Staying Out of Your Own Movie in Turbulence
Turbulence, the thing many anxious fliers fear most, does not threaten the plane. Why, then, such fear? Reflective function is fragile. Anxiety can cause it to collapse, more easily in some than in others. When reflective function collapses, psychic equivalence takes place and imagination is experienced as if it were reality. Imagination that the plane might fall morphs into an experience that the plane is actually falling. Panic results.
For the person whose ability to regulate anxiety was not sufficiently developed during childhood, control of anxiety requires control of the situation. If adequate control is unavailable, the person needs an instant means of escape—and that is not an option in flight. When the person thinks about being unable to escape, she feels trapped. Since feeling trapped can cause panic, the person knows that when flying, she must keep awareness of the situation out of mind.
This is a fragile strategy at best; it depends upon the person’s ability to not think about being in the situation she is in. Success rests upon the person’s ability to constantly focus on other things or to psychologically dissociate while on the plane.
When turbulence forces the person to recognize the situation she is in, her selective focus—or her psychological dissociation—fails. This form of control, like a house of cards, crashes down. Anxious fliers, knowing this is not a dependable strategy, obsess about the weather. Their emotional well-being depends on a turbulence-free flight. A more substantial plan is needed. Some have found the following strategies helpful for staying out of your own movie during turbulence.
Visualize the “Solidness” of Air—the “Gelatin” Exercise
The plane is so heavy. I just can’t see how air can hold something up that is so big and heavy.
On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager was the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. It was said he “broke the sound barrier” because, until then, it was theorized that air might become as solid as a brick wall when approaching the speed of sound. It isn’t solid—but it is thick! Since airliners cruise close to the speed of sound, the air supporting the plane can be compared to gelatin.
As speed through air increases, passage becomes more difficult. When you’re walking through air at five mph, it’s effortless; biking through air at twenty-five mph requires all the effort a non-racer can muster. In a car, at fifty mph, if you put your hand out the window and push forward, it takes the same effort as putting your hand under water in a swimming pool and pushing forward. This means, to a vehicle penetrating it, fifty mph air is as thick as water in a pool. At eighty mph, air becomes like oil or molasses. At takeoff speed, between 140 and 200 mph, as far as the plane is concerned, air has been transformed into something as solid as gelatin.
Imagine a plate of gelatin in front of you. A cube of pineapple is suspended in the gelatin. Pick up the plate and shake it. No matter how hard you shake, you can’t dislodge the pineapple from the gelatin. Now, replace the pineapple with a toy airplane. Again, shake the gelatin. As with the pineapple, there’s nothing you can do to make the airplane plunge. The gelatin holding the toy airplane sits on a plate. The gelatin-like air holding the real airplane sits on the earth. Turbulence cannot break the hold of the gelatin. In gelatin-thick air, it is not possible to fall.
Once a plane reaches “gelatin-speed,” it has to go where it is pointed. Imagine poking bare shish-kebab skewers into the gelatin behind the toy airplane. Put the tips against the rear of the engines. When you apply force, you can make the toy plane cut forward through the gelatin. This is what happens in flight. Engines make the plane cut forward through the gelatin-like air. Flying is as simple as accelerating to gelatin-speed on the runway, and pointing the nose where the plane needs to go. That’s it. An accident can happen under only two circumstances:
If your concern persists that the plane could fall, buy some gelatin mix—Knox, Jell-O, or in Australia the most popular brand is Aeroplane Jelly—a small model airplane, and some skewers. Place the toy in the gelatin, allowing it to set there. Once it’s set, simulate the engines pushing the plane forward by placing the skewers against the rear of the toy plane’s engines and pushing.
When onboard and taking a flight, don’t wait for turbulence to begin “thinking gelatin.” Picture the air getting thicker and thicker as you accelerate. Know the plane is in gelatin-like air before the nose is even lifted off the runway. Think of your toy airplane, safely suspended in gelatin, just as you are. You can jiggle in it, but you can’t fall through it.
Turbulence is the worst because it feels like the plane is falling out of the sky.
What the plane is actually doing and what it feels like the plane is doing is very different. In the early days of aviation, instruments had not been developed for flying in clouds or landing in fog. In such conditions, pilots were said to be “flying by the seat of their pants.” The human body experiences up-and-down motions as physical sensations of heaviness and lightness. So to some degree, when in clouds and unable to see, a pilot could get some idea of what the plane was doing from the physical feelings transmitted by the seat in which he or she sat.
As a passenger, you can easily misinterpret what is going on unless you first calibrate the “instrument” used when flying by the seat of your pants. Here’s how: While the plane is parked at the terminal, lift your arms up off the armrest and lift your legs up off the floor. This puts all your weight on the seat. Memorize the amount of weight you feel in the seat. Once you have memorized that, your “instrument” has been calibrated. You can then compare that feeling with what you feel during flight.
During flight, if you get the impression the plane is falling, you tense up. That tension causes some of the weight that would ordinarily be in the seat to be transferred to the floor, via the stiffness in your legs, and some of the weight that would ordinarily be in the seat is transferred onto the armrest, due to the stiffness in your arms. The resultant lightness in your seat makes it feel like the plane is falling, even though it isn’t. Thus, if the plane descends even for a moment, your reaction of tensing up causes the descent feeling to continue.
If you get the impression the plane is falling, lift your arms off the armrest and lift your feet off the floor. This places all your weight onto the seat. Compare what you feel with the calibration you did while parked at the terminal. This makes flying by the seat of your pants more accurate and not influenced by weight transferred from the seat to your limbs by tension.
Use a Sticky Note
I get worried that turbulence will get so bad that the plane can’t handle it and something will break.
Airliners are built to withstand 5.0 Gs or more. The term G-force is used to state how much stress an object is being subjected to. The term can also describe the amount of stress an airplane or a person can withstand. The amount of stress we are subjected to when simply standing on the earth is 1.0 G. An airliner is built to sustain 2.5 Gs (two-and-one-half times the stress of level flight) with no damage whatsoever, and 5.0 G s (five times that amount of stress) with some damage to the structure of the plane but without breaking apart. In ordinary turbulence, the forces on the plane are in the 1.2 to 1.4 Gs range. But what about extreme turbulence? What is the worst turbulence can be? In determining the tie-downs needed to restrain extremely heavy cargo (combat vehicles, tanks, ammunition, and so on) on planes, the maximum possible turbulence has to be taken into consideration. The figure used by the military is 2.0 Gs. This means the worst possible turbulence cannot match the strength capacity built into every airliner.
As G-force on the body increases, blood is pulled downward. It drains away from the brain and pools in the legs and abdomen. Fighter pilots wear a G-suit to keep from losing vision during high-G maneuvers. One part of the G-suit wraps around the abdomen; other parts encircle the legs. When “pulling Gs,” a bladder built into the G-suit inflates, compressing the legs and the abdomen to keep blood from flowing downward. Since you don’t have a G-suit, if an airliner reached even half of the G-force it’s built to withstand, you would first gray out and then black out.
Write this phrase on a sticky note: “If I can read this, it is not yet time to worry about the plane.” Place the note on the back of the seat in front of you. During the flight, as long as you can read that note—or even see what color it is—it is not yet time for you to worry.
Prove How Little the Plane Moves
The plane dropped this huge amount. It must have been a hundred feet!
A bump during turbulence feels a lot like a speed bump feels when you’re in your car. A five-inch speed bump produces a solid jolt at 5 mph. A one-inch bump would produce a similar jolt at 50 mph. A half-inch bump would do the same at 100 mph, or a quarter-inch at 200 mph. At cruise speed of 550 mph, the bump would need to be between an eighth and a sixteenth of an inch. Though it feels like the plane moves hundreds of feet in turbulence, the actual movement is a fraction of an inch.
Would slowing down help? It isn’t possible to improve the ride when in turbulence by slowing down. The required speed—Turbulence Penetration Speed—is equidistant between too fast for the wing to produce lift and too slow for the wing to produce lift. That speed, only 2 to 4 percent slower than normal cruise speed, makes no noticeable difference
Even great improvement in the ride would not resolve anxiety about turbulence. Anxious fliers can be extraordinarily sensitive and alarmed by movements that a pilot would not even notice. When I’ve flown with anxious fliers, some have said, “What’s that turbulence?” To which I replied, “What turbulence?” Even when they said, “There, that!” to point out the moment when they felt something disturbing, I still didn’t notice any movement at all.
It isn’t possible to fly a plane in a manner that will not trigger stress release in a highly sensitive flier. Regardless of how much you may think flying should be different, the difference has to come from you in the form of increased ability to regulate emotion when encountering movement that is unfamiliar.
Where does such sensitivity to—and fear of—the unfamiliar come from? The amygdalae are key to how we respond to what is non-routine. They are “experience dependent” in their development. Research shows in orphanages, where we know children do not get the psychological connection they need, and in homes where mothers are depressed, emotional development does not progress as it should, and the amygdalae—like a muscle that develops when it is used more—become enlarged. Enlarged amygdalae are associated with greater sensitivity to what is unfamiliar.
Growing up secure makes the unfamiliar intriguing. Growing up insecure makes the unfamiliar seem dangerous. To grow up secure, children require personalized attention. The famous child psychiatrist Donald Winnicott wrote about “the holding environment,” the world of the child made safe for exploration by what he called “the good enough mother”: one who is responsive to the child’s expressed needs but careful not to impinge on the child’s need to explore the unfamiliar.
Since pilots can’t give you relief from turbulence by slowing down, you need to be convinced how little the plane moves in turbulence. Here’s how you can prove it to yourself. Hold a cup half filled with water high over a bathtub. As quickly as you can, plunge the cup downward toward the tub (you do not need to hit bottom). Note how some of the water sloshes over the side of the cup. During flight, hold a cup half full of liquid against the edge of the tray table. If the plane goes up or down, so does the tray table, so it serves as a measure. If the plane were to plunge even one foot, you would see the water rise up above the cup. Note how, during even the most intense turbulence, the liquid, while it may wave, stays in the cup. Surprisingly, you will find that drinking from the cup, in turbulence, is less difficult than doing so while riding in a car. Here’s an e-mail from a client who tried this out:
I have gained so much through this course, and my flights have been more manageable. I found the 5-4-3-2-1 Exercise most helpful, and I bring an interior decorating magazine on the plane because the pictures have lots of different items to describe when doing the exercise. Unfortunately, my biggest fear is turbulence. I remember you telling me that the plane was typically only moving a fraction of an inch. I remember stopping you and repeatedly asking: “What do you mean it’s only moving a fraction of an inch?” I thought you MUST have meant relative to how high we were in the sky. But no, you really meant that the plane wasn’t moving that much. For me, it feels like a cork in the ocean, wildly bobbing up and down. On my last flight, we hit turbulence, not bad enough for the flight attendants to be seated, but bad enough that the seat belt sign came on. I asked the flight attendant if we were okay, and then I sort of fell apart. I became a total borderline, unglued, tearful passenger. She was wonderful. But I was mortified. Unlike a true borderline, I didn’t want attention; I wanted to blend in and be “normal.”
On the next flight, I got a clear plastic cup, half-full of water. I told myself that I would NOT allow myself to freak out if the water didn’t come out of the cup. I simply REFUSED to allow myself to freak out over a plane that was moving only less than an inch. I was taking charge! Anyway, it got turbulent, flight attendants–seated kind of turbulence. And the water never came out of my cup. I stared at my cup and I counted . . . one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand. I figured most turbulence doesn’t last more than five minutes, so I stared at my cup and counted to sixty-one-thousand five times and if I needed to start over, I did.
I honestly feel like a switch was flipped, like some faulty neurological pathway that associated turbulence with immediate panic was reset. I flew from Houston to Cancun and back from Cancun to Chicago to Cedar Rapids and ALL of the flights were turbulent and I didn’t panic. I was OK. No pounding chest. No tears. No “I’m going to die right now” feeling.
I wanted to pass this on in hopes that it might help others. It may look a bit OCD to stare non-stop at a cup while counting but so be it! It’s less embarrassing than sobbing and yelling!
Build a Library of Turbulence “Chunks”
If the flight is smooth, I’m fine. I always check the weather. If it looks like a storm is brewing, I worry about turbulence. I know if the flight is turbulent, I’m going to have an awful time.
We are constantly bombarded with stimuli. Since we can’t pay attention to everything, information that enters our eyes, ears, and other senses needs to be automatically filtered so we can focus on what’s important. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) operates a lot like a spam filter—one that really works. A sample is taken of incoming sensory data. Each sample is called “a chunk.” Chunks are stored in memory. When a chunk fails to match any of the stored chunks, the RAS signals the brain to take notice. But if a chunk matches a chunk taken in the past, and nothing of importance took place at that time, the RAS filters that chunk as irrelevant. It’s filtered out so as not to enter your awareness. Thus, most of what is going on at any particular moment is filtered out. The RAS more or less says, “Been there, done that,” and ignores it.
If turbulence were consistent, like a steady vibration, we would get used to it in a very short time. Every new encounter with turbulence would produce a chunk that was a match with the initial turbulence chunk. The RAS would simply ignore it. But turbulence doesn’t follow a consistent pattern. Each moment of turbulence can feel very different from another. It takes many chunks to cover all the permutations of turbulence. Because I’ve had so many experiences with turbulence as a pilot, I have stored enough turbulence samples to match almost any new sample. My RAS ignores the turbulence that alarms my clients.
In order to remember to turn on the seat belt sign, pilots, because they have a comprehensive set of “turbulence chunks,” have to program themselves to tune in to turbulence. More than once, an irritated flight attendant has called on the intercom to ask why the captain hasn’t turned on the seat belt sign. The turbulence simply had not been noticed.
Whose view should prevail? That of the passenger who flies only occasionally and has few if any memory chunks to filter out turbulence, and so is alarmed by it? Or the view of a captain who flies day in and day out, tends not to notice turbulence, and is not alarmed by it? It isn’t easy for passengers to store a turbulence chunk, never mind a whole library of them, for two reasons. First, as mentioned, turbulence is irregular and it takes considerable experience to memorize it in all its permutations. Second, the often-used strategy of trying to keep the flight out of mind interferes with chunk production. So does anti-anxiety medication. Research shows it interferes with the process of getting used to the motions—including motions during turbulence—that are a normal part of flying.
In turbulence, movements of different intensity and different direction are normal. Study each variation on the theme. Memorize the characteristics of each movement. This will help your RAS build its library of turbulence chunks.
Organize a strategy ahead of time. Limit the number of things you expose yourself to at any one moment so your RAS can keep up. For example, take plenty of time getting to the airport so there is never a rushed moment that overloads the RAS. At the airport, stop as soon as you step inside the terminal. Focus on what you can see: other passengers, luggage, computer check-in stations, airline personnel, and arrival and departure boards. Get used to all the visual information. One by one identify each thing you can see. Then, after naming each of the things you see, let yourself experience the things you see as though they were the meaningless shapes and colors of an abstract painting. Notice how this shift to meaninglessness brings your stress level nearer to zero. Then close your eyes and focus solely on what you hear. Identify each sound: PA announcements, the chatter of people, and instructions from security guards. Then listen to the sounds as though they were meaningless, like the sound of the ocean. Notice again what a difference this makes to your stress level. Next, notice the atmosphere of the room: the temperature, the level of humidity, any scent present, movement of air—or lack thereof. Once the atmosphere of the room is familiar, breathe it in as known and safe. Doing this allows the RAS to form any new “chunks” it needs. This sequence gets your stress level back near zero so you bring as little stress as possible along with you as you head toward the airplane. Repeat this exercise at each juncture of the preflight—from check-in, to security, to boarding area.
Adopt a Scientific Attitude
I just hate turbulence. I just want it to go away.
A scientist’s aim is to gather and analyze information from a neutral stance. Pretend you are a scientist assigned to study the sounds and movements of routine flight. Instead of trying to keep the flight off your mind, eagerly observe every sound and motion while maintaining a sense of scientific detachment. This will help keep the “chunks” you establish free of emotion.
Conceptualize Physical Sensations
My body gets so tense when I fly. I just can’t help it.
Movement of the plane is physically experienced in the passenger’s body. This physical experience is intensified when there’s no concept of what is causing it. Conversely, a realistic concept of what is going on limits the intensity of the physical experience. The best way I can think of to make this important principle clear is to tell you a personal experience. When I was sixteen, some friends were talking about French kissing. I said, “What’s that?” One of the girls said, “You don’t know what a French kiss is?” I said, “No.” She grasped my head in her hands, pressed her mouth to mine, and the next thing I knew, it felt like the top of my head had blown off. I had never felt anything that intense in my life! Kisses that came later never approached that kiss in intensity. Why? As soon as the kiss was over, I conceptualized what she had done. I understood its cause and effect. And, of course, there was a name for the experience. As a result, no subsequent French kisses approached the intensity of that first one.
If we resist or dissociate during an experience, it can take place again with the same intensity. But when we take an experience in, Executive Function can map it out visually and use words to label it. If the experience can be figured out, its cause-and-effect explanation is understood. All this organizes the experience conceptually in the mind. Once it’s conceptually organized, the intensity of the experience is deconstructed. No subsequent iteration will be as intense. Physical intensity must compete with mental activity as Executive Function tracks the experience. As long as Executive Function remains active and able to compare the current experience with pre-existing conceptualizations, awareness cannot be flooded with physical sensation.
This principle points again to the important role played by Executive Function. Just as a person wanting more intense physical sensation may employ alcohol or drugs to deactivate Executive Function, a passenger who wants to limit the intensity of physical sensation must keep Executive Function active by avoiding alcohol and drugs and by using the methodology described in this book to prepare for flight.
When a passenger experiencing turbulence has no accurate mental picture of what is going on, awareness is filled with physical sensations. Pilots, because they have a thorough mental organization of what is going on, have a hard time understanding why passengers are troubled in the least by turbulence. In the cockpit, they can see the plane is not deviating from its intended path or from its intended altitude.
Even though you’re not in the cockpit, you can provide yourself with a visual conceptualization of what is going on. Using a pen and a sheet of paper, track the movement of the plane. Start the pen on the left side of the paper; let it move slowly over toward the right side, drawing a line to depict the forward movement of the plane. As the plane moves up or moves down, let your pen move ever so slightly up or down to track the up and down movements of the plane. When you reach the right side of the paper, start again on the left side, and make another graph of the plane’s movement below the first one.
In addition to this visual conceptualization, give yourself a verbal cause-and-effect conceptualization. Tell yourself that the line you’re drawing on the paper represents the movement of the plane across the planet. As the plane moves forward, it encounters air that is moving up or down at a speed of only one foot per second. The slow-moving air causes the fast-moving plane to bump. The bump lasts only a fraction of a second. The upward or downward movement caused by the bump is only a fraction of the forward speed of the plane. This is depicted by the graph you produce during turbulence. Doing this during turbulence will help you form a turbulence “chunk.” In time, when you have accumulated enough “chunks” to represent all the different kinds of turbulence, awareness of turbulence will be filtered out of your mind by the Reticular Activating System.
Conceptualize Navigation
All I know is the plane is up somewhere. Picture where the plane is? Why would I do that?
Anxiety can be regulated in part by maintaining an orientation of where the plane is relative to its point of departure, its destination, and en route checkpoints. Some airliners offer visual displays that show the plane’s progress. Even if your airliner has this, you can strengthen your regulation of anxiety by independently maintaining a sense of where the plane is. You will need a map. One can usually be found in the airline’s in-flight magazine. If you plan ahead you can purchase or download a more detailed map to bring with you. When the plane takes off, look at your watch. Write the takeoff time on the map at the departure point. Add the total flying time to your takeoff time, and write that time on the map at the destination. Draw a line from your departure point to your destination. Divide the line up into one-hour segments. For example, if the flying time is four hours, mark the line between your departure point and your destination into four parts. At the first mark, add an hour to your takeoff time and write down that time. Add another hour and write that time at the second mark, etc. Once the map shows the time you will be at each of the marks, you can use your own watch at any time during the flight to figure out where you are on the map.
Conceptualize Anxiety Level
I’m more tense on some flights than on others. I don’t know why. I just I hope I don’t panic.
Keep track of your level of anxiety on a scale of zero to ten, with zero being completely relaxed and ten being the most anxiety you have ever experienced. If tempted at times to say that on a scale of zero to ten you’re at a fourteen, then revise the scale so that fourteen becomes the new ten. If you like, you can write down your anxiety level on the map at takeoff and at the various checkpoints along the way. Otherwise, write it down, along with the time, on a piece of paper. As in any experience, as long as your Executive Function is able to assess your current anxiety level and compare it with the pre-existing zero-to-ten conceptualization, you cannot be overwhelmed. If, at any time, your level of arousal is higher than acceptable, turn to the 5-4-3-2-1 Exercise in order to bring it down to an acceptable level.
Go High Tech
There are apps that measure G-force, many of them free, that can be put on a smartphone. You can simply set your phone to Airplane Mode. In turbulence, you can read the actual G-load being put on the plane. You will be amazed how low the readings are. For information on apps that measure G-force go to fearofflying.com/app.
By the way, some anxious fliers worry that cell phones could interfere with the operation of the plane. That is not true. Cell phones operate on radio frequencies different from those used by planes. If left on, cell phones do no harm.
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Turbulence, though it may not feel safe, is safe. If turbulence continues to seem unsafe in spite of the facts, what can you do? The key is to experience flight—turbulence included—just as it is, without adding imagination and without subtracting awareness by trying to keep it out of mind. These techniques, plus the Strengthening Exercise, are designed to turn flying around so that instead of it growing worse and worse with each flight, it becomes better and better as you continue to fly.