My husband and I have just finalized our trip to Machu Picchu, realizing a dream I have held for quite some time. At the end of August it finally comes true: 10 days in Peru, complete with a four-day trek, hot spring soaks, Amazon River boat rides. Sparkling green mountains, ancient ruins, weaving cultures. Guinea pigs for dinner.

It sounds fantastic in every detail but one: I am deathly afraid of flying.

Nor am I alone here. The VALK Foundation, a collaboration between the University of Leiden, KLM Airlines and Schipol Airport devoted to conquering this fear, estimates that “between 20 and 40 percent of people experience some level of anxiety regarding air travel.”

And yet if I want to get to Machu Picchu in the next century, my options are limited.  We don’t live in 1900 and I can’t take six weeks off of school, so sea travel is out.  Driving is unthinkable, and thus far my attempts at psychic teleportation have met with failure.  Alas, if I want to see the world, then I must make my peace with flying.

It’s not as though I haven’t tried.  Meditation, willpower, breathing exercises and various substances have all made their appearance.  Flying to Seoul, it seemed like a personal mantra was the ticket.  Somewhere over the Dominican Republic, I decided I’d just keep taking Ativan forever.  I have prayed to many gods.

Needless to say, none of these solutions has worked.

What really irks me is the irrationality of the fear.  It’s not as if I don’t understand that I have a better chance of dying from falling down the stairs or bad spinach – I do.  I’m aware I’m in more danger every time I drive; I know there’s a greater chance of getting attacked by a sewer rat than dying in a plane crash.  But I drive carefully, and I stay out of the sewers.

In other words, I avoid situations that scare me, and I do my best to remain in control of everything else.

This is the crux of the issue, says SOAR, an organization developed by Tom Bunn, an airline captain and licensed therapist.  When we climb on planes – and in doing so expose ourselves to an unnatural, sensory-rich, dangerous-seeming environment – we are forced to rely on something fundamental.

That something, says SOAR, is self-calming, based on what our caregivers taught us as children and with which our adult adeptness varies widely.  Those who self-calm well tend not to fear flying, while those who do not compensate for daily anxieties in one of two ways: control, or escape. (Read more…)

A friend and I were discussing our phobias a few nights ago, and he described to me an instance in which he was chased by a large dog as a child, resulting in a long-standing fear of dogs. Almost all of us have these types of fears, instilled by past experiences and associations. Fortunately, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggests there may be relief for individuals suffering from these phobias and similar psychological disorders.

The novel treatment method is based on recent research on how memories are stored in the brain. For many years, it was assumed that once memories were stored, they were in-alterable relics of identity, antiquated ruins gathering dust on the bookshelf of the individual consciousness. The latest research suggests this is simply not true. Instead, memories can be removed from the bookshelf, altered, and then restored in their altered form. (Read more…)