Episode 47: Afraid to Fly with Philip Chard, Part One

00;00;08;18 – 00;01;47;26
Kelly Parbs
Today we are exploring a topic that affects millions of people. The fear of flying. Did you know that about 25% of people in the US experience some form of anxiety related to flying? Does your heart start pounding just at the thought of buying an airplane ticket? Are you light headed and working hard just to keep it together as you try to find your seat on an airplane? Fear of flying is very common and most prevalent among people ages 25 to 44, with women more likely to report anxiety than men. We’ve all heard the statistics; Flying is safer than driving or even walking. But for many people, that information, while very important, just isn’t enough. I’m your host, Kelly Parbs. I’m a licensed clinical social worker and have dedicated my career to helping people respond to life’s challenges. I’m looking forward to sharing today’s discussion with you. My guest today has had his own struggles with the fear of flying after living through a terrifying experience. His insight is particularly interesting because he can speak to it also from the perspective of being a renowned psychotherapist who is specially trained in working with people who have phobias. You may remember Philip Chard from a previous podcast where we talked about compassion fatigue. If you haven’t listened to that one, I recommend that you do. Welcome back Phil. Hey Phil, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today about the fear of flying.

00;01;47;28 – 00;01;50;02
Philip Chard
Happy to do it, Kelly.

00;01;50;04 – 00;02;08;06
Kelly Parbs
One thing that I learned right off the bat is that aviophobia and aerophobia can be used interchangeably, but both are fancy terms for the fear of flying. Can you start us off Phil by defining aviophobia for us?

00;02;08;08 – 00;03;01;05
Philip Chard
Sure. Aviophobia, like all phobias, is considered an quote unquote “irrational fear”. Meaning it’s a fear that is kind of disconnected from what we actually know about flying and the risks involved and how people respond to those risks. So it’s a kind of fear that takes somebody over. They don’t feel a lot of control over it. And, it can be ranging on a continuum from a more mild version, if you will, of fear of flying or somebody, even though they have it, they’re still able to, get on an airplane and get through it reasonably well to people who literally cannot get on an airplane at all, they won’t fly because the fear is so overpowering.

00;03;01;07 – 00;03;12;14
Kelly Parbs
Thank you for that. I think plenty of people might feel butterflies, right, when when they’re flying, some apprehension, but that’s different than really struggling with a true phobia.

00;03;12;16 – 00;03;35;24
Philip Chard
Yeah, the data we have, to this point suggests that about 40% of us, feel some degree of fear, with flying, but only about somewhere in the vicinity of 5 or 6% of people across the general population have what we would clarify as an actual phobia about flying.

00;03;35;26 – 00;03;40;03
Kelly Parbs
And then somewhere in the middle, I suppose, plenty of people fall as well.

00;03;40;05 – 00;03;59;22
Philip Chard
Yeah. Generally speaking, again, it, it, these things we like to kind of do hard and fast, you know, differentiators between you either are or you’re not. But like most things, it operates on a continuum. And some people have a little bit, some people a moderate amount, and some people an extreme amount of fear.

00;03;59;25 – 00;04;11;27
Kelly Parbs
Are there any other anxiety related conditions that are commonly mistaken for fear of flying, or aviophobia, maybe misdiagnosed?

00;04;11;29 – 00;04;50;04
Philip Chard
Yeah, there can be a lot of overlap between phobic experiences. And in this area, one of the fears that often gets kind of co-mingled if you will, with the fear of flying is claustrophobia or the fear of closed in spaces, which makes a lot of sense. I mean, when you get on an airplane, you, you can feel kind of trapped in this, you know, tube full of people. And that closed in, I can’t get out kind of feeling can, can sometimes be what you’re really dealing with as opposed to a fear of actually flying itself.

00;04;50;06 – 00;05;05;07
Kelly Parbs
I’m going to want to talk a little bit later about treatment, but I would imagine that in treating this, you’d have to extrapolate out like, what exactly is the fear that we’re working with here?

00;05;05;10 – 00;05;57;27
Philip Chard
That’s correct. And one of the other complicating factors here is that people who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, which is pretty common across the population, can also be at risk of developing a fear of flying, even if they haven’t had one previously, or they haven’t even had any bad experiences flying. Because generalized anxiety, when it gets to a certain level of intensity, tends to attach itself to any variety of different triggers. And so somebody may get on a plane, they’ve never been afraid of flying, and they actually don’t have a bad experience on the flight, but they’re so generally anxious that those two experiences get linked, if you will. And then the next time they get on a plane, it triggers the anxiety again.

00;05;57;29 – 00;06;05;07
Kelly Parbs
Lots of layers to identifying what’s going on. And I suppose that’s very important in treating it as well.

00;06;05;10 – 00;06;11;12
Philip Chard
Yeah. You want to make sure your, your actually going after the right condition as you suggested.

00;06;11;14 – 00;06;24;18
Kelly Parbs
So Phil I know, that you unfortunately have experienced firsthand what it feels like to have a fear of flying. Do you mind telling us a little bit about your personal experience?

00;06;24;21 – 00;06;43;20
Philip Chard
No, not at all. Yeah. Actually, I’ve never had an innate fear of flying built in, if you will. I actually took flying lessons when I was in college and actually soloed at one point, but, I kind of ran out of money, so I gave it up.

00;06;43;22 – 00;06;46;02
Kelly Parbs
It’s an expensive hobby.

00;06;46;04 – 00;08;26;29
Philip Chard
It is. It’s very expensive at that time, for me anyway. But anyway, so I did a lot of flying commercially, and association with my work, with business, and was always pretty comfortable with it. And then I did have a very frightening experience on an airplane. And I know other people have had these too, but I was flying on a smaller commuter jet between two cities, and we flew into, what we later learned was a supercell thunderstorm. That had a tornado, occurring on the ground. And it was a mistake. The pilots acknowledged they made a mistake by flying into this. It closed around us in a way they hadn’t anticipated. And, we had a number of minutes of some pretty frightening experience. You know, the, bins opening and the lights flashing, and the plane was, you know, bobbing up and down. And, many people on the flight were very, very frightened. There was a woman sitting next to me who I did not know, who grabbed my arm and professed her belief that we were going to die. So it was a pretty wild experience. And after that, I, the next time I went to get on a plane to go on a business trip, I couldn’t board the plane. I had my version of post-traumatic stress disorder for flying, and, it was powerful enough that I realized I had to do something about it, or I wouldn’t be able to get back on an airplane again.

00;08;27;01 – 00;08;44;29
Kelly Parbs
Wow. And, you know, of course I wish you would have never gone through that experience, Phil. But I imagine that because you did, you have this extra layer of understanding of what people are going through who come to you for therapy for this.

00;08;45;02 – 00;09;17;14
Philip Chard
Yeah. It’s, it certainly does take care of the empathy question. Yeah. But, you know, there are people, of course, who’ve had frightening as that was, experiences on flights. Sometimes, you could make the argument that they were in real danger. Sometimes you can make the argument that they weren’t. It just felt like it. But either way what we experience emotionally in those moments is what determines whether or not we have acquired aviophobia.

00;09;17;16 – 00;09;20;25
Kelly Parbs
Sure, perception is reality, right?

00;09;20;27 – 00;09;23;25
Philip Chard
You bet in that case, very much so.

00;09;23;27 – 00;09;54;28
Kelly Parbs
That reminds me just a side note of a client that I worked with one time after a shooting in a hospital, and she had been hiding in a closet for some time, believing that the shooter was outside the door, the door that she was hiding behind. And the reality of the situation was that the shooter had never even been near her or in her vicinity, but she didn’t know that. And so the reaction that she had was because of her perception of, of the situation that she was in.

00;09;55;00 – 00;10;00;11
Philip Chard
Right. And with we know belief and in these instances, belief creates reality.

00;10;00;13 – 00;10;13;03
Kelly Parbs
Right. So is there any way of predicting who might struggle with the fear of flying? Are there any psychological factors that might contribute to that?

00;10;13;05 – 00;10;58;17
Philip Chard
Yeah, I guess I’ve already mentioned one, which is if people are generally anxious, about, you know, leaving home, getting out of their comfort zone, traveling, you know, those kinds of things, then they are at increased risk of developing it. Usually even when somebody has kind of a higher level of background and anxiety, unless they go through, you know, a very frightening experience on an airplane, they may not develop a problem, but if they do, if there’s a triggering experience and someone who has this more pervasive or generalized chronic anxiety is a higher risk in that regard.

00;10;58;19 – 00;11;16;13
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And when you say triggering experience, I mean, you know, you mentioned what you went through. Obviously that was on a plane, but might people go through a different type of triggering experience that might then lead them to having, a fear of flying?

00;11;16;15 – 00;12;24;20
Philip Chard
Yes, they can. I mean, there’s a crossover that can occur between these kinds of experiences where one kind of, bleeds into the other, so to speak, and, so an example of that might be somebody who has, let’s say they get on an elevator and the elevator gets stuck and they’re in there for some period of time, and they have an anxiety panic kind of reaction to that. As many people would. And then all of a sudden they are developing this sort of sense of being in a closed space, not being able to control what’s going on and kind of being at the mercy of of circumstances, if you will, that same kind of scenario can translate into a flight to being on an airplane. I’m in a enclosed space. I have no control over what’s going to happen, and I can’t get out. And so sometimes if you have a traumatic kind of experience in one environment that has similarities to another environment, like an airplane being in an airplane, that can in fact transfer over.

00;12;24;23 – 00;12;53;11
Kelly Parbs
You know, I’m pretty fortunate to be someone who doesn’t have much anxiety when it comes to flying, but I would imagine that people who do would experience things like, you know, their heart pounding or sweaty palms. Actually, when you were talking about getting stuck in an elevator, my heart started pounding. Can you tell us a little bit more about what kinds of symptoms people might experience if they have a fear of flying?

00;12;53;14 – 00;13;55;10
Philip Chard
Yeah, once they’re actually either, there’s two phases. The first is the anticipatory phase when they’re thinking about it. Oh, I’m going to get on an airplane. You know, they’re imagining what it’s going to be like. And that, those thoughts and those imaginings alone can up their anxiety in a more general sense. You know, the classic stuff, you know, hearts a little bit faster, you know, sweaty palms, breathing picks up, you know, fidgeting, all that kind of stuff. If they actually get in the airplane, then those can ramp up significantly and they can have more of the classic, you know, fight or flight freeze kind of scenario going on. And so when somebody gets in that situation, often they can feel panicky feelings like they have to run or get out. You know, those kind of feelings, which of course, once you’re in the plane and the doors are closed, that’s not happening. Which is one of the things that triggers people, there’s no escape, as it were.

00;13;55;13 – 00;13;57;26
Kelly Parbs
Feeling of not having control.

00;13;57;28 – 00;16;08;17
Philip Chard
Exactly. And that’s what it all hinges on. The perception of control or lack thereof. But the other symptoms, you know, it’s heart pounding, as you mentioned, rapid breathing or what we call stutter breathing that’s high in the chest, not full breathing, sweaty palms, you know, fidgeting kind of energy. Or you maybe you’re bouncing your legs or, you know, engaging in some kind of ritualistic, repetitive behavior. And the thought area is involved as well. The mind starts to race. Catastrophize about things, “Oh what if this happens? What if that happens?” And so all those symptoms tend to show up. In general, people will go into one of three buckets with that, you know, one bucket is the fight bucket and that’s, you know, it’s where like, I have to do something about this, but there’s nothing really to do. In terms of, you know, altering your environment or your external experience. So that’s very debilitating. And then the other one is the flight experience. It’s like, I got to get out of here, you know, and there have been instances where people with aviophobia, when they, you know, close the doors, as it were, on the plane, have actually panicked and tried to persuade the flight crew to let them off the, off the plane. And then the other one, which is the most common for folks with aviophobia, is the freeze response. They they realize they’re having this panic attack. They don’t want to look like it. You know, it’s, embarrassing to them to think that they’re losing it, so to speak. And so they they lock down, they tighten up the body, their breathing gets short and shallow. The heart races and the, their whole body becomes kind of frozen, if you will, kind of like, what you might see in a rabbit when it thinks it’s near a predator and it kind of just goes into freeze mode. Unfortunately, that freeze mode response that we see commonly is one of the ways that reinforces the trauma of flying. And actually makes it worse.

00;16;08;20 – 00;16;36;13
Kelly Parbs
Some of the things you made, made me think about people with social anxiety disorder and how this must be like a double whammy for them if they have fear of flying and then they’re on a plane with social anxiety and thinking about people looking at them and being embarrassed of whether they have a panic attack, that’d be a really tough situation.

00;16;36;16 – 00;17;12;06
Philip Chard
But that’s an excellent point. And it also illustrates kind of what we’re talking about here, which is when you say aviophobia or claustrophobia or social anxiety, we tend to think of these as being distinct kinds of conditions. In fact, there’s lots of overlap between these conditions. And it’s not, you know, there’s no fine line sometimes between them. So it is, a kind of a scenario where multiple factors can come to play to create this kind of anxiety.

00;17;12;09 – 00;17;31;14
Kelly Parbs
So and then it’s not only the fear itself, but the possibility of secondary stressors, like family being annoyed at you because you canceled holiday plans because of all of this, which would then layer on the guilt or the anxiety for that person who’s struggling.

00;17;31;17 – 00;18;22;06
Philip Chard
Yes, there can be those, you know, ripple out effects, for people. And not to mention, you know, somebody may really want to travel somewhere, perhaps to visit a loved one or whatever. And the only really reasonable way to get there is to fly, and then they’re so distressed between that desire to be with that person, might be somebody who’s even in, you know, having a difficult time medically. And they want to get to them. They have that pulling them, if you will, towards flying. But then they have their fear pulling them back away from it, and they get caught in this kind of, tennis match, if you will, within themselves this tug of war, I should say, within themselves between going and not.

00;18;22;08 – 00;18;30;06
Kelly Parbs
That’s a lot. There’s a lot of potential for the anxiety to just really pile on. Let’s look at the bright side for a moment.

00;18;30;08 – 00;18;32;11
Philip Chard
Sure.

00;18;32;13 – 00;18;39;23
Kelly Parbs
What are some of the strategies for, managing fear of flying?

00;18;39;25 – 00;20;02;14
Philip Chard
Yeah, there’s a number of them that we think, based on experience, can be helpful to people. As a preamble to that, everybody is unique. Psychology is unique, across individuals. So what works for one person, you know, may be a complete bust for another. So what people need to do is really sort of experiment, try things out, do a little taste testing, if you will, of different techniques to figure out which one really does help them. But there are a number and one of them that, you know, very common is just the, you know, the cognitive behavioral approach of dealing with your thoughts, because anybody that’s got aviophobia is enduring that anxiety long before they get on the airplane. They’re thinking about it, they’re imagining it. And more often than not, what they’re imagining is something catastrophic. You know, the the plane crashing usually. And, so the first thing we do is get them to pay attention to what they telling themselves through their, you know, sub, sub vocal talk, or their self-talk and examine that from a more rational standpoint. This isn’t something you do with somebody once they’re on the plane. This is yeah.

00;20;02;16 – 00;20;02;29
Kelly Parbs
This is work beforehand.

00;20;02;29 – 00;20;49;27
Philip Chard
You got it. But, you know, it seems trite, but you really do need to impress upon people the facts about flying and sometimes that does help people to stop the catastrophic thinking. And it give them the statistics about the fact that indeed, it is among the safest ways to travel and much safer, than driving. I remember landing once or no, I think we were just about to take off once actually, and the pilot came on and said, you’re now about to begin the safest part of your journey. When you land and get into an automobile, you’ll be in one of the least safe parts of your journey. And so.

00;20;49;27 – 00;20;51;14
Kelly Parbs
That was a brave pilot.

00;20;51;17 – 00;21;34;11
Philip Chard
Yeah, yeah, nice job of that. So I think it’s important to impress upon ourselves when we have this catastrophic thinking going on, to try to, to bring ourselves off that ledge, so to speak. By looking at the facts, does that always work? No, but it can be helpful because it pushes back against confirmation bias. When the brain is afraid of something like flying, it tends to look for things that reinforce that fear. In other words, it unconsciously looks for information, if you will, that backs up that catastrophic thinking and ignores information that refutes it.

00;21;34;14 – 00;21;40;10
Kelly Parbs
Sure. So your brain is saying, see, I told you so. I told you this was unsafe.

00;21;40;10 – 00;21;52;04
Philip Chard
Right, and so you have to kind of develop this other voice in your head, the voice of reason, if you will, that impresses upon you the fallacies in that catastrophic thinking.

00;21;52;06 – 00;22;06;14
Kelly Parbs
And so in doing that type of treatment, might you have the person come up with a script to maybe say over and over indicating how safe it is to fly?

00;22;06;16 – 00;22;54;21
Philip Chard
Yeah. Though I wouldn’t go all the way to how safe it is to fly because emotionally they don’t believe it. I think what you want to start dealing with, there is just to say things like, you know, there are things like, right now there are thousands of airplanes in the air flying people all over the world. And, you know, they’re all pretty. They’re fine. Have you heard about a plane crash recently? Now every once in a while you will hear about a crash. And so that can work against you. But even something like just saying there’s lots of people flying right now, they’re all safe. I’m going to be safe too. As opposed to saying something like, “oh, it’s entirely safe to fly and you’re, you’re being irrational”. It doesn’t help to criticize yourself for what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling.

00;22;54;27 – 00;23;05;17
Kelly Parbs
Sure, that makes perfect sense to me. What about distraction? What about people who just find a way to distract themselves during a flight?

00;23;05;19 – 00;24;09;17
Philip Chard
And many people use that, and it’s a good strategy. There’s nothing wrong with it if there’s particular games people can play. And by the way, this is one area where technology has been a boon, because you can take your tablet or your phone or whatever with you on the plane and, you know, you may have your favorite, whatever it is, you know, Tetris, solitaire, I don’t care, whatever it is that you play, if you know that, that kind of pulls you out of this, this catastrophic worrying that you’re doing and focuses you elsewhere, then that’s an excellent way to deal with that fear. It also helps because it is in some ways desensitizing you. In other words, you’re flying, but you’re showing yourself that you have some control over your emotional response by distracting yourself. And the more you feel like you have some control, the less anxious you’re going to be, because anxiety is all about losing control.

00;24;09;19 – 00;24;35;07
Kelly Parbs
Sure, I was once on a flight where there was a couple, and each of them had the very same word search book, and they were sitting across the aisle from one another. And they would each choose the very same page of the same word search to start doing, and they would compete against one another to see who could get their page done first.

00;24;35;09 – 00;24;36;18
Philip Chard
There you go.

00;24;36;20 – 00;24;51;16
Kelly Parbs
I thought that was a pretty creative way to pass time, and I don’t know if they were dealing with anxiety or not, but for those of us who were sitting near them, it was entertainment as well to watch them kind of distract themselves and use most of the flight playing that game.

00;24;51;19 – 00;25;06;26
Philip Chard
Right. And so again, you know, if you have that ability to distract yourself and in doing so, it lowers your anxiety and it’s likely to take it away and lowers it. And again, you feel like I have some control.

00;25;06;28 – 00;25;15;23
Kelly Parbs
So we talked about, you know, distracting yourself. And what other strategies might a person use.

00;25;15;25 – 00;27;15;22
Philip Chard
Somebody who has a particularly intense kind of aviophobia often can benefit from a sort of a version, if you will, of what we call exposure therapy. We know that when we expose ourselves in a controlled environment with the things we’re afraid of, that gradually, most of the time, those things lose their power to evoke that fear response, or at least invoke it as intensely as it has previously. So a kind of exposure therapy with aviophobia could be things like. I know these may sound a little weird, but they tend to work. Having somebody again, not on the flight, but prior to the flight, watching videos like YouTube videos of planes taking off or flying, sometimes even I’ve had people go to the airport and park their car towards the end of the runway and watch planes taking off, those kind of things where they’re looking at something they’re afraid of, but they’re not actually in it, is a way to gradually lower that, fight, flight, freeze response. There are some airlines that have sponsored programs to desensitize people to their fear of flying by setting up programs where they get to actually sit on the plane without, they’re not going to take off or anything, but they get on the plane and go through the whole sequence of, you know, buttoning up and the whole thing and teaching them while they’re doing that, how to gradually lower their anxiety with things like breathing techniques and deep muscle relaxation and so on. So those are more extensive, and I’m not aware of which airlines may still be doing that, or if they even are. But there was a time when that was the strategy that was being used by the airlines to try to help people with this particular fear.

00;27;17;26 – 00;27;26;27
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And I would imagine that airlines also train their staff in ways to help people who might be struggling during the flight.

00;27;26;29 – 00;28;12;16
Philip Chard
Yes, very much. I mean, they know that they’re going to have anxious fliers at a minimum. And if they have somebody on the flight who really is panicking and they need to know how to help that person and help them to calm down. And interestingly enough, if a flight attendant, for example, sees that somebody is really distressed, they inquire and discover that they are afraid. Maybe the plane’s going through some turbulence, something like that, just by them connecting with that person. Reassuring them, maybe, you know, putting a hand on their arm or their shoulder or whatever. It actually can have a fairly significant impact in terms of lowering, that individual’s level of anxiety.

00;28;12;19 – 00;28;33;18
Kelly Parbs
Basic psychological first aid. And I think a lot of us could be in a position to be able to provide that for someone on the plane, maybe even including you, when you went through that really scary experience and the woman grabbed your arm. If I know you, you probably said something reassuring to her that was helpful.

00;28;33;21 – 00;29;09;24
Philip Chard
Yeah, I did, I didn’t, I didn’t know if I believed it, but I, I said it anyway. Yeah, we, we can help each other because again, when you, when people get into a, a phobic kind of panic response, everything closes in and they start losing touch with their immediate environment because that’s what’s freaking them out. And so it’s sort of like, you know, bringing them back, if you will, reconnecting them through talking to them, touching them, whatever can help to settle somebody down to at least to a degree.

00;29;09;26 – 00;29;30;13
Kelly Parbs
Just that idea that you’re not alone. You’re going through this with another person, another human who cares about you in this moment.

00;29;18;21 – 00;29;18;44
Philip Chard
Exactly.

00;29;18;44 – 00;29;30;13
Kelly Parbs
What about things like mindfulness or breathing exercises to help calm someone either before when they’re preparing for the flight or during.

00;29;30;16 – 00;31;06;24
Philip Chard
Yeah, that’s an interesting one because in our experience it’s most helpful before or when you’re, sitting on the plane waiting to take off, you know, those kind of times, if you get into a situation on the plane where it gets scary to you, turbulence being the most common of those, where, you know, then you realize you’re really getting anxious. Then the deep breathing thing, for example, isn’t necessarily the way to go. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but let me explain. Before something scary happens, you know, on the flight itself, the deep breathing can definitely help. However, once you get activated, once the fight flight freeze thing kicks off, then there’s a limit to how much the deep breathing can sort of, bring you down from that. It’s often more helpful to just acknowledge what’s going on and say to yourself, okay, you know, I’m having a panic attack or I’m having an anxiety attack because I’m catastrophizing and I need to remind myself that, in fact, it’s it’s very safe up here. And, you know, turbulence doesn’t bring down airplanes and that kind of thing. And so it’s a acknowledging the fear is sometimes more helpful when you’re in the midst of it than trying to push back against the fear. And sort of snuff it out by doing some deep breathing exercises.

00;31;06;27 – 00;31;24;06
Kelly Parbs
And having that strategy in place beforehand. You know what? What am I going to say to myself if I feel the anxiety ramping up? Those are things that I suppose if you practiced and had a bit of a plan beforehand, you’d have more success.

00;31;24;08 – 00;32;00;17
Philip Chard
I actually had some clients who would write down what they want to say to themselves in those moments, in advance, carry it with them on the plane, and if they got into something dicey, then they would actually pull it out and read it or not read it out loud, but read it to themselves, so that they didn’t have to worry about trying to remember it, you know, at the time that it was happening. So there are a lot of different ways to do that. But in general, we find sort of talking yourself down. When you do get activated, it can be more helpful than the breathing methods themselves.

00;32;00;20 – 00;32;25;15
Kelly Parbs
Interesting. Good information. So let’s say someone is at the airport waiting for their flight. They don’t necessarily feel a great deal of anxiety, but they want to keep themselves calm before they get on the plane. Are there any brief exercises, that come to mind for you that maybe you could teach us during this podcast?

00;32;25;18 – 00;34;53;10
Philip Chard
There’s one that I’ve, encouraged folks to try that many have report is helpful for them and that involves two, actually two different actions sequence in this way. First, they do what we call the three threes. The three threes involves taking each primary sensory mode, sight, hearing and touch. And connecting your senses with three things in your environment, in each of those sensory modes. So stop and look around and notice three things visually don’t not just notice, but actually look at them, focus on them and study them for a few moments. Then switch over to your auditory channel and listen and pick out three different sounds you’re hearing in your environment. And again, kind of explore those for a few moments. Same thing with touch. Touch three things in your environment and do that same kind of inquiry, if you will, about that sensation through your awareness. Then after you’ve done that, what you’ve done is you’ve kind of done what we mean when we say, lose your mind and come to your senses, you know, you’ve reconnected with your sensory system, which will tend to downplay or sometimes even short circuit the worrying that’s going on in your mind, in your head. Then right after that three threes sequence, then you can go into the breathwork itself. And there’s nothing real fancy about breathwork. I mean, there’s you’ll hear and can read about lots of different breathing techniques that help people with anxiety. And all of them have some value. So it’s just a function of experimenting to see which one tends to work best. What the science tells us is that in general, the breathing method that really tends to help people when they’re really activated is a full but shorter in-breath through the nose. So you’re pulling air in quickly or filling those lungs quickly, but you’re doing it through your nose. And then a much longer exhale through open lips. So it’s a deep but quick in breaths, through the nose, followed by a long and slow outbreath through the mouth.

00;34;53;13 – 00;35;02;28
Kelly Parbs
I was literally doing that while you were talking. Thank you. Thank you for that. That’s great information and hopefully our listeners can practice that at home.

00;35;03;00 – 00;35;38;29
Philip Chard
And one other quick thing if I could about that, Kelly, is that when we do that quick in breath, it kind of lights up the brain. You can see that on brain scans, but when you do the long exhale, it really eases it down or down regulates the activity in the brain. So it’s kind of like almost like an isometric exercise, but for your brain. First you’re tensing it and then you’re relaxing it. The relaxation is longer than the tensing. And as a result, when you get done with the breathing exercise, you’re generally at a much, more relaxed state.

00;35;39;01 – 00;36;01;18
Kelly Parbs
Thank you for that. And that makes me think of other just kind of self-care things we can do with our bodies. Maybe avoiding caffeine if we’re feeling like we’re going to have high, high anxiety I think about when I fly, I drink a bunch of coffee in the morning because it’s usually an early flight, and if I were someone who struggled with anxiety, that’d probably be a bad idea.

00;36;01;20 – 00;36;08;05
Philip Chard
Yeah. If you drink enough coffee, you can give yourself a coffee induced panic attack or anxiety attack anyway.

00;36;08;07 – 00;36;20;17
Kelly Parbs
So don’t do that. And staying hydrated too, which is always tricky because you don’t want to get up every two minutes on a plane to use the bathroom, but at the same time keeping a good hydrated body is probably a good idea as well.

00;36;20;19 – 00;36;43;05
Philip Chard
Yeah, and it’s also important if you’re on a plane where they don’t have the best temperature control and it’s cold, which is the most common complaint you hear, is that you have some way to warm yourself up, keep the body warm, because even just feeling that cold and the shiver and all that can contribute to the perception that your anxiety is worse than it actually is.

00;36;43;07 – 00;37;16;29
Kelly Parbs
Yeah, interesting. Stay tuned for part two of my conversation with Philip Chard, when Phil will share practical tips on how to manage your fear of flying, or support someone you know who may be struggling. To hear that episode and other episodes of On Topic with Empathia, visit our website empathia.com. Follow us on social media @empathia and subscribe to On Topic with Empathia to hear new episodes as soon as they go live. I’m Kelly Parbs. Thanks for listening to On Topic with Empathia.