Does what I do make me less anxious, or actually make a change for the better?
The second most common specific phobia we treat is fear of flying (the first is emetophobia – fear of vomiting). Not surprisingly, anxious flyers engage in many behaviors to decrease their anxiety:
- Distractions such as reading books, talking with others, playing games on one’s phone.
- Self medicating with alcohol
- Trying to meditate
- Avoiding looking at the wings during flight, or wearing headphones to avoid hearing ‘weird’ sounds
While these behaviors may decrease my level of anxiety, it actually doesn’t make me any safer (i.e., which of these actually makes the aircraft fly better?).
We may engage in behaviors that make us feel better (or at least less anxious), but we need to recognize the difference between activities that decrease anxiety on the short run (while increasing our anxiety on the long run as I become more scared of flying) as opposed to behaviors that actually may affect the situation as a whole.