Where do you feel the fear?

[Brave]

When turbulence hits, where do you feel it: the ears, stomach, brain (as in "I'm going to die"), nausea, other? For me, it's the dropping sensation that I can't seem to overcome, similar to what you would experience on a roller coaster. I say "would" because you couldn't pay me to get on one. Many people tend to vomit and equate turbulence with motion sickness. However, I've never come close to vomiting, so maybe motion sickness is not the proper describer for me.

The anticipation of the drop during the shakiness is aweful.

[monkeyshaved]

Brain, definitely brain!! But its amazing what physical symptoms fear / anxiety can produce.

I've never vomited (or even felt nauseous if I'm honest). That doesn't mean I'm immune to feeling the stomach-lurching drops (!) and while I hate that, its not the major issue. Its the anxiety/fear/panic of being stuck for an extended period of time in unpleasant motion that you cannot control and without knowledge of how long it will last or if it will get any worse.

[daniel_T]

Hi there, I can sympothize with you here. I love to fly but when the plane hits turbulence, I am the first person to FREAAAK!!!! For some reason, when the plane starts rocking, my palms start sweating and I can't breathe. I know I'm not going to die but tell yourself that at 30,000 feet and the plane is shaking around. I'm more used to turbulence now considering almost everytime I fly there is some pretty rough Turbulence. (My luck huh)

What I do is shut my eyes, hold onto the seat, and take a deep breath. Usually that helps me unless I get stuck in severe turbulence which happened to me this past july 2007 in vegas. We took off into a thunderstorm. For about 15 minutes, we rocked and dropped like I've never felt before. I cried. We hit some major air pockets the the G-Forces were horrible. We went straight up and you were pushed back into your seat and you couldn't move. Yikes


Daniel_T

[Brave]

Most of the remedies - Relief Band included - try to combat motion sickness, which usually results in vomitting at extreme levels. But is the negative feeling associated with stomach drop an aspect of motion sickness? What stops this feeling?

[tb_neg]

I'm not sure if there is such a thing. Humans are hard wired not to like falling.

Most of the site visitors use various drugs and alcohol, so they aren't aware of it, which I don't recommend for safety reasons.


Most of the remedies - Relief Band included - try to combat motion sickness, which usually results in vomitting at extreme levels. But is the negative feeling associated with stomach drop an aspect of motion sickness? What stops this feeling?

[1fearfulflyer]

I agree that the sensation of falling and loss of control during turbulence is the worst part.

Physically, I feel like adrenaline is shooting through my entire body. My heart begins racing and my breathing accelerates. However, I never feel like I'm about to get sick. I think the panic takes over and doesn't allow me to.

Overall, I think it's a mind game for me. Even if it's the smoothest flight, I'm still full of "anticapatory anxiety". I'm just waiting for turbulence to hit, or even worse, for the plane to fall out of the sky.

Rationally, I know it's almost impossible for a plane to suddenly plunge out of the sky and I'm much safer in the air than on the ground, but it's very difficult to change this way of thinking when irrational thinking takes over. I keep yelling at myself (silently, of course) to knock it off and think of something pleasant.

[1fearfulflyer]

I'm not sure how true this is but some people say it's better to go with the flow and let go instead of gripping the armrests and trying to become part of your seat during turbulence. Some have even suggested lifting your feet off the floor of the plane. I think it has something to do with the signals that are sent to your brain from the nerves in your hands and feet. It does make sense since gripping the seat and digging your feet into the floor doesn't allow your body to move freely.


I'll have to give it a try the next time I find myself caught in turbulence. Hopefully not tomorrow. I'm flying from DC to Orlando. :frown:



Hi there, I can sympothize with you here. I love to fly but when the plane hits turbulence, I am the first person to FREAAAK!!!! For some reason, when the plane starts rocking, my palms start sweating and I can't breathe. I know I'm not going to die but tell yourself that at 30,000 feet and the plane is shaking around. I'm more used to turbulence now considering almost everytime I fly there is some pretty rough Turbulence. (My luck huh)

What I do is shut my eyes, hold onto the seat, and take a deep breath. Usually that helps me unless I get stuck in severe turbulence which happened to me this past july 2007 in vegas. We took off into a thunderstorm. For about 15 minutes, we rocked and dropped like I've never felt before. I cried. We hit some major air pockets the the G-Forces were horrible. We went straight up and you were pushed back into your seat and you couldn't move. Yikes


Daniel_T

[express-flight]

I agree with all. As a trick I did try to lift my feet and it does really work! The plane still rocks, but you don't feel it with the same ferocity as you do with the feet on the floor or your bag.
I think the one thing I can't quantify is I have been flying since the early 90's and back then, I had no issues with turbulence and it didn't seem to happen. Now, everyone in my office including myself report the roughest flights of our lives the last five years and especially the last 2-3 years! What makes it worse for me is I have been in TWO emergency landings due to in-flight mechanical issues (the pilot actually declared that we would be making an emergency landing on both occasions). Ever since these incidents that had nothing to do with turbulence, I have hated flying. BUT my anxiety happens before the flights. When I am on the plane. I can usually handle some good rockin' around but the days leading up to a flight, I sadly think to myself and 1/2 joke with my friends that it may be the last time I see them. I KNOW that is not good to be that worked up and I guess I will have to deal with it or get a new job. It is nice to have you all here to bounce this off of though. Heres to everyone having some smooth flights!!

[tfaw]

When the planes starts to rock really bad, then I will tie my shoes. I think leaning over somehow compresses the feeling of sickness.

Having said that, the only time that I get hyper nervous is during severe bumps during take-off. That seems to be pure energy versus pure energy and the wild rides are not fun. What gets me through it is knowing it will be over in a matter of moments anyhow. I also tell myself that I can't control the situation anyhow, and therefore worrying/feeling bad is useless.

Steve

[skadanks]

Definitely a brain thing for me. I've never had much issue with motion sickness from turbulence. It's just the paranoia of not knowing when it's going to end and feeling completely helpless to do anything about it. I feel better when there's clouds outside the window and turbulence because at least I know the reason for it. I get spooked when it's completely clear with no clouds in the sky and the plane is bouncing and dropping. I don't know what it is, but that scares me even more.

It was me that suggested in another thread to lift your feet off the floor when the plane is experiencing turbulence. I have no idea why but it works and makes the turbulence feel about half of what it really is. Last summer I was on a Delta 767 flying from LAX to ATL during the afternoon. As you know, afternoon thunderstorms over the desert southwest as well as the southern states is pretty much the norm and I pilot was flying in a zigzag pattern navigating around storms, I could see our path on the tv screen flight map. A few occasions we hit some bumps anyway. I grabbed an empty row of seats in the middle and layed completely flat on my back. Even though the plane was bouncing, I could really not feel it much. When you are laying horizontal, you don't sense vertical drops. When the bumps got rough, I would just lay down and I was completely fine.