want to have anxiety on 1:25:57.520 --> 1:26:00.800 this flight, and I'm taking every action I can. And 1:26:00.920 --> 1:26:04.479 this little stone reminds me that I'm going to have 1:26:04.560 --> 1:26:06.960 good luck with that, you know, or this religious symbol 1:26:06.960 --> 1:26:10.479 reminds me that I'm suffering. But I'll be okay, because 1:26:10.520 --> 1:26:13.200 I'm loved by you know, the the great universal whatever. 1:26:13.560 --> 1:26:17.679 We're not getting into superstition, right, there's a difference. One 1:26:17.680 --> 1:26:19.920 book I really liked too is called The Easy Way 1:26:19.960 --> 1:26:22.160 to Enjoy Flying by Alan Carr. He wrote a very 1:26:22.200 --> 1:26:25.960 famous book about quitting smoking. One thing he said in 1:26:26.000 --> 1:26:28.720 the book that that really just slapped me across the 1:26:28.760 --> 1:26:31.680 face was when you're outside walking around. Okay, so you've 1:26:31.680 --> 1:26:34.439 got this phobia flying. Okay, so when you're outside walking around, 1:26:34.439 --> 1:26:36.160 are you worried that planes are going to drop out 1:26:36.160 --> 1:26:38.559 of the sky on, you know, because your phobia flying 1:26:38.600 --> 1:26:40.920 has nothing to do with the airplanes. And I just 1:26:41.160 --> 1:26:43.040 love that. It just kind of woke me up a 1:26:43.040 --> 1:26:45.840 little bit. So I highly recommend getting that book. It's 1:26:45.880 --> 1:26:50.320 also it's available on Kindle. So let's do it. Let's 1:26:50.320 --> 1:26:54.519 go into a progressive muscle relaxation, and that's how we'll 1:26:54.640 --> 1:26:57.919 end the episode. How about this, I'll end the episode 1:26:57.960 --> 1:27:01.200 here and then I'll just go into the progressive muscle 1:27:01.280 --> 1:27:05.639 relaxation and it will end there. So if you want 1:27:05.680 --> 1:27:08.439 the muscle relaxation, you can keep listening. If you don't, 1:27:08.960 --> 1:27:12.920 this is where we say goodbye anxiety. Bites, but don't 1:27:12.920 --> 1:27:32.479 forget you're in control. We'll be right back. As you're 1:27:32.520 --> 1:27:37.599 sitting here being a person with a body, just notice 1:27:37.680 --> 1:27:41.439 that you have a body. You don't have to try 1:27:41.479 --> 1:27:45.320 to relax it. You don't have to change how you're breathing, 1:27:46.800 --> 1:27:50.439 although if you are feeling a little hyperventilated, you of 1:27:50.479 --> 1:27:57.080 course may exhale your breath wherever you are and just 1:27:57.120 --> 1:28:00.720 wait for your breath to start breath eating itself on 1:28:00.800 --> 1:28:05.760 its own again. But your body breathes automatically all day, 1:28:05.800 --> 1:28:09.040 every day, and it will do that during this exercise. 1:28:10.240 --> 1:28:14.519 If you enjoy taking full breaths, that's great. You may 1:28:14.560 --> 1:28:17.360 do that during this but you are not required to. 1:28:17.560 --> 1:28:23.000 You don't have to do anything to relax until I 1:28:23.080 --> 1:28:25.640 start calling out the muscles that you are going to 1:28:25.720 --> 1:28:30.679 contract and release. But there's no pressure to relax. We're 1:28:30.720 --> 1:28:39.439 just contracting and releasing muscles. Start with your toes. Curl 1:28:39.479 --> 1:28:42.680 your toes as much as you can, tighten them to 1:28:42.720 --> 1:28:45.519 where you feel you could get a toe cramp, but 1:28:45.560 --> 1:28:49.679 not to the point of real discomfort. But your toes 1:28:49.680 --> 1:28:51.880 are curled up, maybe even your whole foot is tight. 1:28:52.720 --> 1:28:57.320 And count. I will count for you. Count to five. 1:28:59.680 --> 1:29:03.160 And release. Now, when you release, you don't have to 1:29:03.200 --> 1:29:08.080 do anything extra. You've tightened your foot and you're just 1:29:08.160 --> 1:29:13.040 releasing it. You don't need to think about over releasing it. 1:29:13.040 --> 1:29:15.400 You're just setting it back to where it was before 1:29:15.400 --> 1:29:19.400 you tightened it. But you might feel warm sensation, It 1:29:19.479 --> 1:29:21.919 might feel like the blood is moving. It might feel relaxing, 1:29:21.960 --> 1:29:26.040 and that's great, but there's no pressure. Now. Think about 1:29:26.960 --> 1:29:31.599 your calves. Tighten them. You might feel it in your 1:29:31.600 --> 1:29:33.720 ankle as well, but I think I think of it 1:29:33.720 --> 1:29:37.080 almost as the back of your calves, and just tighten. 1:29:38.360 --> 1:29:48.639 I'll count for you, and release your calves. Now, think 1:29:48.640 --> 1:29:53.040 about your knee, your knee cap the front of your calves. 1:29:54.560 --> 1:30:04.320 Tighten that area. I'll count for you, oh, and release. 1:30:07.800 --> 1:30:09.559 You might feel a sensation in the top of your 1:30:09.600 --> 1:30:13.680 legs that they feel different than the bottom half of 1:30:13.720 --> 1:30:17.720 your leg under your knee. They might feel like they 1:30:17.720 --> 1:30:19.840 wanted to get in on the action, too, So let's 1:30:19.880 --> 1:30:25.400 do the same thing. Think of your thighs. The front 1:30:25.400 --> 1:30:30.760 of your thighs tighten, almost as though someone is trying 1:30:30.840 --> 1:30:36.760 to lift your legs up from the top of your thigh. 1:30:37.400 --> 1:30:52.360 Tighten and release. Now, think of your butt tighten your 1:30:52.360 --> 1:30:59.559 butt muscles. Hold it there, Tighten them more as much 1:30:59.560 --> 1:31:03.719 as you can, and you might feel a little shaky 1:31:03.760 --> 1:31:18.559 even I will count this for you and release. Now 1:31:18.560 --> 1:31:20.320 the top half in the bottom half of your body 1:31:20.400 --> 1:31:22.599 might feel totally different from each other. Now you might 1:31:22.680 --> 1:31:28.160 even feel like your butt is flattening into the seat 1:31:28.200 --> 1:31:32.839 you're sitting. And so now we're going to tighten our stomach. 1:31:32.840 --> 1:31:37.240 And this might be something that causes people some discomfort 1:31:37.320 --> 1:31:41.080 because it might feel like it's restricting your breathing. It 1:31:41.160 --> 1:31:44.479 might just be a sensitive area. Just know that I'm 1:31:44.520 --> 1:31:46.599 counting for you. I will not keep you here long. 1:31:47.200 --> 1:31:50.640 You are totally in control of this. So if you 1:31:50.760 --> 1:31:56.439 just want to tighten up your stomach muscles, and you 1:31:56.479 --> 1:31:57.960 don't have to suck in your stomach, it's not like 1:31:57.960 --> 1:31:59.600 you're trying to pose for a picture and look like 1:31:59.640 --> 1:32:02.519 you've got to six pack. You're just tightening your stomach muscles. 1:32:03.800 --> 1:32:11.360 I'll count for you. You're completely safe, and release your 1:32:11.360 --> 1:32:17.840 stomach and feel free to just recover from that for 1:32:17.880 --> 1:32:25.000 a minute. If you want to just exhale, your body 1:32:25.080 --> 1:32:31.960 is breathing, and now let's go to your hands. Tighten 1:32:32.040 --> 1:32:41.720 your hands into two fists, hold it there tight as 1:32:41.760 --> 1:32:53.439 you can without discomfort, and release your hands. I'll think 1:32:53.479 --> 1:33:00.200 of your arms. Just tightening your arms. You might set 1:33:00.280 --> 1:33:02.320 in your bicep, you might feel it in your triseep, 1:33:03.240 --> 1:33:06.240 but from your wrist to your shoulder, just tighten every 1:33:06.240 --> 1:33:08.840 single muscle that you have access to and that you 1:33:08.880 --> 1:33:14.240 can feel. It might even be a sensation that your 1:33:14.360 --> 1:33:25.639 arms are pulling in towards your body. Just tighten and release. 1:33:27.240 --> 1:33:32.120 And now we're coming to our upper abdomen, our chest area. 1:33:34.200 --> 1:33:36.800 This might cause some discomfort because it might feel restrictive, 1:33:36.840 --> 1:33:41.719 but just sort of tighten your chest. You're totally in control. 1:33:41.800 --> 1:33:46.880 You're safe. I'm counting for you. You don't have to 1:33:46.920 --> 1:33:55.360 be here long and release. That helps to just take 1:33:55.400 --> 1:33:59.840 a man in here and let yourself breathe naturally. And 1:34:00.040 --> 1:34:02.320 nothing about your shoulders in your back. If you want 1:34:02.320 --> 1:34:04.960 to lift your shoulders up to your ears, picture your 1:34:04.960 --> 1:34:11.560 offera back and it's just tightened, tightened, tighten, pull the 1:34:11.640 --> 1:34:18.960 shoulders up and relax. And I did say relax, not release. 1:34:19.680 --> 1:34:25.360 That's okay, you can relax. Now. Let's think about your face. 1:34:27.240 --> 1:34:31.559 Take your mouth, can tighten it into a smile so 1:34:31.600 --> 1:34:35.080 that you're getting your neck muscles in there. You can 1:34:35.160 --> 1:34:41.000 scrunch up your mouth instead so that your nose is involved. 1:34:44.280 --> 1:34:47.760 Don't worry nobody's looking at you. If they are, they're 1:34:47.760 --> 1:34:51.320 probably wondering I'd like to do what they're doing. Tighten 1:34:51.400 --> 1:34:57.200 up that mouth and release. And now just tighten up 1:34:57.200 --> 1:35:02.519 your whole face. Scrunch your whole face up, close your eyes. 1:35:03.800 --> 1:35:06.599 Just tighten that face up. You're trying to move all 1:35:06.600 --> 1:35:09.479 of your you know, your eyes, your nose, your mouth, 1:35:09.560 --> 1:35:11.320 right into the center of your face, and just hold 1:35:11.320 --> 1:35:18.759 there and release. And now your head. It's hard really 1:35:18.840 --> 1:35:23.080 to tends your head up. But if you want to 1:35:23.080 --> 1:35:26.120 just picture the top of your head, and if you 1:35:26.160 --> 1:35:31.360 want to just picture that, there is almost like someone 1:35:31.479 --> 1:35:34.040 is cracking an egg over your head. There's just this 1:35:35.280 --> 1:35:39.479 feeling of something starting at the crown of your head 1:35:39.840 --> 1:35:42.640 and flowing all the way down from the top of 1:35:42.680 --> 1:35:48.840 your head through your face, down, your shoulders down, your arms, down, 1:35:48.920 --> 1:35:52.200 your abdomen, down, your legs, all the way to your toes. 1:35:55.640 --> 1:36:00.280 Just one big extra release. If there's anything you still 1:36:00.320 --> 1:36:06.479 think you might be holding onto, release You can repeat 1:36:06.479 --> 1:36:09.840 this exercise. You can go back down from the top 1:36:09.880 --> 1:36:14.080 of your head back through your feet and keep going 1:36:14.200 --> 1:36:20.840 up and back, Or you can just stop here For 1:36:20.920 --> 1:36:23.400 more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart 1:36:23.479 --> 1:36:26.400 Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your 1:36:26.400 --> 1:36:27.120 favorite shows.